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InsightsA Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare FestivalThe MerryWives ofWindsor

The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah ShakespeareFestival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (inany production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and theinterpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately producedon the Festival’s stages.The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720.Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director.Copyright © 2011, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long asyou do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.For more information about Festival education programs:Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center StreetCedar City, Utah 84720435-586-7880www.bard.org.Cover photo: Kieran Connolly (left) and Leslie Brott in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 2006.

The Merry Wivesof WindsorContentsInformation on William ShakespeareShakespeare: Words, Words, Words 4Not of an Age, but for All Mankind 6Elizabeth’s England 8History Is Written by the Victors 10Mr. Shakespeare, I Presume 11A Nest of Singing Birds 12Actors in Shakespeare’s Day 14Audience: A Very Motley Crowd 16Shakespeare Snapshots 18Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare 20What They Wore 22Information on the PlaySynopsis 23Characters 24Scholarly Articles on the PlayHerne the Hunter 25A Good Time for All 26Double, or Even Triple, Entendre 27The Same Sir John Still 28For Love or Money 31Let the Sky Rain Potatoes 33A Collection of All Things Familiar 35The Merry Hunters of Windsor 37Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78803

Shakespeare: Words, Words, WordsBy S. S. Moorty“No household in the English-speaking world is properly furnished unless it containscopies of the Holy Bible and of The Works of William Shakespeare. It is not always thoughtthat these books should be read in maturer years, but they must be present as symbols ofReligion and Culture” (G.B. Harrison, Introducing Shakespeare. Rev. & Exp. [New York:Penguin Books, 1991], 11).We, the Shakespeare-theater goers and lovers, devotedly and ritualistically watch and read theBard’s plays not for exciting stories and complex plots. Rather, Shakespeare’s language is a vitalsource of our supreme pleasure in his plays. Contrary to ill-conceived notions, Shakespeare’slanguage is not an obstacle to appreciation, though it may prove to be difficult to understandInstead, it is the communicative and evocative power of Shakespeare’s language that is astonishinglyrich in vocabulary—about 29,000 words—strikingly presented through unforgettable characters such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello,Rosalind, Viola, Iago, Shylock, etc.In the high school classroom, students perceive Shakespeare’s language as “Old English.”Actually Shakespeare’s linguistic environment, experience, and exposure was, believe it or not,closer to our own times than to Chaucer’s, two hundred years earlier. Indeed, thehistory and development of the English language unfolds as follows: Old English, 449-1100;Middle English 1100-1500; and Modern English 1500-present. Shakespeare was firmly in theModern English period.At the time Shakespeare wrote, most of the grammatical changes from Old and Middle Englishhad taken place; yet rigid notions about “correctness” had not yet been standardized in grammars.The past five centuries have advanced the cause of standardized positions for words; yet theflexible idiom of Elizabethan English offered abundant opportunities for Shakespeare’s linguisticinventiveness. Ideally it is rewarding to study several facets of Shakespeare’s English: pronunciation,grammar, vocabulary, wordplay, and imagery. The present overview will,however, be restricted to “vocabulary.”To Polonius’s inquisitive question “What do you read, my lord?” (Hamlet, 2.2.191) Hamletnonchalantly and intriguingly aptly replies: “Words, words, words” (2.2.192). This many-splendoredcreation of Shakespeare’s epitomizes the playwright’s own fascination with the dynamicaspect of English language, however troubling it may be to modern audiences and readers.Shakespeare added several thousand words to the language, apart from imparting new meanings toknown words. At times Shakespeare could teasingly employ the same word for different shadesof thought. Barowne’s single line, “Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile” (Love’sLabour’s Lost, 1.1.77), as Harry Levin in his General Introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare(9) explains, “uses ‘light’ in four significations: intellect, seeking wisdom, cheats eyesight out ofdaylight.”Another instance: Othello as he enters his bedroom with a light before he smothers his dear,innocent Desdemona soliloquizes: “Put out the light, and then put out the light” (Othello,5.2.7) Here ‘light’ compares the light of Othello’s lamp or torch to Desdemona’s ‘light’ of life.In both instances, the repeated simple ordinary word carries extraordinary shades of meaning.“Usually such a tendency in a Shakespeare play indicates a more or less conscious thematicintent.” (Paul A. Jorgensen, Redeeming Shakespeare’s Words [Berkeley and Los Angeles;University of California Press, 1962], 100).Living in an age of the “grandiose humanistic confidence in the power of the word” (Levin4Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

