"Banish All the Wor(l)d": Falstaff's Iconoclastic Threat to Kingship in I Henry IV

18) Eire translates from Corpus Reformatorum: Joannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia ed. W. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss (Brunswick, 1863-80). Volume and page numbers of this edition appear parenthetically.

19) But see a different reading in "Shakespeare's Dionysian Prince: Drama, Politics, and the 'Athenian' History Play," Renaissance Quarterly 52 (1999): 366-83, where Grace Tiffany argues that Hal's characterization as the sun is part of the "eternally restorative Dionysian ritual" (368).

20) In Shakespeare's Histories (NY: St. Martin's, 1985) Graham Holderness clarifies the object of 2.4's satire: "The mockery is not simply directed against Falstaff as a pretender to undeserved status and royal celebrity: it is directed against the pomp and ceremony of royalty itself [...]" (116).

21)See Wolfgang Iser, Staging Politics: The Lasting Impact of Shakespeare's Histories (NY: Columbia UP, 1993) 122-166, especially pp. 150-53 on the King's counterfeiting: "At this moment of the conflict, the King is viewed as if he were a semblance of himself. But who is the King? What we have seen of him throughout the play has always been shot through with ambivalence - as revealed by the reversal of positions, false judgments, ambiguous attitudes [...] . If the rebels now see him as a counterfeit, this is - from another perspective - simply the reverse side of his divided being, which renders ambivalent everything of which he is constituted" (150). It is crucial to recognize not only that Henry is ambivalent and changeable, but that he refuses to admit such vacillation, preferring to present himself as stable and constant.

22)See Gerald Cox, '"Like a Prince Indeed': Hal's Triumph of Honor in I Henry IV" Pageantry in the Elizabethan Theatre, ed. David Bergeron (Athens: U Georgia P, 1985) 130-52. Cox notes the theatricality of Hal's "reformation," suggesting that the "change" is superficial. Cox quotes Vernon's characterization of Hal's "double spirit" (4.2.63) that he has "mastered" in his apology for his truant behavior and gallant challenge to single combat (133).

23)See Charles Whitney's discussion of the prodigal son image in "Festivity and Topicality in the Coventry Scene of I Henry IV," ELR 24.3 (Spring 1994): 410-48: "the irony of 'food for powder' [...] suggests that Hal, as a leading member of the elite, has some responsibility for beggars being sent into battle; Sir John here contrives to become the wry spokesman for the very lower orders he is fond of exploiting" (425). Whitney also notes that Falstaff identifies his recruits with Hal, as "prodigals" (424), and plans to exploit both. Yet I think the more significant message is Whitney's assertion of the carnivalistic leveling accomplished in this identification. Falstaff is not impressed with rank or status, but with common humanity. Hugh Grady also notes that in 4.2 Falstaff's soliloquy "is one of a simultaneous condemnation of exploitation and a dark, worldly-wise acknowledgement of the world's ways. Falstaff, moreover, is both the corrupt recruiter and the critic of such practices" (618). See "Falstaff: Subjectivity between the Carnival and the Aesthetic" Modem Language Review 96.3 (July 2001): 609-623. The idea is repeated in Machiavelli, 155. John Blanpied emphasizes Falstaff's role as social critic in his discussion of 4.2, "Falstaff counterpunches against the powerful autonomy of the heroic plot" (172). See chapter 9 (pp. 145-78), "Rebellion and Design in Henry IV, Part One," Time and the Artist in Shakespeare's Histories (Newark, NJ: U Delaware P, 1983).