Historical-Pastoral Exile in Henry IV Parts One and Two

Abstract

The banishment of Falstaff has inspired more impassioned debate than any other banishment in Shakespeare. Yet this is an exile anticipated rather than experienced. Nor is its meaning interpreted by the victim himself — Falstaff has almost nothing to say in response. Rather, it is the banisher who recurs again and again to the significance of this action. Hal weaves an allegory around the knight; audiences and critics deconstruct that allegory but inevitably substitute their own; Falstaff sweats beneath the weight of it all. This chapter aims not to add to this symbolic burden but rather to examine the banishment of Falstaff as a companion piece to the exile experienced by Prince Hal. The latter may insist that he has ‘turned away [his] former self’ in the final scene, but his whole experience at Eastcheap bears comparison with other Shakespearean exiles, specifically those of the pastoral plays. We may be familiar with readings of Eastcheap as a comic subplot but I will argue that the shape of Hal’s movement into and out of this underworld resembles strikingly the pastoral sojourn from which exiles in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and As You Like It emerge triumphant. By giving too much emphasis or ‘compass’ to the tragic, scapegoated Falstaff and ignoring the celebratory tone of Hal’s return from exile, we lose the tension between elegy and eulogy in this historical-pastoral drama.

All quotations are taken from the Oxford Complete Works so that in Part One the name Oldcastle is used. Outside quotations I have referred to the knight as Falstaff for the sake of simplicity.