9), Shakespeare evidently felt exuberant that he had the license to experiment with the language,further blessed by the fact that “there were no English grammars to lay down rules ordictionaries to restrict word-formation. This was an immeasurable boon for writers” (Levin10). Surely Shakespeare took full advantage of the unparalleled linguistic freedom to invent, toexperiment with, and to indulge in lavishly.However intriguing, captivating, mind-teasing, beguiling, and euphonious, Shakespeare’svocabulary can be a stumbling block, especially for readers. “In the theater the speakingactor frequently relies on tone, semantic drive, narrative context, and body language to communicatethe sense of utterly unfamiliar terms and phrases, but on the page such words becomemore noticeable and confusing” (Russ McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: AnIntroduction with Documents [Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996], 184).Unlocking the meaning of Shakespeare’s vocabulary can prove to be an interestingchallenge. Such words include those which “have dropped from common use like ‘bisson’(blind) or those that the playwright seems to have created from Latin roots . . . but thatdid not catch on, such as conspectuities’ (eyesight or vision) or ‘unplausive’ (doubtful or disapproving).Especially confusing are those words that have shifted meaning over the interveningcenturies, such as ‘proper’ (handsome), ‘nice’ (squeamish or delicate), ‘silly’ (innocent),or ‘cousin’ (kinsman, that is, not necessarily the child of an aunt or uncle” (McDonald 184).Because of semantic change, when Shakespeare uses ‘conceit,’ he does not mean ‘vanity,’ as wemight understand it to be. Strictly following etymology, Shakespeare means a ‘conception’ or‘notion,’ or possibly the ‘imagination’ itself.Perhaps several Shakespeare words “would have been strange to Shakespeare’s audiencebecause they were the products of his invention or unique usage. Some words that probablyoriginated with him include: ‘auspicious,’ ‘assassination,’ ‘disgraceful,’ ‘dwindle,’ ‘savagery.’”Certainly a brave soul, he was “ a most audacious inventor of words.” To appreciate and understandShakespeare’s English in contrast to ours, we ought to suspend our judgment and disbeliefand allow respect for the “process of semantic change, which has beencontinually eroding or encrusting his original meaning” (Levin 8).Shakespeare’s vocabulary has received greater attention that any other aspect of hislanguage. Perhaps this is because it is the most accessible with no burdensomecomplications. Whatever the cause, Shakespeare’s language will forever be challengingand captivating.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78805

Not of an Age, but for All MankindBy Douglas A. BurgerAfter an enormous expenditure of money and effort, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater has risenagain, four centuries later, on London’s south bank of the Thames. Designed as a faithfulreconstruction of the original, it uses the building methods of the time andtraditional materials (oak timbers, plaster walls, wooden pegs, water-reeds for thatchingthe roof ). From above, the shape seems circular (actually, it is twenty-six sided) with three coveredtiers of seats surrounding a central area which is open to the sky.. There the “groundlings”may stand to see the action taking place on the stage, which occupies almost half of the innerspace. There are no artificial lights, no conventional sets, no fancy rigging.Seeing a Shakespeare play in the afternoon sunlight at the new Globe must come very closeto the experience of those early-day Londoners, except, of course, that we in the twentiethcenturybehave better. We don’t yell insults at the actors, spit, or toss orange peels on theground. We also smell better: the seventeenth-century playwright, Thomas Dekker, calls theoriginal audience “Stinkards . . . glewed together in crowdes with the Steames of strong breath”(Shakespeare’s Globe: The Guide Book [London: International Globe Center, 1996], 42). Andwe are safer. The first Globe burned to the ground. The new theater has more exits, fire-retardantinsulation concealed in the walls, and water-sprinklers that poke through the thatch of theroof.That hard-headed capitalists and officials would be willing, even eager, to invest in the projectshows that Shakespeare is good business. The new Globe is just one example. Cedar City’sown Utah Shakespeare Festival makes a significant contribution to the economy of southernUtah. A sizable percentage of all the tourist dollars spent in England goes to Shakespeare’sbirthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, which would be a sleepy little agricultural town without itsfavorite son. The situation seems incredible. In our whole history, what other playwright couldbe called a major economic force? Who else—what single individual—could be listed along with agriculture, mining, and the like as an industry of a region?Why Shakespeare?The explanation, of course, goes further than an attempt to preserve our culturaltraditions. In an almost uncanny way, Shakespeare’s perceptions remain valuable for our ownunderstandings of life, and probably no other writer remains so insightful, despitethe constantly changing preoccupations of audiences over time.The people of past centuries, for example, looked to the plays for nuggets of wisdom andquotable quotes, and many of Shakespeare’s lines have passed into common parlance. There isan old anecdote about the woman, who on first seeing Hamlet, was asked how she liked theplay. She replied, “Oh, very nice, my dear, but so full of quotations.” She has itbackwards of course. Only the King James Bible has lent more “quotations” to Englishthan Shakespeare.Citizens of the late nineteenth century sought in the plays for an understanding of humannature, valuing Shakespeare’s character for traits that they recognized in themselves and inothers. The fascination continues to the present day as some of our best-known movie starsattempt to find new dimensions in the great characters: Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh inHamlet, Lawrence Fishburn in Othello, Leonardo de Caprio in Romeo + Juliet, to name just afew.Matters of gender, class, and race have preoccupied more recent audiences. Beatrice sounds arather feminist note in Much Ado about Nothing in her advice to her cousin about choosing a6Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

