Falstaff in the Laundry Basket

The Merry Wives of Windsor

William Shakespearec. 1597
Influence12th pct
Popularity20th pct
Shakespeare

Read this if you…

  • want to read all of Falstaff's plays (by far the worst)
  • want a farcical comedy making fun of the lecherous fat guy

Skip this if you…

  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated
  • haven't already read all the classic comedies (this is the worst one)

The Groblé Take

It was fun to just mess w falstaff the whole time but didn’t get into any of the other characters

Connections

The lineage through The Merry Wives of Windsor

Built Onwhat came beforeThe Merry Wives of…Metamorphoses

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid. The Merry Wives of Windsor built on it. - The cuckold's-horns climax at Herne's Oak is Ovid's Diana-and-Actaeon myth in disguise — the antlered man hunted down by his own pursuers - Pistol names the hound 'Ringwood', a dog-name lifted straight from Arthur Golding's English *Metamorphoses* — the smoking gun that Shakespeare had Ovid's text in hand - Knowing the Actaeon myth turns Falstaff's antlers from a sight gag into a punishment with a 1,500-year pedigree
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

The two merry wives bundle the panicked, oversize Falstaff into a buck-basket of dirty linen as Ford's approach is announced; the women lean in with theatrical urgency.

Henry Fuseli, 1792

Drawing of Falstaff disguised with antlers between the two wives at Herne's Oak, the moment before the fairy tormentors arrive.

Henry Fuseli, 1790

Shallow nudges the reluctant Slender toward Anne Page in a country garden; Slender's hangdog expression undercuts the courtship pretense.

Charles Robert Leslie, 1825

Falstaff in stag's head and antlers stands between the two wives in Windsor Park at night, the moment before the staged fairy ambush.

Robert Smirke

Falstaff in stag's antlers is mobbed by torch-bearing fairies and Windsor children at the base of the great oak; the wives and husbands watch from the edge of the firelight.

George Cruikshank, 1857

Group composition of Windsor townspeople around Falstaff, capturing the play's domestic-comedy social texture.

Charles Robert Leslie

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$9.99$9.31

Folger Shakespeare Library

2004

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise Google, without breaking the scene to do it.

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Notable Quotes

Why, then the world's mine oyster.

Pistol, The Merry Wives of Windsor
All 16 quotes, with sources →
Adaptations

Screen & Stage

Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)

AcclaimPraised by 4 notable voices
  • Queen Elizabeth I, Queen of England, r. 1558–1603: By tradition the Queen so loved Falstaff she asked to see him in love, commanding the play finished in a fortnight.
  • Samuel Johnson, critic & lexicographer, editor of Shakespeare, 1709–1784: "More characters appropriated and discriminated than perhaps can be found in any other play."
  • William Hazlitt, essayist & critic, 1778–1830: "A very amusing play, with a great deal of humour, character, and nature in it."
  • Giuseppe Verdi, operatic composer, 1813–1901: Verdi capped his career with Falstaff (1893), his final opera, built on The Merry Wives of Windsor.

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