SOURCE: “The Hybrid Reformations of Shakespeare's Second Henriad,” in Comparative Drama, Vol. 32, No. 1, Spring, 1998, pp. 176-206.

In the following essay, Hunt offers an account of the coexisting Catholic and Protestant elements characterized in Falstaff, King Henry IV, and Prince Hal, arguing that this mixture of traits does not impede any of these characters' attempts to reform themselves.

Granted the late-medieval, early fifteenth-century settings of Shakespeare's 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, theater audiences are not surprised by the large number of references in these plays to Catholic practices and beliefs.¹ What has proved problematic for commentators is the coexistence of Catholic elements with explicitly Protestant traits in Shakespeare's characterizations of Falstaff, Henry IV, and Prince Hal/Henry V. In what follows, I argue that different forms of this mixture either impede or undermine these characters' attempts during the Second Henriad to reform themselves ethically and spiritually, at least...