Cummings Study Guide

Type of Work

.......The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy, or farce. It resembles The Comedy of Errors in that it relies heavily on mix-ups and slapstick to win the guffaws of the audience. In this respect, the play resembles an American television staple, the situation comedy. It even has the types of characters that appear in American TV sitcoms: everyday middle-class folks. There are no kings and queens, no dukes and duchesses, no earls and barons.

Key Dates
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Date Written: Probably between 1597 and 1599.
First Performance: There is evidence that the play may have debuted before Queen Elizabeth I at Windsor Castle on April 23, 1599.
First Printing: Pirated quarto, 1602, published with misquoted passages and omissions of entire scenes; 1623 as part of the First Folio, the first authorized collection of Shakespeare's plays.

Main Source

.......Shakespeare's farcical plot of tricking the trickster can be traced to the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184 B.C.)–in particular, to his 205 BC play Miles Gloriosus (Latin pronunciation: ME lez Glor e OH sus). This play, written in Latin, is about a boastful but stupid Greek soldier, Pyrgopolynices, who is tricked by slaves.

Command Performance
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.......It is believed that Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives at the request of Queen Elizabeth I and debuted it before her in 1599. Supposedly, she so enjoyed the character of Falstaff in Henry IV Part I and Henry IV Part II that she asked Shakespeare to write another play featuring FaIstaff, according to John Dennis, author of a 1702 play based on The Merry Wives.
.......In the dedication of his play, Dennis wrote that "This comedy was written at [Queen Elizabeth I's] command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days . . ." (Quoted in Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by G.B. Harrison. New York: Harcourt, 1952, page 937).
.......If it is true that Shakespeare wrote the play in just two weeks, he must have burnt many midnight candles. But he was young, in his mid-thirties, and had an agile mind that could keep his quill in constant motion.

Setting
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.......The action takes place in Windsor in Berkshire County, England, during the Elizabethan Age. Windsor, a few miles west of London, is the site of Windsor Castle, a royal residence from the time of William the Conqueror, who reigned as king from 1066 to 1087. The play was said to have debuted at Windsor Castle before Queen Elizabeth I.

