... also flourished, probably first performed in the winter of 1596-7 and regularly acted throughout the seventeenth century. In 1640, in a commendatory poem to Shakespeare's Poems, Leonard Digges noted that, while Ben Jonson's plays could no longer dependably attract an audience large enough to cover the costs of production, Shakespeare's play was still a certain hit: "let but Falstaff come, / Hall [i.e. Hal], Poines ... chivalric ideals; the irrepressible Falstaff, with his outrageous, comic vitality. Unnamed on the title page, but in fact at the play's dramatic center, as Samuel Johnson ...

• Word Count: 1901
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate