Eduard von Grützner artwork entitled Falstaff. William Shakespeare's larger than life character enjoying a drink or two.
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogized in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. A notable eulogy for Falstaff is presented in Act II, Scene III of Henry V, where Falstaff does not appear as a character on stage, as enacted by Mistress Quickly in terms that some scholars have ascribed to Plato's description of the death of Socrates after drinking hemlock. By comparison, Falstaff is presented as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. Falstaff has since appeared in other media, notably in operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otto Nicolai, and in Orson Welles' 1966 film Chimes at Midnight. The operas focus on his role in The Merry Wives of Windsor, while the film adapts from the Henriad and The Merry Wives. Welles, who played Falstaff in his film, considered the character to be "Shakespeare's greatest creation" Wikipedia.
Size: 4960px × 7015px
Location: Boar's Head Inn, Eastcheap, London, England
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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