| The Merry Wives Of Windsor |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR | |
| 1597 plays | |
| shakespearean comedies | |
| english renaissance plays | |
| windsor and maidenhead | |
| windsor great park | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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DATE AND ORIGIN The play's date of composition is unknown; it was registered for publication in 1602 , but was probably several years old by that date. Textual allusions to the Order Of The Garter suggest that the play may have been intended for performance in April 1597 , prior to the installation in May of the Knights-Elect of that order at Windsor ; if so, it was probably performed when Elizabeth I attended Garter Feast on April 23 rd. This was not necessarily the premiere; presumably, the play was also staged at the public theatre). The Garter theory is only speculation, but it is corroborated by a story first recorded by John Dennis in 1702 : that Shakespeare was commanded to write the play by Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to see Falstaff in love. SYNOPSIS The play anachronistically places Sir John Falstaff, companion of the medieval King Henry V , in the contemporary setting of the Elizabethan Era . Falstaff arrives in Windsor to obtain financial advantage by courting two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. These "merry wives" are not interested in the aging, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement, and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances. This results in great embarrassment for Falstaff; at one point, he is forced by the jealous Mr Ford to hide in a laundry basket and then thrown into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just 'playing hard to get' with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail. Eventually, however, his scheme is revealed and he is held up to ridicule, initially by the "merry wives", but eventually by the whole town. This type of embarrassment not only affects his ego, but also his already badly damaged reputation. The play ends with the marriage of Mistress Page's daughter, Anne Page, to Master Fenton, whom she has been in love with for a long while. Her father would not permit her to wed Master Fenton for some time, due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on high-class living. Despite this, Master Fenton is the only successful lover in the play. LIST OF CHARACTERS
THEMES Key themes of ''Merry Wives'' include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, class and wealth. Explored with irony, sexual innuendo, sarcasm, and stereotypical views of classes and nationalities, these themes help to give the play something closer to a modern-day view than is often found in Shakespeare's plays. The play is centered around the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower class is represented by characters such as Bardolph, Pistol and Nim (Falstaff's followers), and the upper class is represented by Sir John Falstaff and Master Fenton. Shakespeare uses both Latin and misused English to represent the attitudes and differences of the people of this era. Much of the comedic effect of the play is derived from misunderstandings between characters. Another prominent Elizabethan trope that runs through the play is the idea of the cuckold. Elizabethans found the idea of a woman cheating on her husband absolutely hilarious and seem to have assumed that if a man was married, his wife was cheating on him. Because a cuckolded husband was said to "wear horns," any reference, no matter how oblique, to horns or a horned animal (for example, the "buck" basket where Falstaff finds himself) probably brought down the house. LINKS TO OTHER PLAYS The play's central character, Falstaff , also appears in Shakespeare's historic plays '' Henry IV, Part 1 '', '' Henry IV, Part 2 '' and '' Henry V ''. If the 1597 date is correct, ''Merry Wives'' was written between parts 1 and 2 of ''Henry IV''. ''Merry Wives'' is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary English life. REPUTATION Most critics consider ''Merry Wives'' to be one of Shakespeare's weaker plays, and the Falstaff of ''Merry Wives'' to be much inferior to the Falstaff of the two ''Henry IV'' plays. That Shakespeare would so stumble with one of his greatest creations is puzzling, and a satisfactory reason for this remains to be found. The likeliest explanation, if the Garter Feast theory is accepted, is that the play was written hastily, to order for a special occasion, within severe time restraints. Tradition says that it was written at the behest of Elizabeth I, who wanted to see "Falstaff in love." This idea seems convincing due to the weird festival toward the end that refers to a queen who will not countenance sluts or sluttishness, although the word "slut" had a slightly different definition then than it does now (then it signified general dirtiness (i.e. a poor housekeeper might be a "slut") rather than sexual promiscuity specifically). Unlike other, better Shakespeare plays, this one isn't very satisfying to read; however, "Merry Wives" is good to watch because what seems like herky-jerky pacing on the page disappears during its performance. TRIVIA
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