Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Drama
  3. Classic drama

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.0(1)

Falstaff : Give Me Life

Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads, him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him—some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new King.

Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom writes about Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom writes about his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and this "poignant work" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.


Author:

  • Harold Bloom

Narrator:

  • Simon Vance

Format:

  • Audiobook
  • E-book

Duration:

  • 3 h 56 min
  • 117 pages

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Drama
  • Classic drama
  • Culture
  • Literature

More by Harold Bloom

Skip the list
  1. Macbeth : Un puñal imaginario

    Harold Bloom

    book
  2. Yago : Las estrategias del mal

    Harold Bloom

    book
  3. Lear : La gran imagen de la autoridad

    Harold Bloom

    book
  4. Cleopatra : Soy fuego y aire

    Harold Bloom

    book
  5. Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles : The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death

    Harold Bloom

    audiobook
  6. Macbeth : A Dagger of the Mind

    Harold Bloom

    audiobookbook
  7. Falstaff : Lo mío es la vida

    Harold Bloom

    book
  8. Iago : The Strategies of Evil

    Harold Bloom

    audiobookbook
  9. Lear : The Great Image of Authority

    Harold Bloom

    audiobookbook
  10. Cleopatra : I Am Fire and Air

    Harold Bloom

    audiobookbook
  11. Oscar Wilde : På fullt allvar

    Harold Bloom

    book

  • 36 books

    Harold Bloom

    Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He has written more than sixty books, including Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air, Falstaff: Give Me Life, The Western Canon, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and How to Read and Why. He is a MacArthur Prize fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards, including the Academy’s Gold Medal for Criticism. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms · Imprint ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5