Prince Hal against Falstaff aka Fight at the London Bridge

    I started off this Spring by wanting to read John Donne, but I was over with him, until I found a copy of the Canterbury Tales, which I bought with credit at a local bookstore. But I then noticed that I had additional credit, so I looked at the cheap bargains and got a Sudoku puzzle book as well as a Russian dictionary for English users, who I happen to be one of. And I used English all my life but I thought that Russian would be a good choice, since it's a bit different than English. So, I got this Oxford Russian English dictionary, which I have used as a reference to learn this foreign language that is spoken in Russia among other countries. So, Donne led to Russian but then I got this Henry IV part I play that I would like to talk about now with those who enjoy English as a foreign language.

    So, Henry IV part I is the store edition, which I bought because if I wanted to get the expensive edition, then I would sink into the tale instead of telling you what the play is about, but I only have read about a few scenes so far, and could not tell you the entire plot or any detailed descriptions of the characters. In fact, there are sources dedicated to just one character, for example, where the author takes you through a play of Shakespeare's by explaining just one character as the basis of the entire play. For example, Hamlet: Poet Unlimited by Harold Bloom comes to mind, but I am sure that there are others out there, if you are interested in following your favorite characters around Shakespeare's plays. So, Falstaff is a good example, since he appears in several of his plays such the Merry Wives of Windsor, which I have never seen a performance of. So, Bloom is still a looming presence here as I discourse Henry IV part I, which I have gotten recently on store credit.

    Thus, I would like to introduce into my conclusion an element that I did not yet write about: Prince Hal, who takes the opposite way of acting compared to Falstaff. Whereas Falstaff is a fat old knight, who gets into mischief; Hal is a young price, who has a bad reputation that he uses to his advantage by poking fun at the knight. So, Falstaff is the dominating presence, who seeks to make Hal into one of his own by absorbing whatever he says and then returning that back into his own advantage. So, the audience is with Falstaff but Hal acts as a counter measure against the excesses of the fat old knight of Eastcheap. So, I had to fit in Hal to explain the importance of Falstaff, who has seemed to have won the contest before I even picked up the copy of the play at my local bookstore.