husband: Curtsy to your father, but say “Father, as it please me.” Coriolanus presents a recurringdilemma about class relations in its explorations of the rights and wrongs involved in a greatman’s attempt to control the masses. Racial attitudes areilluminated in Othello, where the European characters always mark the hero by his race, alwaysidentify him first as the “Moor,” are always aware of his difference. London’s new/old Globe isthus a potent symbol of the plays’ continuing worth to us. The very building demonstrates theutter accuracy of the lines written so long ago that Shakespeare is not “of an age” but “for alltime.”Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78807

Elizabeth’s EnglandIn his entire career, William Shakespeare never once set a play in Elizabethan England. Hischaracters lived in medieval England (Richard II), France (As You Like It), Vienna (Measure forMeasure), fifteenth-century Italy (Romeo and Juliet), the England ruled by Elizabeth’s father(Henry VIII) and elsewhere—anywhere and everywhere, in fact, except Shakespeare’s own timeand place. But all Shakespeare’s plays—even when they were set in ancient Rome—reflectedthe life of Elizabeth’s England (and, after her death in 1603, that of her successor, James I).Thus, certain things about these extraordinary plays will be easier to understand if we know alittle more about Elizabethan England.Elizabeth’s reign was an age of exploration—exploration of the world, exploration of man’snature, and exploration of the far reaches of the English language. This renaissanceof the arts and sudden flowering of the spoken and written word gave us two greatmonuments—the King James Bible and the plays of Shakespeare—and many othertreasures as well.Shakespeare made full use of the adventurous Elizabethan attitude toward language. Heemployed more words than any other writer in history—more than 21,000 different wordsappear in the plays—and he never hesitated to try a new word, revive an old one, or make oneup. Among the words which first appeared in print in his works are such everyday terms as“critic,” “assassinate,” “bump,” “gloomy,” “suspicious,” “and hurry;” and he invented literally dozensof phrases which we use today: such un-Shakespeare expressions as “catching a cold,” “themind’s eye,” “elbow room,” and even “pomp and circumstance.”Elizabethan England was a time for heroes. The ideal man was a courtier, an adventurer, afencer with the skill of Tybalt, a poet no doubt better than Orlando, a conversationalist withthe wit of Rosalind and the eloquence of Richard II, and a gentleman. In addition to all this,he was expected to take the time, like Brutus, to examine his own nature and the cause of hisactions and (perhaps unlike Brutus) to make the right choices. The real heroes of the age didall these things and more.Despite the greatness of some Elizabethan ideals, others seem small and undignified, to us;marriage, for example, was often arranged to bring wealth or prestige to the family, with littleregard for the feelings of the bride. In fact, women were still relatively powerless under the law.The idea that women were “lower” than men was one small part of a vast concern with orderwhich was extremely important to many Elizabethans. Most people believed that everything,from the lowest grain of sand to the highest angel, had its proper position in the scheme ofthings. This concept was called “the great chain of being.” When things were in their properplace, harmony was the result; when order was violated, the entire structure was shaken.This idea turns up again and again in Shakespeare. The rebellion against Richard II bringsbloodshed to England for generations; Romeo and Juliet’s rebellion against theirparents contributes to their tragedy; and the assassination in Julius Caesar throws Rome intocivil war.Many Elizabethans also perceived duplications in the chain of order. They believed, forexample, that what the sun is to the heaves, the king is to the state. When something wentwrong in the heavens, rulers worried: before Julius Caesar and Richard II were overthrown,comets and meteors appeared, the moon turned the color of blood, and other bizarreastronomical phenomena were reported. Richard himself compares his fall to a premature settingof the sun; when he descends from the top of Flint Castle to meet the conqueringBolingbroke, he likens himself to the driver of the sun’s chariot in Greek mythology: “Down,down I come, like glist’ring Phaeton” (3.3.178).8Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

