David Willbern, State University of New York, Buffalo

One of the earliest criticisms of Shakespearean character is Maurice Morgann's well-known but rarely read "Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff," published in London in 1777 as a bold defense of the corpulent and witty knight against the charge of cowardice.¹ Morgann assumed that Shakespeare's characters were like people and that Falstaff was like an historical person, with a history and an inner life that corresponded to common human nature, which he termed "certain first principles of character," and who therefore could be understood and judged through the critic's emotional responses to that nature, which he called "mental Impressions" as opposed to rational "Understanding." Since then both Falstaff and his fellow sportsman, Prince Hal, have attracted scrutiny from traditional character critics like A.C. Bradley, L.L. Schucking, and J.I.M. Stewart, and psychoanalytic critics like Ernst...