On The Historical Prototype And Artistic Generation Of Falstaff

Falstaff is the famous comedy character and an immortal artistic figure in the gallery of the Shakespeare's historical drama Henry IV,Henry V and the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.For hundreds of years,it has been well known for its endless artistic charm,and controversies including both praises and blames mix.Among these studies about Falstaff,two clues are often followed.One explores the character of Falstaff from the perspective of human nature,and the other focus on the role of the prototype,historical background and social reality.This paper systematically summarizes the researches of Falstaff at home and abroad,explores the prototype and artistic production role of Falstaff by adopting the multi-domain crossover method,relevant disciplinary theory and textual analysis and literature comparison.This paper discuss the prototype and artistic production from the four aspects.Firstly,discusses the various claims of the Falstaff's role prototype.This part focuses on the controversy about the origin of the name of Falstaff and the four prototypes of Falstaff,and is discussed in two aspects.Firstly,analyzes the evolution of the Falstaff's from the perspective of Shakespeare's creation time.Secondly,analyzes the five historical images of Falstaff.The second part of this paper follows the conclusion of last chapter,and further expounds the relationship between the archetype Oldcastle and artistic image of Falstaff.This chapter firstly summarizes the critics of many commentators on the relationship between the two characters including their similarities and differences.Secondly,the relationship between and the role of Oldcastle in the religious reformation and the artistic production of Falstaff is classified.Finally,the delicate relationship between an unknown drama and the birth of Falstaff's image is discussed.The third chapter classifies the relationship between the name translation of Fastolf in Shakespeare's Henry VI and Falstaff.By studying the life and deeds of the real Sir Falstaff in the history of England,this chapter discusses the above relationshipand indicates the influence of Fastolf on the artistic image of Falstaff.The forth chapter of this paper is the in-depth analysis of Falstaff's artistic elements.By analyzing the reason of Falstaff's obesity,the language features and the composition of spiritual elements,this paper reveals the important historical and cultural value and the philosophical significance of Falstaff's image,and concludes that the artistic image of Falstaff enriches the Shakespeare's spirit.In conclusion,through the analysis of the historical prototype of Falstaff,this paper try to put forward the “bipolar factor” of Falstaff's spirit,one is the praise to the human's creativity and vitality,and the other is the lack of rational state.In this state,the rationality of human is based on personal desire and self-satisfaction not on reason and morality,which leads to the bipolarity of the Falstaff's spirit is Shakespeare's affirmation on the humanism in the Renaissance,and also a philosophical reflection and criticism on the problems which arise in the development of humanism.