Fortunes of FalstaffDr Dover Wilson examines Falstaff's role in the two parts of Henry IV and his relationship to the Prince. Like most other Shakespearean scholars he had accepted, Bradley's portrait as shown in The Rejection of Falstaff, until (as he writes) he 'began checking it with yet another portrait - that which I found in the pages of Shakespeare himself. As the result of much recent work on the two parts of Henry IV, a new Falstaff stands before me, as fascinating as Bradley's, certainly quite as human, but different; and beside him stands a still more unexpected Prince Hal. The discovery throws all my previous ideas out of focus.' As the reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement wrote, Falstaff 'is no hero, as the romantics have tried to make him out, nor is he merely a typical and traditional stage-butt. But he is Falstaff riding for a fall; and when he takes his toss he is up again in still unconquerable effrontery and humour ... The Prince as we watch him through Dr Dover Wilson's eyes growing in grace, first in chivalry and then in justice, we do more than observe the making of a hero-king. We get to know a very lovable, faulty, generous, noble-minded young man; and a character in the play whose scenes are so far from being mere padding between Falstaff's that the whole is seen as a masterpiece of construction.' |
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Contents
Back to Johnson | 1 |
The Battle of Gads Hill | 36 |
The Prince grows up | 60 |
the Scutcheon and the Spirit | 73 |
The Choice and the Balance | 114 |
Notes | 129 |
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amusement audience Bardolph battle of Shrewsbury beginning Boar's Head scene Bradley Bradley's buckram calls character chivalry comic coward cowardice crown death dialogue Doll Dr Johnson dramatic E. K. Chambers Eastcheap Elizabethan England English entertainment fact Falstaff scenes fat knight father follows Gad's Hill give Hal's Harry hath heir Henry IV hint honour Hotspur Hudson humour Ibid Johnson Kempe kind King's London Lord Chief Justice matter Maurice Morgann Merry Wives miles gloriosus mind Mistress Quickly modern critics moral morality play Morgann never old soldier once Oxford Lectures person play Poins's Prince and Poins Prince Hal Prince John Prince of Wales Prince's repentance Richard II Riot roaring rogue seems Shakespeare Shakespearian Shakespearian criticism Shallow Sir John soliloquy speaks spectators speech spirit stage Stoll suggests tavern Tearsheet tell theatre thee theme thing thou turn Vanity words young younker youth