Characters

Plot Summary
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003
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........Windsor, a quiet town on the south bank of the River Thames west of London, basks in peace and harmony until Sir John Falstaff and his rowdy companions–Bardolph, Pistol and Nym–arrive from the big city to steal, poach, and bully. Robert Shallow, a country justice, tells Falstaff and his comrades: “You have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge” (1.1.53). Abraham Slender, Shallow’s cousin, accuses Pistol of picking his pocket. At the house of George Page, a gentleman of Windsor, the accused and the accusers settle their differences over wine and a repast of hot venison pasty.
........While dining, Falstaff’s appetite strays from food to females. Mistress Page, it seems, has a certain allure–namely her pocketbook. Her friend, Mistress Ford, is likewise endowed. Both women rule the purse strings in their households. Ever short of money but long on schemes to get some, Falstaff later pens a love letter and makes a copy of it, then charges Pistol and Nym to bear the letters to Mistresses Page and Ford. When Pistol and Nym refuse to serve as toadies, Falstaff enlists a page boy, Robin, to deliver the letters. Falstaff then commands the useless Pistol and Nym to “vanish like hailstones” (1.3.40). Angry, they decide to tattle on Falstaff to Mr. Page and Mr. Ford.
........When Mistress Page and Mistress Ford meet again, they compare the letters and discover that they are the same. “I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names” (2.1.16), Mistress Page observes. When she proposes revenge against Falstaff, Mistress Ford agrees to do whatever it takes to get even. They first recruit Mistress Quickly, an expert at playing pranks. She is a maid in the household of a French physician, one Doctor Caius. Mistress Quickly informs Falstaff that Mistress Ford thanks him profusely for the letter. Then she requests that he come to Mistress Ford’s house between ten and eleven one morning, when her husband is not at home.
........(A subplot running through this play focuses on three men wooing Anne Page, the daughter of Mistress Page. These men are Abraham Slender, Doctor Caius, and a gentleman named Fenton. Slender, a foolish bumpkin, has the support of Shallow, Mr. Page, and a Welsh parson named Sir Hugh Evans. Caius has the backing of Mistress Page. Fenton must fend for himself. Fenton at first woos Miss Page primarily to improve his financial condition. However, he changes during the course of the play. Shakespeare reveals the winner of the Anne Page sweepstakes at the end of the play.)
........After Pistol and Nym snitch on Falstaff, Mr. Page merely shrugs and dismisses the matter, saying, “If he should intend this voyage towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head” (2.1.70). In other words, Page trusts his wife. She will not fall for fat old Sir John. Ford, however, becomes jealous. Pretending his name is Brook, he meets with Falstaff. (Because Falstaff has never met Ford, he does not know that “Brook” is Mistress Ford’s husband.) Brook offers to pay Falstaff to woo Mistress Ford. Ford explains that he loves her but dares not approach her because she has a reputation to uphold as a married woman. If Falstaff can “drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow” (2. 2. 84), Brook says, she will be ripe pickings for him. Falstaff, of course, accepts the assignment. After all, there’s money to be made. Then he tells Brook that he has already scheduled a tryst with Mistress Ford, noting the day and the hour. Brook makes a mental note.
........Meanwhile, the merry wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, have prepared a fitting punishment for Falstaff. The scheme begins to unfold after Falstaff arrives at the appointed time and addresses Mistress Ford as “my heavenly jewel” (3.3.24). She tells him that “heaven knows how I love you” (3.3.35). A knock at the door disrupts their intimacy. It is Mistress Page. When Mistress Ford describes her to Falstaff as “a very tattling woman” (3. 3. 40), Falstaff hides. Mistress Page enters. Then, speaking loudly enough for Falstaff to hear, she says word is out that Mistress Ford is entertaining a man. What’s more, her husband is on his way to the house with officers to search for the man. What the women do not realize is that Mr. Ford really is on his way to the house with Mr. Page and other citizens–including Doctor Caius and Sir Hugh Evans–to ensnare Falstaff and Mistress Ford. As they near the house, Mistress Ford “admits” to Mistress Page that she has a man in the house. Mistress Page, continuing to play her part but still unaware that Mr. Ford is approaching the house, says: "O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking: or–it is whiting-time–send him by your two men to Datchet-mead" (3.3.53).
........The large basket had been set out by Mistress Ford as part of her and her friend’s plot against Falstaff. He would think it a good place to conceal himself. They were right. Out of sight of Mistress Page, Falstaff plops into the basket and covers himself with dirty laundry. Just as Ford is arriving, servants remove the basket and dump it in a muddy ditch near the Thames. Falstaff emerges from the pile of clothes full of muck. Ford searches the house. When no philanderer is found, he is made to look a fool in front of Page and the others. After the men leave, the wives enjoy a good giggle over the coincidence and Mistress Ford remarks, “I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John” (3.3.73).
........Falstaff decides to try again, telling “Brook” he will arrive at the Ford residence between eight and nine when, according to another communication from Mistress Ford, the husband will be out bird hunting. After Falstaff arrives, Mistress Page again comes calling and Falstaff again takes refuge in the shadows. When she asks whether Mistress Ford has a man in the house, mentioning Falstaff by name, Mistress Ford says no. Mistress Page says she is greatly relieved to hear that, for Mr. Ford is again on the way to the house with citizens of the town. Mistress Ford then “admits” Falstaff is indeed on the premises, and the women disguise him as “the fat woman of Brainford” (4.2.35), the aunt of Mistress Ford’s maid. It so happens that Mr. Ford despises the Brainford woman, and when he shows up with Page, Doctor Caius, and Evans, he beats the fat woman (Falstaff) mercilessly until Falstaff escapes the house. While Ford searches for Falstaff, his wife lets him in on the plot against Sir John. Ford apologizes to his wife for doubting her, and then they all agree to play one more prank on Sir John.
........Smarting from having been beaten “into all the colours of the rainbow” (4.5.52), Falstaff is almost ready to call it quits. But Mistress Quickly–again a conniver in the plot against Sir John– importunes him to try a third time. He agrees, hoping “good luck lies in odd numbers” (5.1.3). He is to go to Windsor Forest at midnight in the guise of a ghost that haunts the environs of an oak tree. (This oak tree–known as Herne’s Oak–actually existed for more than six hundred 600 years. In 1863, it succumbed to the fury of a storm.) Because the ghost wears antlers and carries a chain, Mistress Quickly provides them for Falstaff. When he arrives at the oak at the stroke of twelve, he is wearing his deer’s head and praying that the gods will assist him. Hiding nearby are Mistresses Page and Ford, as well as a small army of recruits–including Pistol, Sir Hugh Evans and neighborhood children–dressed as fairies, hobgoblins, and other creatures of the night. Mistress Ford addresses him lovingly and says Mistress Page is with her. Falstaff says: “Divide me like a brib’d buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands” (5.5.8).
........When the women hear a noise, they run off and the whole company of creatures descends upon Falstaff. They pinch him everywhere and singe him with tapers. They then sing a song:

