The Merry Wives of Windsor
The
Merry Wives of Windsor or Sir
John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor[1]
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.
Characters
- Sir John Falstaff
- Bardolph, Pistol, Nym – followers of Falstaff.
- Robin – page to Falstaff.
- Messrs. Frank Ford & George (Thomas) Page – two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.
- William Page – a boy, son to Page.
- Sir Hugh Evans – a Welsh parson
- Doctor Caius – a French physician.
- John Rugby – a servant to Doctor Caius.
- Mistress Quickly – servant to Doctor Caius.
- Robert Shallow – a Country Justice.
- Abraham Slender – cousin to Shallow.
- Peter Simple – servant to Slender.
- Fenton – a young gentleman.
- The Host of the Garter Inn
- Mistress Alice Ford
- Mistress Margaret Page
- Anne Page – Mistress Page's daughter, in love with Fenton.
Synopsis
The
play is nominally set in the early 15th century, during the same period as the Henry
IV plays featuring Falstaff, but there is only one brief reference to this
period, a line in which the character Fenton is said to have been one of Prince
Hal's rowdy friends (he "kept company with the wild prince and
Poins"). In all other respects, the play implies a contemporary setting of
the Elizabethan era, c. 1600.
Falstaff
arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial
advantage, that he will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and
Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters and
asks his servants – Pistol and Nym – to deliver them to the wives. When they
refuse, Falstaff sacks them, and, in revenge, the men tell Ford and Page (the
husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned, but the jealous Ford
persuades the Host of the Garter Inn to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master
Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans.
Meanwhile,
three different men are trying to win the hand of Page's daughter, Anne Page.
Mistress Page would like her daughter to marry Doctor Caius, a French
physician, whereas the girl's father would like her to marry Master Slender.
Anne herself is in love with Master Fenton, but Page had previously rejected
Fenton as a suitor due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on
high-class living. Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant to
Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and
challenges Evans to a duel. The Host of the Garter Inn prevents this duel by
telling each man a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself,
Justice Shallow, Page and others. Evans and Caius decide to work together to be
revenged on the Host.
When
the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other, and they quickly
find that the letters are almost identical. The "merry wives" are not
interested in the ageing, 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
all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. Mr. Ford poses as 'Mr. Brook'
and says he is in love with Mistress Ford but cannot woo her as she is too
virtuous. He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has lost
her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his
luck, and tells 'Brook' he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her
husband is out. Falstaff leaves to keep his appointment and Ford soliloquizes
that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting Page is a fool.
When
Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding
in a laundry basket ("buck basket") full of filthy, smelly clothes
awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife
with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents
(including Falstaff) dumped 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.
Again
Falstaff goes to meet the women but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress
Ford of her husband's approach again. They try to think of ways to hide him
other than the laundry basket which he refuses to get into again. They trick
him again, this time into disguising himself as Mistress Ford's maid's obese
aunt, known as "the fat woman of Brentford". Ford tries once again to
catch his wife with the knight but ends up hitting the "old woman",
whom he despises and takes for a witch, and throwing her out of his house.
Having been beaten "into all the colors of the rainbow", Falstaff
laments his bad luck.
Eventually
the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on
Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight
being humiliated in front of the whole town. They tell Falstaff to dress as
"Herne, the Hunter"
and meet them by an old oak tree in Windsor Forest (now part of Windsor Great Park).
They then dress several of the local children, including Anne and William Page,
as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. Page
plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her
during the revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but
they arrange Anne shall be dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and
the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be married instead.
The
wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the "fairies" attack.
Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and
the rest of the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff.
Although
he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was
what he deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds 'Brook' gave him and
takes the Knight's horses as recompense. Slender suddenly appears and says he
has been deceived – the 'girl' he took away to marry was not Anne but a young
boy. Caius arrives with similar news – however, he has actually married his
boy. Fenton and Anne arrive and admit that they love each other and have been
married. Fenton chides the parents for trying to force Anne to marry men she
did not love and the parents accept the marriage and congratulate the young
pair. Eventually they all leave together and Mistress Page even invites
Falstaff to come with them: "let us every one go home, and laugh this
sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all".
Sources
Some
elements of The Merry Wives of Windsor may have been adapted from Il
Pecorone, a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino;
one of these stories was included in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure.[2]
Date and text
The
play's date of composition is unknown; it was registered for publication in
1602, but was probably several years old by that date. In the Fairy pageant in
Act 5 Scene 5 (lines 54–75), Mistress Quickly, as the Queen of the Fairies,
gives a long speech giving an elaborate description of the Order of the Garter.
The play also alludes to a German duke, who is generally thought to be Frederick I, Duke of
Württemberg, who had visited England in 1592
and was elected to the Order of the Garter in 1597 (but was eventually only
installed in Stuttgart
on 6 November 1603).[3] These facts led commentators starting with Edmond
Malone in 1790 to suggest that the play
was written and performed for the Order of the Garter festival.[4] William Green suggests that the play was drawn up when George Carey, 2nd
Baron Hunsdon, as Lord
Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare's company, was elected Order of the Garter in April 1597.[5] If this is so, it was probably performed when Elizabeth I
attended Garter Feast on 23 April.
