SOURCE: Grossman, Marc. “The Adolescent and the Strangest Fellow: Comic and Morally Serious Perspectives in 1 Henry IV.” Essays in Literature 23, no. 2 (fall 1995): 170-95.

In the following essay, Grossman reads Prince Hal's “I know you all soliloquy” in Henry IV, Part 1 (I.ii) not as a promise to reform but as the prince's attempt to justify to himself his agreement to participate in the Gad's Hill robbery. At this point in the play, the critic contends, Hal is filled with shame and self-loathing because he knows his attraction to Falstaff's comic but shameless view of life must be balanced by a commitment to honor, duty, and a morally serious perspective if he is to develop into a responsible adult. Grossman also discusses Hal's abuse of Francis the tavern boy, seeing in this episode further indications of Hal's self-reproach and pangs of conscience.

The figure of Prince Hal in 1 and...