SOURCE: Ruiter, David. “‘The Unquiet Time’ of 2 Henry IV: Festivity and Order in Flux.” In Shakespeare's Festive History: Feasting, Festivity, Fasting and Lent in the Second Henriad, pp. 103-41. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2003.

In the following essay, Ruiter demonstrates how in Henry IV, Part 2 Prince Hal shrewdly manipulates the progression from feasting and festivity to the restoration of political order in an effort to maximize his political capital as the prodigal son who alters his behavior in order to become king.

In 1 Henry IV, Hal creates a socio-political event which I have called the Feast of Falstaff. The prince is able to do so largely because his audience, both within and outside of the play, was familiar with a calendar that included feast days and, as participants in actual festive events, they would have recognized allusions to feasts and festivals within the plays.¹ In addition, as Leah Marcus has...