Shakespeare's Faustaff & Wycherley's Horner

This paper is a comparison of two of the more vividly drawn comic characters of classic drama. William Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff and William Wycherley's Horner are both rogues. They both use deceit to seek their pleasures, and each is a strikingly theatrical creation. Falstaff first appeared as companion to the young Prince Hal in the two-part history, Henry IV. He proved so popular that the playwright revived him for a comedy of his own, The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Falstaff of this riotous play presents a somewhat different face than in his original incarnation. Both versions of this character, however, provide an interesting comparison with the duplicity of Wycherley's charming deceiver in The Country Wife, created more than 75 years later. Horner feigns his own castration in order to bed as many married women as possible. Falstaff's attempts at seduction seem to spring from real feeling. Both offer distinct examples of broadly comic characters who continue to amuse and entertain modern audiences with their antics.

On closer inspection, they have a great deal in common, and not simply in the size of their appetites and the immensity of their immorality. Both Shakespeare and Wycherley use these wonderful reprobates for deeper purposes. The fact that Falstaff and Horner are also such good company turns them into two of the most entertaining instructors in the drama of their day.

Sir John Falstaff first appeared in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, publish

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beth commanded a play showing "Falstaff in love." Shakespeare was compelled to obey. The Sir John Falstaff of Henry IV is in many ways a different man than the character of the same name in Merry Wives. Shakespeare had originally created a character who lived for the pleasure of the moment and was actually more attracted to drinking than to wenching. In order to satisfy the queen's command, Shakespeare had to alter Falstaff's character. The result was a character who served as a model for some of the comic figures who were to populate the stages of the Restoration theater, but who was a less original personality. Humorous and entertaining as is the Falstaff of "Merry Wives," he is not as distinctive a character. The original Falstaff was a boisterous, hard-drinking, reprobate, enticing the future King of England into dubious sports such as highway robbery. The new Falstaff is tamer, and his goals are more ordinary. Because of this, most literary scholars consider the two men to be different characters with a shared name. The new Falstaff, however, provides an interesting comparison to a deceiving rogue who would first appear on stage a few generations later. Within 75 years, another English playwright named William cre

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