Part one of term paper
Falstaff: Friend or Father Figure? When studying the characters of Shakespeare's Henry IV, one can not help but observe Falstaff. Falstaff is considered by many to be one of the greatest comic inventions ever. Critics have called Falstaff everything ranging from a buffoon to "an instance of the predominance of intellectual power" (Coleridg ...

Part two of term paper
... audience a character to laugh at, in what would be - with the absence of Falstaff - an extremely serious historical play. His grotesque bodily features and his constant yearn for sack tends to add to the comedy of his constant lies and allusions. Schlegel states, "His contemptible qualities are not disguised: old, lecherous, dissolute; corpulent beyond measure; constantly in debt and unscrupulous in the choice of means for procuring money; a cowardly soldier, and a lying braggart; a flatterer to ...