The Transformation of Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor and his Allusion in 5.1.1-4 to the Treble Goddess

Abstract

Falstaff in his four Shakespeare plays, and even more markedly his companion Nim in two of them, repeatedly pronounce on the ‘humour’ of persons or events. Nonetheless, Falstaff is not at all a static or typecast ‘humour’ character. This is a factor that critics have insisted upon since the time of Maurice Morgann’s 1777 Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff. ¹ Indeed it has long been noted that there is a significant development in the characterization of Falstaff between the two earliest of those plays, the two closely related parts of King Henry IV. ² However, the transformations that Falstaff undergoes between his offstage appearance in King Henry V and his reappearance in the most probably later written ³ The Merry Wives of Windsor may appear to be not so much a progression as a rupture.