The Merry Wives of Windsor

by Shakespeare, William; Bowers, Fredson T.

• ISBN13: 9780140714241
• ISBN10: 0140714243
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

When a new play was required at short notice for a court occasion in 1597, Shakespeare created The Merry Wives of Windsor, a warm-hearted and spirited "citizen comedy" filled with boisterous action, situational irony, rich characterization--and the likes of Falstaff, Pistol, Mistress Quickly, and Justice Shallow. In his introduction and commentary, Craik examines a wide range of topics, including the play's probable occasion, its relationship to Shakespeare's English history plays and to other sources, its textual history, with particular reference to the widely diverging 1623 Folio and 1602 Quarto, and its quality as drama. In light of various topical, critical, and theatrical interpretations of the play, Craik pays particular attention to defining the literal sense, proposing some new readings, and evoking the many aspects of the stage business.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
List of tables
General editors' preface
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction	p. 1
The English comedy and the comedy of English	p. 3
The comedy of language(s) and the Latin lesson	p. 5
Translating: Italian into English - Falstaff's ancestry and the comedy of humours	p. 9
Garter comedy: date, occasion and Falstaff's metamorphoses	p. 18
Quarto and Folio: memorial reconstruction and acting version	p. 31
Unconformities and comical satire	p. 43
Structural unconformities and time gaps: three versions of Merry Wives	p. 56
Critical attitude and stage life: the music of Merry Wives	p. 80
This text: editorial procedures and conventions	p. 109
Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor	p. 119
The First Quarto (1602)	p. 292
Abbreviations and references	p. 326
Abbreviations used in the notes	p. 326
Works by and partly by Shakespeare	p. 326
Editions of Shakespeare collated	p. 328
Other works cited	p. 330
Index	p. 338
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