All these ideas find expression in Shakespeare’s plays, along with hundreds of others—mostof them not as strange to our way of thinking. As dramatized by the greatestplaywright in the history of the world, the plays offer us a fascinating glimpse of the thoughtsand passions of a brilliant age. Elizabethan England was a brief skyrocket of art, adventure, andideas which quickly burned out; but Shakespeare’s plays keep the best parts of that time alightforever.(Adapted from “The Shakespeare Plays,” educational materials made possible by Exxon,Metropolitan Life, Morgan Guaranty, and CPB.)Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78809

History Is Written by the VictorsFrom Insights, 1994William Shakespeare wrote ten history plays chronicling English kings from the time ofthe Magna Carta (King John) to the beginning of England’s first great civil war, the Warsof the Roses (Richard II) to the conclusion of the war and the reuniting of the two factions(Richard III), to the reign of Queen Elizabeth’s father (Henry VIII). Between these plays,even though they were not written in chronological order, is much of the intervening historyof England, in the six Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI plays.In writing these plays, Shakespeare had nothing to help him except the standardhistory books of his day. The art of the historian was not very advanced in this period, andno serious attempt was made to get at the exact truth about a king and his reign. Instead, thegeneral idea was that any nation that opposed England was wrong, and that any Englishmanwho opposed the winning side in a civil war was wrong also.Since Shakespeare had no other sources, the slant that appears in the history books ofhis time also appears in his plays. Joan of Arc opposed the English and was not admired inShakespeare’s day, so she is portrayed as a comic character who wins her victories throughwitchcraft. Richard III fought against the first Tudor monarchs and was therefore labeled inthe Tudor histories as a vicious usurper, and he duly appears in Shakespeare’s plays as a murderingmonster.Shakespeare wrote nine of his history plays under Queen Elizabeth. She did not encouragehistorical truthfulness, but rather a patriotism, an exultant, intense conviction thatEngland was the best of all possible countries and the home of the most favored of mortals.And this patriotism breathes through all the history plays and binds them together.England’s enemy is not so much any individual king as the threat of civil war, and the historyplays come to a triumphant conclusion when the threat of civil war is finally averted, and thegreat queen, Elizabeth, is born.Shakespeare was a playwright, not a historian, and, even when his sources were correct,he would sometimes juggle his information for the sake of effective stagecraft. He was notinterested in historical accuracy; he was interested in swiftly moving action and in people.Shakespeare’s bloody and supurb king seems more convincing than the real Richard III,merely because Shakespeare wrote so effectively about him. Shakespeare moved in a differentworld from that of the historical, a world of creation rather thanof recorded fact, and it is in this world that he is so supreme a master.10Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

