FALSTAFF AND OTHER SHAKESPEAREAN TOPICS WHY DID SHAKESPEARE CREATE FALSTAFF?1 We cannot help thinking of certain characters in Shakespeare as real beings. We wonder what this person What for and after it closed. did before the play opened, Of the characters of the great dramatist, Hamlet, Cleopatra, Iago, and Falstaff are among the most marvellous. They are portrayed with such fulness and intensity that they seem to outrun the very laws of, their being. They escape from the world of fiction and are. Historical characters are less real than they. And these persons furnish a part of the circulating medium of our mental life. We think in terms of them. Each of the first three named, Hamlet, Cleopatra, and Iago, is the central force in a great play. "Hamlet" without Hamlet is the stock example of the unthinkable. But how is it with Falstaff? Is he a mere accident that befell Parts I and II of "Henry IV," a happy casualty? In 1 Reprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxxiv (1919), 1-13. one criticism we read: "The usual fool not appearing in 'I Henry IV,' Falstaff seems to be introduced merely to fill his place at first." 1. I believe that nothing is more striking in the work of Shakespeare than the intimate union of the plot and the characters. They are mutually interdependent. Aristotle held that the plot of a drama is more important than the persons. The tendency of modern criticism is to look upon the characters as the primary, significant factor. Ideally, the more important of the two elements is-both. There should be the most intimate union possible of the action and the persons, a complete fusion. In Shakespeare's best work the plot and the characters determine each other. We know that the playwright usually started with some borrowed story, but the final result often approximates a perfect union of the two elements. The story requires the persons, and the persons fashion the story. Even the special students of the dramatist have been slow to appreciate this point. It was Coleridge himself who spoke of "Dogberry and his comrades" in "Much Ado" as "forced into the service, when any other less ingeniously absurd watchmen and night-constables would have answered the mere necessities of the action." A few writers had pointed the way to a sounder interpretation; but it was Dr. Furness who showed clearly that Dogberry and his associates were foreordained from before the foundation of the world for the exact rôles which Shakespeare wished them to play, that the dramatist "was forced to have characters like these and none other. The play hinges on them." For example: "Had Dogberry been one whit less conceited, one whit less pompous, one whit less tedious, 1Misses Porter and Clarke, Poet-Lore, vol. xi, p. 98. he could not have failed to drop at least one syllable that would have arrested Leonato's attention just before the tragic treatment of Hero in the marriage scene, which would not have taken place and the whole story would have ended then and there." 1 The early and constant popularity of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff is noteworthy. An interesting table at the close of "The Shakspere Allusion-Book" 2 summarizes all the known references to the works of the dramatist up to the year 1700. In this table the total number of allusions to each play or poem is given; but it was found necessary to treat Falstaff as a work, and to record the references to this character apart from other references to the separate plays in which he appears. Up to 1650 "Hamlet" is alluded to oftener than any other play. During this period three other works also-"Venus and Adonis," the two parts of "Henry IV" taken together, and 2nd "Romeo and Juliet"-show each of them more allusions than are found for Falstaff. But during the second half of the century, the references to Falstaff decisively outnumber those in any other group, there being 48 of these against 37 each for the plays "Hamlet" and "Othello," which come next. Maurice Morgann's "Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff," which appeared in 1777, can fairly be called, I presume, the first full discussion of any Shakespearean character in any language. Thomas Seccombe is of the opinion that "for style, intellectuality, knowledge of human nature, and consequent profound appreciation of Shakespeare, Morgann's essay has not been 1 New Variorum edition of Much Ado, Lippincott, 1899, pp. xxxi, xxxiii. "Vol. II, p. 540, Duffield & Co., 1909. r Laff V surpassed." It certainly seems probable that the character of Falstaff, upon which the dramatist has lavished his power and the world its appreciation, is not a mere chance overflow of Shakespeare's creative energy, but is essential to his purpose and closely adapted thereto. "However, as already suggested, an opinion is prevalent which runs somewhat as follows: a comedy should furnish fun; Shakespeare invented Falstaff for this purpose; as a mirth-producer, a sort of superior end-man, plump Jack is a great success; no close connection between his rôle and the serious portion of the plays is necessary; and there is no need of any farther explanation of the origin of what Morgann calls "the most perfect comic character that perhaps ever was exhibited." This simple view is improbable, but it is possible. In "The Rehearsal" Bayes is made to ask: "What a Devil is the Plot good for, but to bring in fine things?" Some may suppose that the character of Sir John Oldcastle in the old play "The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth" is the original of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff. There is a touch of truth in this. But Oldcastle, familiarly called "Jockey," has in "The Famous Victories" only a minor part among the evil companions of the Prince; and he has scarcely a suggestion of Falstaff's overflowing humor. Perhaps the most taking thing that he says is the jocular comment on King Henry IV: "He is a good old man, God take him to his mercy the sooner." Hardly a character in Shakespeare is more entirely the creation of his own mind than the fat knight. Sir Sidney Lee says with simple justice: "Shakespeare touched the comic scenes of the old drama with a magic of his own, and 1 Article on Morgann, Dictionary of National Biography. |