Henry IV, Part 2 in the context of Ancient Pistol

In the First Folio (1623), the plays of William Shakespeare were in three categories: (i) comedies, (ii) histories, and (iii) tragedies. Alongside the history plays of his Renaissance playwright contemporaries, the histories of Shakespeare define the theatrical genre of history plays. The historical plays also are biographies of the English kings of the previous four centuries, and include the plays King John, Edward III, and Henry VIII, and a continual sequence of eight plays known as the Henriad, for the protagonist Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England.

The chronology of Shakespeare's plays indicates that the first tetralogy was written in the early 1590s, and discusses the politics of the Wars of the Roses; the four plays are Henry VI, parts I, II, and III, and The Tragedy of Richard the Third. The second tetralogy was completed in 1599, and comprises the history plays Richard II, Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V.

Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, or governments. Some argue for a distinction between language revival (the resurrection of an extinct language with no existing native speakers) and language revitalization (the rescue of a "dying" language).

Languages targeted for language revitalization include those whose use and prominence is severely limited. Sometimes various tactics of language revitalization can even be used to try to revive extinct languages. Though the goals of language revitalization vary greatly from case to case, they typically involve attempting to expand the number of speakers and use of a language, or trying to maintain the current level of use to protect the language from extinction or language death. Language revitalization can face significant barriers, not the least of which can come from governments, such as a general lack of support or funding for the projects, or a system that may actively repress the minority language. Other barriers could be a lack of speakers, a lack of relevant teaching material, or vocabulary loss.

The Merry Wives of Windsor or Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV or early in the reign of Henry V, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan-era English middle-class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera at least ten times. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.Tradition has it that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who watching Henry IV, Part 1, is said to have asked Shakespeare to write a play depicting Falstaff in love.

The Life of Henry the Fifth, often shortened to Henry V, is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written circa 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Cronicle History of Henry the fift, and The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.

The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, whom the Henry IV plays depicted as a wild, undisciplined young man. In Henry V, the young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, despite his army being greatly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt.

In Shakespearean scholarship, the Henriad refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays depicting the rise of the English kings. It is sometimes used to refer to a group of four plays (a tetralogy), but some sources and scholars use the term to refer to eight plays. In the 19th century, Algernon Charles Swinburne used the term to refer to three plays, but that use is not current.

In one sense, the Henriad refers to: Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V – with the implication that these four plays are Shakespeare's epic, and that Prince Hal, who later becomes Henry V, is the epic hero. (This group may also be referred to as the "second tetralogy" or "second Henriad".)

Prince Hal is the standard term used in literary criticism to refer to William Shakespeare's portrayal of the young Henry V of England as a prince before his accession to the throne, taken from the diminutive form of his name used in the plays almost exclusively by Falstaff. Henry is called "Prince Hal" in critical commentary on his character in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, though also sometimes in Henry V when discussed in the context of the wider Henriad.

Hal is portrayed as a wayward youth who enjoys the society of petty criminals and wastrels, a depiction which draws on exaggerations of the historical Prince Henry's supposed youthful behaviour. The question of whether Hal's character is cynical or sincere has been widely discussed by critics.

The Life and Death of King Richard the Second (1595), also Richard II, is a Shakespearean history play about the lifetime and reign of King Richard II of England (r. 1377–1399). As a dramatised period history of the English monarchy, Richard II chronicles the machinations of the noblemen of the royal court who conspire, precipitate, and realise the downfall and death of the King of England.

As the first work in the Henriad tetralogy of English history plays, the political narrative of Richard II is thematically followed throughout the stories of Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, which also are histories of the reigns of his royal successors to the Throne of England. Although the First Folio (1623) classifies The Life and Death of Richard the Second as an English history play, the earlier Quarto edition (1597) classifies Richard II as a tragedy, under the title The Tragedie of King Richard the Second.

Henry IV, Part 1 (often written as 1 Henry IV) is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at Homildon Hill late in 1402, and ending with King Henry's victory in the Battle of Shrewsbury in mid-1403. In parallel to the political conflict between King Henry and a rebellious faction of nobles, the play depicts the escapades of King Henry's son, Prince Hal (the future King Henry V), and his eventual return to court and favour.

Henry IV, Part 1 is the first of Shakespeare's two plays that deal with the reign of Henry IV (the other being Henry IV, Part 2), and the second play in the Henriad, a modern designation for the tetralogy of plays that deal with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. From its first performance on, it has been an extremely popular work both with the public and critics.

Falstaff (Italian pronunciation: [ˈfalstaf]) is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from the play The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan.

Verdi wrote Falstaff, the last of his 26 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following Macbeth and Otello. The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the fat knight Sir John Falstaff to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth.

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, he embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is repudiated when Hal becomes king.

Falstaff has appeared in other works, including operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otto Nicolai, a "symphonic study" by Edward Elgar, and in Orson Welles's 1966 film Chimes at Midnight. The operas focus on his role in The Merry Wives of Windsor, while the film adapts the Henriad and The Merry Wives. Welles, who played Falstaff in his film, considered the character "Shakespeare's greatest creation". The word "Falstaffian" has entered the English language with connotations of corpulence, jollity, and debauchery.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is the first professionally published poem by the American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). It relates the varying thoughts of its title character in a stream of consciousness. Eliot began writing it in February 1910, and it was first published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse at the instigation of his fellow American expatriate the poet Ezra Pound. It was later printed as part of a twelve-poem chapbook entitled Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917. At the time of its publication, the poem was considered outlandish, but it is now seen as heralding a paradigmatic shift in poetry from late-19th-century Romanticism and Georgian lyrics to Modernism.

Its structure was heavily influenced by Eliot's extensive reading of Dante Alighieri and makes several references to the Bible and other literary works—including William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV Part II, Twelfth Night and Hamlet; the works of Andrew Marvell, a 17th-century metaphysical poet; and the 19th-century French Symbolists. Eliot narrates the experience of Prufrock using the stream of consciousness technique developed by his fellow Modernist writers. The poem, described as a "drama of literary anguish", is a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said "to epitomize [the] frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment".

Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gads Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens. Today the building is the independent Gad's Hill School.

The house was built in 1780 for a former Mayor of Rochester, Thomas Stephens, opposite the present Sir John Falstaff Public House. Gad's Hill is where Falstaff commits the robbery that begins Shakespeare's Henriad trilogy (Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V).

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, he embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is repudiated when Hal becomes king.

Falstaff has appeared in other works, including operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Antonio Salieri and Otto Nicolai, a "symphonic study" by Edward Elgar, and in Orson Welles's 1966 film Chimes at Midnight. The operas focus on his role in The Merry Wives of Windsor, while the film adapts the Henriad and The Merry Wives. Welles, who played Falstaff in his film, considered the character "Shakespeare's greatest creation". The word "Falstaffian" has entered the English language with connotations of corpulence, jollity, and debauchery.