Mr. Shakespeare, I Presumeby Diana Major SpencerFrom Insights, 1994Could the plays known as Shakespeare’s have been written by a rural, semi-literate,uneducated, wife-deserting, two-bit actor who spelled him name differently each of the sixtimes he wrote it down? Could such a man know enough about Roman history, Italian geography,French grammar, and English court habits to create Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy ofErrors, and Henry V? Could he know enough about nobility and its tenuousrelationship to royalty to create King Lear and Macbeth?Are these questions even worth asking? Some very intelligent people think so. On the otherhand, some very intelligent people think not. Never mind quibbles about how a line should beinterpreted, or how many plays Shakespeare wrote and which ones, or which of the great tragediesreflected personal tragedies. The question of authorship is “The Shakespeare Controversy.”Since Mr. Cowell, quoting the deceased Dr. Wilmot, cast the first doubt about William ofStratford in an 1805 speech before the Ipswich Philological Society, nominees for the “realauthor” have included philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, playwright Christopher Marlowe, QueenElizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the earls of Derby, Rutland, Essex, and Oxford--amongothers.The arguments evoke two premises: first, that the proven facts about the WilliamShakespeare who was christened at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26,1564 do not configure a man of sufficient nobility of thought and language to have written theplays; and, second, that the man from Stratford is nowhere concretely identified as the authorof the plays. The name “Shakespeare”—in one of its spellings—appears on early quartos, butthe man represented by the name may not be the one from Stratford.One group of objections to the Stratford man follows from the absence of any recordthat he ever attended school—in Stratford or anywhere else. If he were uneducated, the argumentsgo, how could his vocabulary be twice as large as the learned Milton’s? How could heknow so much history, law, or philosophy? If he were a country bumpkin, how could he knowso much of hawking, hounding, courtly manners, and daily habits of the nobility? How couldhe have traveled so much, learning about other nations of Europe in enough detail to makethem the settings for his plays?The assumptions of these arguments are that such rich and noble works as thoseattributed to a playwright using the name “Shakespeare” could have been written only by someonewith certain characteristics, and that those characteristics could be distilled from the “facts”of his life. He would have to be noble; he would have to be well-educated; and so forth. Onthese grounds the strongest candidate to date is Edward de Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford.A debate that has endured its peaks and valleys, the controversy catapulted to center stage in1984 with the publication of Charlton Ogburn’s The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Ogburn,a former army intelligence officer, builds a strong case for Oxford—if one can hurdle thenotions that the author wasn’t Will Shakespeare, that literary works should be read autobiographically,and that literary creation is nothing more than reporting the facts of one’s own life.“The Controversy” was laid to rest—temporarily, at least—by justices Blackmun, Brennan, andStevens of the United States Supreme Court who, after hearingevidence from both sides in a mock trial conducted September 25, 1987 at AmericanUniversity in Washington, D.C., found in favor of the Bard of Avon.Hooray for our side!Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788011

A Nest of Singing BirdsFrom Insights, 1992Musical development was part of the intellectual and social movement that influenced allEngland during the Tudor Age. The same forces that produced writers like Sir Philip Sidney,Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, and Francis Bacon also producedmusicians of corresponding caliber. So numerous and prolific were these talented andimaginative men—men whose reputations were even in their own day firmly established andwell founded—that they have been frequently and aptly referred to as a nest of singing birds.One such figure was Thomas Tallis, whose music has officially accompanied the Anglicanservice since the days of Elizabeth I; another was his student, William Boyd, whose variety ofreligious and secular compositions won him international reputation.Queen Elizabeth I, of course, provided an inspiration for the best efforts of Englishmen,whatever their aims and activities. For music, she was the ideal patroness. She was an accomplishedperformer on the virginal (forerunner to the piano), and she aided herfavorite art immensely in every way possible, bestowing her favors on the singers in chapel andcourt and on the musicians in public and private theatrical performances. To the great composersof her time, she was particularly gracious and helpful.Singing has been an integral part of English life for as long as we have any knowledge.Long before the music was written down, the timeless folk songs were a part of our Anglo-Saxon heritage. The madrigals and airs that are enjoyed each summer at the Utah ShakespeareFestival evolved from these traditions.It was noted by Bishop Jewel in l560 that sometimes at Paul’s Cross there would be 6,000people singing together, and before the sermon, the whole congregation always sang a psalm,together with the choir and organ. When that thundering unity of congregational chorus camein, “I was so transported there was no room left in my whole body, mind, or spirit for anythingbelow divine and heavenly raptures.”Religious expression was likely the dominant musical motif of the Elizabethan period;however, the period also saw development of English stage music, with Morley, John Wilson,and Robert Johnson setting much of their music to the plays of Shakespeare. The masque, asemi-musical entertainment, reached a high degree of perfection at the court of James I, wherethe courtiers themselves were sometimes participants. An educated person of the time wasexpected to perform music more than just fairly well, and an inability in this area might elicitwhispered comments regarding lack of genteel upbringing, not only in the ability to take one’spart in a madrigal, but also in knowing the niceties of musical theory. Henry Peacham wrote inThe Compleat Gentleman in l662 that one of the fundamental qualities of a gentleman was tobe able to “sing your part sure, and...to play the same upon your viol.”Outside the walls of court could be heard street songs, lighthearted catches, and ballads,all of which indicates that music was not confined to the cathedrals or court. We still haveextant literally hundreds of ballads, street songs, and vendors’ cries that were sung or hummedon the street and played with all their complicated variations on all levels of Elizabethan society.Instruments of the period were as varied as the music and peoples, and the instrumentand songbooks which remain in existence today are indicative of the high level of excellenceenjoyed by the Elizabethans. Songbooks, mainly of part-songs for three, four, five, and sixvoices exist today, as do books of dance music: corrantos, pavans, and galliards. Records fromone wealthy family indicate the family owned forty musical instruments, including twelve12Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

