What You’ll Love about… The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Merry Wives of Windsor is really very funny, and even though it can be challenging to understand, it will reward you if you stick with it. It can be especially difficult at the beginning of a play to distinguish between what’s important and what’s trivial, and The Merry Wives of Windsor makes it more difficult by going heavy on trivial elements. This has the effect of obscuring important facts. Try not to be put off by the thick and obscure humor in the first scene. Only a little bit of important information is conveyed amid all of the jokes.
One important fact is that Master Shallow is angry at Sir John Falstaff for breaking open his hunting lodge, killing his deer, and abusing his men. Falstaff’s rank of Knight allows him to get away with committing petty crimes such as these. Another important fact is that Master Shallow is related to Slender, who is courting Ann Page, daughter to one of the titular wives. These two facts establish the main action of the entire play, which is split between the antics of Ann Page’s suitors and Falstaff’s antisocial and disruptive behavior, especially his attempts to engage the merry wives, Alice Ford and Margaret (Meg) Page, in extramarital sexual encounters.
If you don’t know much about Windsor, you should look it up. You’ll learn a lot just by looking at…
