Falstaff: Give Me Life
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads, him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him—some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new King.
Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom writes about Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom writes about his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and this "poignant work" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. "In this first of five books about Shakespearean personalities, Bloom brings erudition and boundless enthusiasm" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and his exhilarating Falstaff invites us to look at a character as a flawed human who might live in our world.
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Harold Bloom. (2017). Falstaff: Give Me Life. Scribner.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Harold Bloom. 2017. Falstaff: Give Me Life. Scribner.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Harold Bloom, Falstaff: Give Me Life. Scribner, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Harold Bloom. Falstaff: Give Me Life. Scribner, 2017.
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- bioText: Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He has written more than sixty books, including Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air, Falstaff: Give Me Life, The Western Canon, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and How to Read and Why. He is a MacArthur Prize fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards, including the Academy's Gold Medal for Criticism. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
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- From Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time comes "a timely reminder of the power and possibility of words [and] the last love letter to the shaping spirit of Bloom's imagination" (front page, The New York Times Book Review) and an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Falstaff—Shakespeare's greatest enduring and complex comedic characters.
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads, him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him—some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new King.
Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom writes about Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom writes about his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and this "poignant work" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. "In this first of five books about Shakespearean personalities, Bloom brings erudition and boundless enthusiasm" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and his exhilarating Falstaff invites us to look at a character as a flawed human who might live in our world. - seriesId
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February 27, 2017
Famed literary critic and Yale professor Bloom (The Daemon Knows) showcases his favorite Shakespearian character in this poignant work. Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most complex tragicomic characters, appears in Henry IV Part One and Part Two and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and is referred to in Henry V. Bloom covers the many facets of a “disreputable and joyous” character, a knight, highwayman, jovial wit, and enthusiastic imbiber of sack (fortified wine) at the Boar’s Head Tavern in London. The book also attends to Falstaff’s motley crew, including Doll Tearsheet, a prostitute; Ancient Pistol, “a street hoodlum”; and Mistress Quickly, the tavern’s malapropism-prone proprietor. Notably, Falstaff is also a nonjudgmental companion to Prince Hal, the son of Henry IV, and Bloom traces their relationship up to Prince Hal’s ultimate rejection and betrayal of Falstaff upon being crowned King Henry V. The author notes that the Henry plays’ historical aspects interest him less than the changing characters of Falstaff and, to a lesser extent, Hal. Bloom, who says he fell in love with Falstaff because “he exposes what is counterfeit in me and in all others,” has created a larger-than-life portrait of a flawed character who is “at his best a giant image of human freedom.” Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers’ Representatives.
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February 1, 2017
An ardent admirer of Shakespeare analyzes an incomparably robust character.For esteemed literary critic Bloom (Humanities/Yale Univ.; The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime, 2015, etc.), MacArthur Fellow and winner of multiple awards and honorary degrees, Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff has enduring appeal, a character who "springs to life" anew each time he is read or seen on stage. Falstaff, Bloom asserts, "is as bewildering as Hamlet, as infinitely varied as Cleopatra." Unlike the beleaguered, grieving prince or the Egyptian queen, however, Falstaff appears in plays not as frequently performed: Shakespeare's trilogy of Henry plays. Bloom, though, assumes his readers--like students who have done their assignments--are as cognizant of these plays as he is. In 21 chapters, he analyzes excerpts from the plays to support his argument that the ribald Falstaff is life-affirming, "everliving," and "the greatest wit in literature." Bloom, now 86, feeling some diminishment with age, is buoyed by Falstaff, who "resolutely remains a child" and "finds fresh delight in play." Bloom gained some insight into the character when he performed the role with the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2000 and at Yale, and he has seen a host of notable actors take it on. He especially admires the interpretations of Ralph Richardson, who played Falstaff with "a wounded dignity," and Orson Welles, who "relished the goodness of every phrase" that Falstaff spoke, "tasting it as if it were bread and wine." Of all Shakespeare's characters, Falstaff and Hamlet seem to Bloom "as being creations nearest" to the "concealed inwardness" of the playwright. Indeed, he writes, "it is difficult for me to withstand the temptation of identifying the Fat Knight with Shakespeare himself." In this first of five books about Shakespearean personalities, Bloom brings erudition and boundless enthusiasm.COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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April 1, 2017
Shakespearean scholar Bloom (Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale Univ.; Berg Professor of English, NYU; Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human) fits many treasures into a scant number of pages in what is first and foremost a moving personal appreciation of what Bloom considers Shakespeare's most complete and effective character, Sir John Falstaff. The errant knight gets his due in Bloom's moving description of how Shakespeare's invention touched his life from adolescence on. In addition, the reader is treated to a close reading of Falstaff in the histories (his appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor is mercifully glossed over). Part of this analysis is devoted to the characters in the Henriad (newly dubbed "the Falstaffiad" in this study) who echo Sir John. Hotspur, Hal, and Henry IV are all viewed through the prism of the corpulent crusader and the insights are solid, if not revolutionary. Bloom also devotes his attention to Falstaff in performance. Using Ralph Richardson's legendary enactment at the Old Vic and Orson Welles in his neglected masterpiece Chimes at Midnight, Bloom demonstrates how the plays work not just on the page but in the theater. VERDICT An enchanting and appreciative celebration of Shakespeare's greatest comic creation.--John Frank, Los Angeles P.L.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads, him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him—some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new King.
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