Understanding Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

3. The Buffoon: The function of this character "is to increase the mood of festivity rather than contribute to the plot." Frye connects the "mad host" of Merry Wives to this type; but he adds that in "Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch we can see the affinities of the buffoon or entertainer type both with the parasite and the master of revels" (175).

4. The Churl or Rustic (agroikos): This character "allows the humor to bounce off him." The churl may be "miserly, snobbish, or priggish" and his "role is that of the refuser of festivity, the killjoy who tries to stop the fun." But Frye also connects the churl "to the alazon group, all miserly old men in comedies." But as a rustic, the character contributes "amusement in the urban setting"; or, in the pastoral setting, "he speaks for the pastoral ideal." Finally, Frye adds that in certain ironic plays, such a character "may become a malcontent or railer, who may be morally superior to his society" (175-76).

As the above descriptions suggest, each of the four types contains a number of variations; and, perhaps, a list of ten types or twenty types may more accurately describe or delineate the large and varied number of comic characters that have appeared in comedy from the time of the Classical Age until now. Nevertheless, Frye's four types are useful in an examination of Shakespeare's grand comic creation; for readers and critics can at least easily determine, at the outset, that the character of Falstaff, as he appears in Shakespeare's three plays, does not simply fit into