Falstaff at the Gower Memorial Stratford Upon Avon

The Bancroft was originally an area of land where the townspeople grazed their animals, and the Canal Basin formed the terminus of the... more

by Terri Waters

Title

Falstaff at the Gower Memorial Stratford Upon Avon

Artist

Terri Waters

Medium

Photograph

Description

The Bancroft was originally an area of land where the townspeople grazed their animals, and the Canal Basin formed the terminus of the Stratford-to-Birmingham canal, completed in 1816. The Gardens also occupy the site of former canal wharves, warehouses, and a second canal basin, which was built in 1826 and refilled in 1902 Bancroft Gardens were extensively re-developed during 2009 - 2010 with new planting, new flower beds, a new bridge and viewing platform over the lock that forms the entrance to the canal basin.
Now Bancroft Gardens are the home of the Gower Memorial.
The Gower Memorial was presented to the town of Stratford in 1888 by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower.
The statue features William Shakespeare seated on a pedestal, surrounded at ground level by figures of four literary characters featured in a selection of his plays.
Prince Hal, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Falstaff were intended to be emblematic of Shakespeare's creative versatility: representing Philosophy, Tragedy, History, and Comedy. Falstaff represents Comedy.
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V.
Falstaff is a man at once young and old, enterprising and fat, a dupe and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle and resolute by constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave in reality, a knave without malice, a
liar without deceit, and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier without either dignity, decency, or honour.
Falstaff is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented.
A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king.
The character of Falstaff first appears in Henry IV, Part 1, but was at first called Sir John Oldcastle.
Shakespeare changed the name when protests were made by Oldcastle's descendants. He adapted the new name from the historical Sir John Fastolf, a Norfolk knight who had appeared in his earlier play Henry VI.
Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff still embodies a kind of depth common to Shakespeare's tricky comedy.
In the epilogue to Henry IV, Part 2 Shakespeare promises a sequel featuring Falstaff, but in Henry V Act II, Scene III he kills him off. We learn of his death, however, only from the remarks of other figures, who conjecture that he died of despair over the king�s rejection.

Uploaded

February 13th, 2013