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.......In Shakespeare's time, aristocrats considered it fashionable to place their health care in the hands of a physician from another country. To have a doctor from the European continent was rather like having a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz in the driveway in the modern world. Shakespeare mocks these foreign physicians through his characterization of Doctor Caius. Caius is proud and overbearing, fancies himself an outstanding fencer, and believes Anne Page is in love with him. He speaks in broken English that sometimes goes very far awry, as in the following unintentional pun he utters after Mr. Page invites Mr. Ford, Sir Hugh Evans, and Caius to breakfast. After Ford and Evans accept the invitation, Caius says: "If dere [there] be one or two, I shall make-a the turd" (End of Act II).

Imagery

.......Shakespeare wrote most of the The Merry Wives in the prose of everyday speech. Pistol is the only character who speaks all his lines–except very short ones–in verse. Consequently, the play contains fewer elegant figures of speech than his other plays, written mostly in verse. Nevertheless, the play does feature memorable tropes, including the following:

Why, then the world’s mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open. (2.2.4-5)
In a metaphor, Pistol compares the world to an oyster. The line also contains alliteration (why, world’s, which, with, and will.)

Hang no more about me; I am no gibbet. (2.2.9)
Falstaff’s metaphor compares himself to a gallows.

He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance. (2.2.29)
Page uses alliteration (not, knit, and knot; of fortunes and finger) (s sounds in substance). The lines also contain metaphors comparing accumulating money to knitting, money itself to a knot, and a finger to wealth.

Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher’s offal? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year’s gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have [if they] drowned a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ the litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking . . . . (3.5.5)
Falstaff uses the following figures of speech: simile (thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher’s offal), hyperbole (I’ll have my brains ta’en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year’s gift), simile (The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have [if they had] drowned a blind bitch’s puppies), and alliteration (kind, alacrity, sinking).

1. In an argumentative essay, take a stand on whether Shakespeare intended The Merry Wives of Windsor as a statement in favor of women’s rights. In your essay, you may wish to take into account the treatment of women in other Shakespeare plays.
2. The Merry Wives of Windsor is entirely different from other Shakespeare plays in that it focuses on the everyday life of middle-class people. (Other plays center on kings, queens, emperors, nobles, wealthy aristocrats, etc.) Does this difference manifest itself in the dialogue of the play–or in any other aspect of the play?
3. What was life like for middle-class Englishmen in Shakespeare’s time?
4. In an essay, compare and contrast the Falstaff of Henry IV Part I with the Falstaff of The Merry Wives.
5. To what extent does The Merry Wives poke fun at the love of money? In researching your answer, you may wish to start with these lines: