Content deleted Content added
HaselNussen (talk | contribs) Undid revision 842630357 by HaselNussen (talk) |
Remove extra character. The book's 284 pages long, so this seems like the most likely fix |
||
(22 intermediate revisions by 18 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{short description|Character in several history plays by Shakespeare}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2017}}
{{Infobox character
| name = Eleanor Quickly
| series = [[Henriad]] | image = Falstaff and Mistress Quickly Francis Philip Stephanoff.jpeg
| caption = ''Falstaff and Mistress Quickly from The Merry Wives of Windsor'', [[Francis Philip Stephanoff]], {{circa}} 1840
| first = ''Henry IV, part I''
| last = ''Henry V''
Line 12 ⟶ 14:
| alias =
| species =
| gender =
| occupation = Innkeeper
| religion = Christian
| nationality = English
}}
'''Mistress Nell Quickly''' is a fictional character who appears in several plays by [[William Shakespeare]]. She is an [[inn-keeper]], who runs the [[Boar's Head Inn|Boar's Head Tavern]], at which [[Sir John Falstaff]] and his disreputable cronies congregate.
The character appears in four plays: ''[[Henry IV, Part 1]]'', ''[[Henry IV, Part 2]]'', ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]'' and ''[[The Merry Wives of Windsor]]''.
==Character and role==
In all the plays Quickly is characterised as a woman with strong links to the criminal underworld, but who is nevertheless preoccupied with her own respectable reputation. Her speech is filled with [[malapropism]]s, [[double entendres]] and "bawdy innuendo".<ref>{{cite book |last
Her name may be a pun on "quick lay", though "quick" also had the meaning of "alive", so it may imply "lively", which also commonly had a sexual connotation.<ref name
Though her age is not specified, the comment that she is "pistol proof" has been interpreted to mean that she is past childbearing age,<ref>Melchiori, G. (ed.)
===Role in the plays===
In ''Henry IV, Part 1'', Mistress Quickly is described as the proprietor of the [[Boar's Head Inn|Boar's Head Tavern]] in the London neighbourhood of [[Eastcheap]]. She is married, as Prince Hal asks after her husband, referring to him as "an honest man"; he does not appear in the play. She participates in the mock-court scene in which Falstaff pretends to be the king.
In ''Henry IV, Part 2'', she asks the authorities to arrest
In ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' she works as nurse to Caius, a French physician, but primarily acts as a messenger between other characters, communicating love notes in a plot largely concerned with misdirected letters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Courtni Crump |title=The Women of Shakespeare's Plays: Analysis of the Role of the Women in Select Plays with Plot Synopses and Selected One-Act Plays
In ''Henry V'', she is referred to as Nell Quickly. She is with Falstaff at his deathbed, and describes his death to his friends. She marries Falstaff's ensign, Ancient Pistol, despite having previously been engaged to [[Corporal Nym]]. While Pistol is away in France, he receives a letter from which he learns that "my Doll is dead", having succumbed to the "malady of France" ([[syphilis]]). Many editors take the name Doll to be a misprint for "Nell", but it has also been interpreted as a reference to Doll Tearsheet rather than Quickly.<ref>Dr Andrew Griffin, ''Locating the Queen's Men, 1583–1603'', Ashgate, 2013, p. 142</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=A Shakespeare Encyclopaedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LiUOAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Mistress+Quickly%22&pg=PA670 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=1966 |pages=670}}</ref><ref>F. E. Halliday, ''A Shakespeare Companion, 1550–1950'', Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1952, p. 525.</ref>
===Continuity issues===
[[File:Falstaff and other theatrical characters.jpg|thumb|The earliest depiction of Mistress Quickly (labelled "hostes[s]") with Falstaff, in a print from 1662
Quickly's role in ''The Merry Wives'' is sufficiently different from her role in the other plays that some critics have suggested that she cannot be the same character.<ref name
There are similar, less glaring problems with the Henriad plays. In ''Henry IV, Part 1'' she is evidently a married innkeeper. No reference is made to the death of her husband in ''Part 2'', just that Falstaff promises to marry her. Likewise, the tavern seems to evolve into a reputed brothel by the beginning of ''Henry V''.
==In other literature==
Line 74 ⟶ 51:
[[James White (1775–1820)|James White]]'s book ''Falstaff's Letters'' (1796) purports to be a collection of letters written by Falstaff and his associates, provided by a descendant of Mistress Quickly's sister. She had inherited them from Mistress Quickly herself, who kept them in drawer in the Boar's Head Tavern until her death in "August 1419". The collection includes letters written by Mistress Quickly to Falstaff complaining of his behaviour.<ref>White, James, ''Falsteff's Letters'', London, Robson, 1877.</ref>
Alan Skinner's novel ''Master Quickly'' (2013) attempts to fill in the gaps in Shakespeare by revealing the truth about her neglected husband.{{cn|date=September 2023}}
"Dame Quickly" (in the English edition) is also referenced as "Widow Quickly" (in the second German edition) and as "Falstaff's friend, the Lively Widow" (in the French edition) in Chapter 1, Section 3 of Karl Marx's ''[[Das Kapital, Volume I|Capital]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |title=Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. |trans-title=Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. |volume=1. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals. |date=1872 |publisher=Verlag von Otto Meissner |location=Hamburg |page=22 |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xCMpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA22 |access-date=9 June 2024 |language=German |quote=Die Werthgegenständlichkeit der Waaren unterscheidet sich dadurch von der Wittib Hurtig, dass man nicht weiss wo sie zu haben ist. |trans-quote=The objective value of the goods differs from the Widow Quickly in that one does not know where to get it.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |title=Le Capital |date=1872–1875 |publisher=Maurice Lachâtre |location=Paris |translator-last=Roy |translator-first=Joseph |page=18 |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AMarx_-_Le_Capital%2C_Lach%C3%A2tre%2C_1872.djvu/17 |access-date=9 June 2024 |language=French |quote=La réalité que possède la valeur de la marchandise, diffère en ceci de l’amie de Falstaff, la veuve l’Éveillé, qu’on ne sait où la prendre. |trans-quote=The reality that the value of the commodity has, differs in this from Falstaff's friend, the Lively Widow, that one does not know where to get it. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |editor1-last=Engels |editor1-first=Frederick |translator1-last=Moore |translator1-first=Samuel |translator2-last=Aveling |translator2-first=Edward |title=Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. |volume=1. Book I. Capitalist Production. |date=1887 |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. |location=London |page=15 |url=https://archive.org/details/capitalcriticala00marxrich/page/15/mode/1up |access-date=9 June 2024 |quote=The reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect from Dame Quickly, that we don't know ‘where to have it.’}}</ref>
==References==
{{
{{The Merry Wives of Windsor}}
Line 85 ⟶ 64:
[[Category:Fictional hoteliers]]
[[Category:Characters in The Merry Wives of Windsor]]
[[Category:Characters in the Henriad]]
|