The Complete Merry Wives of Windsor

One critic of the Merry Wives of Windsor argues that no longer does Shakespeare endow the fat knight [Falstaff] with the nimble wit that enabled him in the earlier plays to extricate himself from every embarrassing situation (Wright, xii). The result is a fast-paced farce (Green, Introduction, lxiv) which bears traits of Italian comedy (Green, lxviii). Bate agrees that the play is Shakespeares nea...