SOURCE: Scoufos, Alice Lyle. “The ‘Martyrdom’ of Falstaff.” Shakespeare Studies 2 (1967): 174-91.

In the following essay, Scoufos examines Falstaff's “undramatic and overly hasty demise” in Henry V.

The undramatic and overly hasty demise of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry V has left readers and viewers of Renaissance drama dissatisfied for many years. It has also provided a touchstone for critical wit and ingenuity as any serious student of Elizabethan drama knows when he surveys the perennial crop of published commentary on Falstaff's death scene. From the modern point of view it seems unprovidential that Shakespeare should so suddenly rid himself of the most popular comic character he was ever to create.¹ And when we turn to the history plays, we do find textual evidence to indicate that there was some indecision in the playwright's mind or at least some change of dramatic plans, for in the epilogue of...