Shakespeare

Shakespeare ends Henry IV, Part II (1598) unsure of the future of the festive Sir rump Falstaff: If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our gloomy author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with unclouded Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a be killed with your hard opinions (5.5.137-43) However, very shortly after the consequence of Henry IV, Part II, Shakespeare wrote The jovial Wives of Windsor (1599), featuring the errant knight in the starring role. What prompted Shakespeare to resurrect Falstaff so soon? Two nonsymbiotic sources confirm that Shakespeare revived Falstaff at the insistence of Queen Elizabeth I, who had been please by Falstaffs presence in the Henry IV plays. John Dennis, a literary critic who adapted The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1702, asserted, I know very well that it hath pleased one(a) of the greatest queens that ever was in the world ... This frivolity was written at her command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to go steady it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation.

Moreover, Nicholas Rowe, in his Life of Shakespeare (1709), reports that the Queen was so well pleased with that estimable character of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry IV that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love. thither is evidence in the play itself to corroborate the story attested by Rowe and Dennis. Unlike any of his other dramas, Shakespeare deals exclusively with side society in The Merry Wives of Windsor, localizing the play at Windsor, and fashioning overt complementary references to Windsor Castle. And Falstaff is the romantic lead, determined to woo the wives of fording and Page, two gentlemen of Windsor. The pressure placed on Shakespeare to write The Merry Wives of Windsor might explain why the play is not as... If you ask to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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