Falstaff
The Bard, William Shakespeare, is considered the most important playwright of the European Renaissance, if not the most important of all time. One of the reasons for his illustrious position in the world of literary studies is the characterizations that he creates in all of his plays. Each character is uniquely defined and highly memorable. Many of his characters are fictional but even the ones that are based on historical figures are portrayed with individual personalities in the Shakespearean versions of their lives. In Henry IV, Part I, Shakespeare illustrates a mythical version of one of the past Kings of England and how he developed from an immature young man into an idealistic and impervious ruler, capable of leading men both on the battlefield and in times of peace. The eponymous Henry, or Prince Hal as he is less formally called, is joined in his early debauchery by a group of sinful and boisterous companions, the most influential of which is the fictional character of Sir John Falstaff who would feature heavily in this play and in the subsequent stories of King Henry IV. This man who at first introduction seems a blustering, buffoonish sort is extremely important to the events of the play and, by implication and extension, to the history of the English monarchy and the ensuing war for the British lands.
Literary critics have spent a great deal of time considering the very name of the character of John Falstaff. Evidence exists that Shakespeare originally intended to give this odd man the name Oldcastle which has far more historical significance. The reason behind the name change has been most readily accepted as a concession to the royal family as the actual historical personage who bore that name was a supposedly respectable man who would not have considered the character based upon him to be anything close to a likeness, nor would he have found it at all complementary (Wilson). Historical evidence however shows that Oldcastle was reputedly quite more like Falstaff than either he or his descendants would have like to admit. According to historian Arthur Kinney:
Oldcastle's reputation long outlived the man, although it developed along two opposing paths of tradition. The path of anti-Wycliffite orthodoxy was hostile, promulgated by the poet Hoccleve, 8 in popular political verses, and in chronicles from that of Walsingham to that of Polydore Vergil. According to this line of thought, Oldcastle was frequently absent from Henry's wars and thought a coward; his Lollardism was seen as presumptuous and even diabolical, and his friendship with the King restricted to Henry's unregenerate early years (107).
Hence, his name was changed to John Falstaff which although unhistorical has a stronger reflection into the type of person that Falstaff is in Shakespeare's texts.
Etiologically, the words fall and staff indicate quite a bit about the character himself. The word fall has an obvious connotation with lack of equilibrium and distress. Those who quite often indulge in the imbibing of alcoholic beverages, such as Falstaff is depicted, are often called "fall down drunks" because the large amounts of alcohol in their systems makes it difficult to maintain verticality. Also, a staff is a device which is used in order for an individual to maintain balance when they have difficulty doing so of their own accord. Jointly, the impression that is given by Falstaff's name is a drunkard without internal balance, which is both a reflection on his alcoholism and his need to blame others or use others in order to progress in life. According to Robert Wilson, the name in its entirety "suggests an image of 'fallen staffs,' with staff here representing 'a pole used as a weapon' (199). This interpretation has a direct correlation to Falstaff's cowardly character and to his physical stance. He is now an old fat man who is past his physical prime. In essence, he is a fallen staff. If staff is taken in its religious contexts, such as the staff of a priest or bishop, then a fallen staff has the implication of a person who has betrayed the conventions and regulations of the Christian religion, which is reflective of the man's personal state, with his drunkenness and penchant for criminality and debauchery. Falstaff is not concerned with the tenets of the Christian religion or of the danger that may befall him in the afterlife...
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