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- Title
Obesity and Diet in the Nineteenth Century: Framing Verdi and Boito's Healthy Falstaff.
- Authors
Gilman, Sander L.
- Abstract
A literary criticism is presented which examines the character of "Falstaff" in Italian operatic composer Giuseppe Verdi's play. Verdi's Falstaff is comic because his decay is evident to all as a pathological sign present in the aging of those old men who have dissipated their vital fluids. The author claims that both Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito employ the double image of Falstaff, using the translations of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" as well as passages from the Henry IV plays. Thus the happy conclusion of the opera, when all conflicts are resolved, is fated to take place at the dinner table. Falstaff's dangerous private acts of seduction have been unsuccessful.
- Subjects
CRITICISM; FALSTAFF (Opera); VERDI, Giuseppe, 1813-1901; FALSTAFF, John, Sir (Fictional character); MERRY Wives of Windsor, The (Play : Shakespeare); ATTITUDE (Psychology); LITERARY characters; OPERA; OBESITY
- Publication
University of Toronto Quarterly, 2005, Vol 74, Issue 2, p759
- ISSN
0042-0247
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.3138/utq.74.2.759