PODCAST · arts

Merry Wives of Windsor (version 2)

by William Shakespeare

After the character’s colorful exploits proved a rousing success in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, William Shakespeare brought back the roguish knight Sir John Falstaff for one last adventure in The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is notable for being the only play he wrote that is set in his contemporary Elizabethan England. While sojourning in Windsor with his miscreant retinue, Falstaff devises a new get-rich-quick scheme by trying to woo two wealthy merchant wives, the Mistresses Page and Ford. His fatal mistake? Sending both women identical love letters! When his ruse is discovered, the crafty ladies join forces to subject the rotund reprobate to a series of humiliating pranks as a way of teaching him a lesson, while also stringing along Mistress Ford’s terminally jealous husband for good measure. In the secondary plot, the Pages’ young daughter, Anne, is courted by several suitors, including Justice Shallow’s pretentious cousin and an irascible French doctor. However, her p