Daisy's Reviews > The Merry Wives of Windsor

SCHOLARS, PROFESSORS, EXPERTS AND GENERALLY EVERYONE YOU SHOULD TRUST ABOUT SHAKESPEARE: The Merry Wives of Windsor is, clearly, one of Shakespeare's weakest plays, due to what we can only hope was rushed writing and little revision. The uninteresting characters stumble around what we can barely call a plot, with tired, forced humour and a poor parody of one of Shakespeare's finest comedic characters, John Falstaff, to polish off this disaster of a play from our great Bard.

ME: This play is awesome! One of my favourites of Shakespeare's works! When I read this for the first time a few years ago as my third Shakespeare play it instantly became my favourite and I've been saying as much even as I made my way through fourteen other (awesome) plays since then. However, constantly hearing people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to Shakespeare using this play as an example of the not-so-great plays he wrote, I started doubting whether I should still trust the opinion of the unexperienced-Shakespeare-reader I was two years ago, and keep telling people this was my favourite. So, I reread it. And it was still amazing.

I can definitely see where a lot of people are coming from when they say this play is one of Shakespeare's weakest, as the plot isn't the most exciting and I'd compare the writing with the coarse language of the servants in Romeo and Juliet - with hardly any metaphorical observations on life or even just simple verse in sight (if any, actually). I can't comment on the representation of Falstaff in comparison to what he's like in Henry IV, which seems to be many people's main problem with this play, having never read those plays, but I found him an entertaining and funny enough character purely in this story. As for the other characters, they may not be Shakespeare's most iconic, but I thought they were entertaining to read about and everyone was very well distinguished, which I think is worth noting given the large cast we were presented with.

My favourite thing about this play is the skillful mockery of the arrogant and foolish character of Sir John Falstaff by the so-called 'merry wives', which unlike many other supposedly hilarious jokes involved in some of Shakespeare's plays, I actually found really funny. This was probably helped by the underlying feminist themes broached in Mistress Ford and Page's motivations, which I could definitely relate to, and I would honestly say they hold a position amongst Shakespeare's strongest female characters.

Another thing I especially like about this play is the Falstaff and Brooke scenes in the tavern. For me those few short scenes have a real atmosphere and are written exquisitely well, adding a lot to the play. Though I'll admit the way (view spoiler)[the wives and their husbands made up (hide spoiler)] did feel pretty rushed and unsatisfactory, I really liked the overall ending to the play and this particular storyline probably says more about the position of women in that society than it does about Shakespeare's plotting ability, so it's not a huge drawback about the play for me.

I know this play has some flaws and it's not perfection, but out of all the plays I've read it's one of the ones that I've found most fun and entertaining to read, so I'd say it's definitely worth a try if you like Shakespeare, despite the heavy criticism it gets.