Characters of Shakespear's Plays Merry Wives of Windsor". The bulk of Hazlitt's commentary on the two history plays is devoted to Falstaff, whom he considers to be "perhaps the most substantial comic character ever invented". Falstaff had been of interest to Shakespearean commentators for years. Forty years earlier, a full-length book had appeared, "An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff" (1777), by Maurice Morgann, often taken as the beginning of that school of Shakespearean criticism which considers the characters of Shakespeare's plays as though they were real people. Hazlitt, who seems to have had little acquaintance with Morgann's work, is careful
Giuseppe Verdi those feelings. Julian Budden expresses the impact of "Rigoletto" and its place in Verdi's output as follows: "Just after 1850 at the age of 38, Verdi closed the door on a period of Italian opera with "Rigoletto". The so-called "ottocento" in music is finished. Verdi will continue to draw on certain of its forms for the next few operas, but in a totally new spirit." One example of Verdi's wish to move away from "standard forms" appears in his feelings about the structure of "Il trovatore". To his librettist, Cammarano, Verdi plainly states in a letter of April 1851 that