Role of Falstaff in Henry IV, Part One

Falstaffs Role in Henry IV, Part One

Henry IV, Part One, has evermore been one of the most popular of Shakespeares plays, whitethornbe because of Falstaff. Much of the untimely criticism I found concentrated on Falstaff and so

will I. This may begin in the eighteenth century brainh Samuel Johnson. For Johnson, the Prince is a young adult male of great abilities and violent passions, and Hotspur is a rugged soldier, but Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I discern thee? Thou compound of sense and vice . . . a personality loaded with faults, and with faults which produce contempt . . . a thief, a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak and butt upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless . . . his wit is non of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy escapes and sallies of levity [yet] he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offending but that it may be borne for his mirth.

Johnson makes three assumptions in his adaptation of the play:

1. That Falstaff is the kind of character who invites a moral perspicaciousness mainly that he john answer to the charge of cosmos a coward.

2.



That you (the reader) can detach Falstaffs frivolity from the play and it can exist for its own sake apart from the major infrastructure of the drama.

3. That the play is currently about the fate of the kingdom, and that you (the reader) do not connect Falstaffs scenes with the main action. This means that the play has no real unity.

Starting with Johnsons first assumption, I do agree with this. Any handling of Falstaff is bound to include a judgement about his...

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