Morning everyone. Thanks for coming back to the third lecture in this series.

Today I'm going to talk about the Mary Wives of Windsor.

A play that was a great favourite in the 18th century, probably right at the top of the

list of Shakespeare plays for the 18th century, but one which has struggled a bit to find

a place in the critical repertoire and in the theatrical repertoire ever since.

I'm trying to talk to both those absences.

So on the Merry Wives of Windsor, I think the question that I want to try and focus my discussion on is, why Windsor?

Let's start though first by locating The discussion on is, why Windsor?

Let's start though first by locating the play in Shakespeare's career.

Firstly, obviously it's got a really clear connection to Shakespeare's history plays on the reign of Henry the Fourth,

in the Fourth of Parks 1 and 2, because it transports their star character, Sir John Falstaff, into a different genre.

So it shares its central character with a major character in those history plays.

It's probably, therefore, connected to the new date, so perhaps it comes from around 1597, 1598,

something like that. So it's in among the history plays and comedies that mark this part of Shakespeare's

career at the end of the 16th century.

One of the things I want to focus on about Mary Wives of Windsor is that it's a kind of bourgeois comedy.

It circles around Falstaff's antics.

First, he's accused of poaching deer, then the rest of it is him trying to get off

with Windsor wives.

He's completely unsuccessful, though. He's roundly tricked by two of the wives,

Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. And in the course of that trickery, the women make

the jealous husband, Master Ford, see how unreasonable

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