The
Garter theory is only speculation, but it is consistent with a story first
recorded by John Dennis
in 1702 and Nicholas Rowe
in 1709: that Shakespeare was commanded to write the play by Queen Elizabeth,
who wanted to see Falstaff in love. This theatrical tradition was first
recorded by Dennis in the prologue to his adaptation of the play, The
Comical Gallant. He states that Queen Elizabeth "commanded it to be
finished in fourteen days."[6] Rowe wrote that Elizabeth "was so well pleased with
that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry the
Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to
shew him in love."[6] T.W. Craik suggests that these stories may simply be
fantasies occasioned by the Quarto's title page which says of the play "As
it hath diuers times Acted...Both before her Maiestie, and else-where."[7] Nevertheless, Carey would have been well placed to pass on
the queen's wishes to his players, which could account for the tradition.[3]
Support
for the Garter theory is divided. If it is correct, it would probably mean that
Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor between Henry IV, Part 1
and Part 2. Critics have trouble believing this for several reasons. One
is that Pistol and Shallow are introduced as new characters in Henry IV,
Part 2, but in The Merry Wives their connection to Falstaff is taken
for granted. Also, there are no references to any of the major events from
Falstaff's 15th-century exploits from the history plays, such as the rebellion
(Henry IV, Part 1 & 2), in Merry Wives. T.W. Craik
suggests that Shakespeare was forced to interrupt work on Henry IV, Part 2,
having written most of it, because The Merry Wives had to be completed
quickly.[8] Another possible explanation comes from the epilogue to Henry
IV, Part 2, which promises to "continue
the story, with Sir John in it". Sir John does not appear in Henry V,
so Merry Wives could have been written to make good on the pledge.[9]
At
least parts of the play may have been written around or before the first
performances of Part 1 in 1597, after which controversy over the
original naming of Falstaff (he was originally the historic Sir
John Oldcastle, which presumably did not please
Oldcastle's descendants) forced Shakespeare to rename the character. It appears
that the joke in V,v,85–90 is that Oldcastle/Falstaff incriminates himself by
calling out the first letter of his name, "O, O, O!," when his
fingertips are singed with candles – which of course works for
"Oldcastle" but not "Falstaff." There is also the "castle"
reference in IV,v,6.[10]
18
January 1602 was the date the play was entered into the Register
of the Stationers
Company. The first quarto was published later that year, in an inferior text, by
bookseller Arthur Johnson. It was published in a second
quarto in 1619, as part of William
Jaggard's False Folio;
the superior First Folio
text followed in 1623.
The
title page of Q1 states that the play was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men,
"Both before Her Majesty, and elsewhere." The earliest definitely
dated performance occurred on 4 November 1604, at Whitehall
Palace. The play is also known to have
been performed on 15 November 1638, at the Cockpit
in Court.
Analysis and criticism
Most
critics[who?] consider Merry
Wives to be one of Shakespeare's weakest plays, and the Falstaff of Merry
Wives to be much inferior to the Falstaff of the two Henry IV plays.
Harold
Bloom refers to this Falstaff as "a
nameless impostor masquerading as the great Sir John Falstaff."[11] He adds:
No
longer either witty in himself or the cause of wit in other men, this Falstaff
would make me lament a lost glory if I did not know him to be a rank impostor.
His fascination, indeed, is that Shakespeare wastes nothing upon him. The
Merry Wives of Windsor is Shakespeare's only play that he himself seems to
hold in contempt, even as he indites it.[12]
That
Shakespeare would so stumble with one of his greatest creations is puzzling and
a satisfactory reason for this remains to be found. The most obvious
explanation is that it was written very quickly. Leslie
Hotson wrote that "it is certain that
the play bears the earmarks of hasty writing."[13]
Themes
Key
themes of Merry Wives include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge,
social 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 centred on the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower
class is represented by characters such as Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol
(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 humour is derived from the
exaggerated accents of Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh Evans. For example, Caius speaks
in an exaggerated French dialect ; when he finds out he has married a page
instead of Mistress Anne he exclaims that he has married "oon
garcon", and Evans speaks in a thick Welsh accent to the point that
Falstaff complains that he "makes fritters of English" (5,5,135) Much
of the comedic effect of the play is derived from misunderstandings between
characters.
Other
scholars say that the treatment of sexual jealousy in the play differs from its
treatment in others, like Othello and A Winter's Tale. The
jealousy of Leontes and Othello is dangerous and deep-seated, while Ford's
jealousy is something to be mocked and laughed at.
Performance history
Merry
Wives was one of the first Shakespearean
plays to be performed once the theatres re-opened in 1660 after the Interregnum.
Samuel
Pepys saw the King's
Company act it on 5 Dec. 1660, and again in
1661 and 1667 (though he didn't like it on any occasion). In 1702 John Dennis
offered an adaptation (it has been called a "perversion") of the
play, titled The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff –
which flopped. In 1824 Frederick Reynolds included Merry Wives in his
series of operatic adaptations, with music by Henry Bishop.
Charles
Kean returned to Shakespeare's text in
an 1851 production.[14] Arthur
Sullivan composed incidental
music for use in Act V of an 1874
production at the Gaiety Theatre, London, which was also used in the 1889 Haymarket
Theatre production.[15]
During
the period of anti-German feelings in England during World War I, many German names and titles
were changed and given more English-sounding names, including the royal
family's from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. Kaiser Wilhelm II
countered this by jokingly saying that he was off to see a performance of 'The
Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.'[16]
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