If, as you keep claiming, the time setting of MWW is ambiguous, what is it ambiguous between, or ambiguous among? Obviously, between Shakespeare's own time, which is what the text points to, and the early 15C, which is what the presence of characters who also appear in the H4&5 plays points to. Therefore there is an aspect, or facet, or point of view, by which MWW can be argued to take place in the early 15C. If there weren't, it wouldn't be ambiguous. It is to that aspect, or facet, or point of view, or what you will, that my points are addressed.
For example, if the presence of these characters gives a 15C hint, it is because the other plays established them as having a fictive timeline in the 15C. Falstaff's minions played with Hal in the Eastcheap tavern in Henry IV's time and served in France in Henry V's. That's a fictive timeline for them. Therefore it is entirely reasonable to ask, at what chronological point in that timeline does MWW fit?
My opinion is that it doesn't fit anywhere, and that is part of my evidence that this [facet or aspect or point of view] is entirely illusory and takes no account of Shakespeare having unmoored them from time in this play and placed them in a timeless spot which defaults to the characteristics of his own time. Now there's already another [aspect or facet or point of view] which does take that into account, but we still have to address the first one.
I'd forgotten about "Oldcastle is not the man" or I'd have cited it. I don't think there's anywhere else we see Shakespeare in a flopsweat, lying through his teeth. His argument that Falstaff isn't Oldcastle is based on their deaths being different, but genuine romans a clef change parts of the story all the time without being any less romans a clef for it.
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For example, if the presence of these characters gives a 15C hint, it is because the other plays established them as having a fictive timeline in the 15C. Falstaff's minions played with Hal in the Eastcheap tavern in Henry IV's time and served in France in Henry V's. That's a fictive timeline for them. Therefore it is entirely reasonable to ask, at what chronological point in that timeline does MWW fit?
My opinion is that it doesn't fit anywhere, and that is part of my evidence that this [facet or aspect or point of view] is entirely illusory and takes no account of Shakespeare having unmoored them from time in this play and placed them in a timeless spot which defaults to the characteristics of his own time. Now there's already another [aspect or facet or point of view] which does take that into account, but we still have to address the first one.
I'd forgotten about "Oldcastle is not the man" or I'd have cited it. I don't think there's anywhere else we see Shakespeare in a flopsweat, lying through his teeth. His argument that Falstaff isn't Oldcastle is based on their deaths being different, but genuine romans a clef change parts of the story all the time without being any less romans a clef for it.