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Critical Essay by Larry S. Champion
SOURCE: Champion, Larry S. “The Evolution of Mistress Quickly.” Papers on English Language and Literature 1, no. 2 (spring 1965): 99-108.
In the following essay, Champion details the transformation of Nell Quickly in the Henry plays from a mere sketch to “a full-sized portrait.”
One frequently encounters remarks extolling the fullness of Shakespeare's description of London low life in the comic scenes of 1, 2 Henry IV. Mark Van Doren writes, for instance, that nothing Shakespeare wrote “is more crowded with life or happier in its imitation of human talk. … History is enlarged to make room for taverns and trollops and potations of sack, and the heroic drama is modified by gigantic mockery, by the roared voice of truth.”1 Other commentators have noted a “growing mastery of realistic delineation”2 in the dramatist's “vivid transcripts of contemporary life”;3 the comic crew “move about in an English setting and provide an...
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This section contains 4,420 words (approx. 15 pages at 300 words per page) |
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