But however he got into the theatre and to London, he had made a very definiteimpression on his competitors by 1592, when playwright Robert Greene attacked Shakespeareas both actor and author: “‘There is an upstart Crow, beautified with ourfeathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well ableto bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and . . . is in his own conceit the onlyShake-scene in a country’” (G. B. Harrison, Introducing Shakespeare [New York: PenguinBooks, Inc., 1947], 1).We don’t often think of Shakespeare as primarily an actor, perhaps because most of what weknow of him comes from the plays he wrote rather than the parts he played. Nevertheless, hemade much of his money as an actor and sharer in his company: “Atleast to start with, his status, his security derived more from his acting skill and his eye for businessthan from his pen” (Kay, 95). Had he been only a playwright, he would likely have died apoor man, as did Robert Greene: “In the autumn of 1592, Robert Greene, the most popularauthor of his generation, lay penniless and dying. . . . The players had grown rich on the productsof his brain, and now he was deserted and alone” (Harrison, 1).While Shakespeare made a career of acting, there are critics who might dispute his acting talent.For instance, almost a century after Shakespeare’s death, “an anonymous enthusiast of thestage . . . remarked . . . that ‘Shakespear . . . was a much better poet, than player’” (Schoenbaum,201). However, Shakespeare could have been quite a good actor, and this statement wouldstill be true. One sign of his skill as an actor is that he is mentioned in the same breath withBurbage and Kemp: “The accounts of the royal household for Mar 15 [1595] record paymentsto ‘William Kempe William Shakespeare & Richarde Burbageseruantes to the Lord Chamberlain’” (Kay, 174).Another significant indication of his talent is the very fact that he played in Londonrather than touring other less lucrative towns. If players were to be legally retained bynoblemen, they had to prove they could act, and one means of demonstrating theirlegitimacy was playing at court for Queen Elizabeth. The more skilled companies obtained thequeen’s favor and were granted permission to remain in London.Not all companies, however, were so fortunate: “Sussex’s men may not have been quite upto the transition from rural inn-yards to the more demanding circumstances of court performance.Just before the Christmas season of 1574, for example, they were inspected (‘perused’)by officials of the Revels Office, with a view to being permitted to perform before the queen;but they did not perform” (Kay, 90). Shakespeare and his company, on the other hand, performedsuccessfully in London from the early 1590s until 1611.It would be a mistake to classify William Shakespeare as only a playwright, even thegreatest playwright of the English-speaking world; he was also “an actor, a sharer, a member ofa company” (Kay, 95), obligations that were extremely relevant to his plays. As a man of thetheatre writing for a company, he knew what would work on stage and what would not andwas able to make his plays practical as well as brilliant. And perhaps more importantly, his theatricalexperience must have taught him much about the human experience, abouteveryday lives and roles, just as his plays show us that “All the world’s a stage, / And allthe men and women merely players” (As You Like It, 2.7.149-50).Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788015

Shakespeare’s Audience:A Very Motley CrowdFrom Insights, 1992When Shakespeare peeped through the curtain at the audience gathered to hear his first play, helooked upon a very motley crowd. The pit was filled with men and boys. The galleries contained a fairproportion of women, some not too respectable. In the boxes were a few gentlemen from the royalcourts, and in the lords’ box or perhaps sitting on the stage was a group of extravagantly dressed gentlemenof fashion. Vendors of nuts and fruits moved about through the crowd. Thegallants were smoking; the apprentices in the pit were exchanging rude witticisms with the paintedladies.When Shakespeare addressed his audience directly, he did so in terms of gentle courtesy orpleasant raillery. In Hamlet, however, he does let fall the opinion that the groundlings (those on theground, the cheapest seats) were “for the most part capable of nothing but dumb shows and noise.” Hisrecollections of the pit of the Globe may have added vigor to his ridicule of the Roman mob in JuliusCaesar.On the other hand, the theatre was a popular institution, and the audience was representative of allclasses of London life. Admission to standing room in the pit was a penny, and an additional pennyor two secured a seat in the galleries. For seats in the boxes or for stools on the stage, still more wascharged, up to sixpence or half a crown.Attendance at the theatres was astonishingly large. There were often five or six theatres giving dailyperformances, which would mean that out of a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, thirty thousandor more spectators each week attended the theatre. When we remember that alarge class of the population disapproved of the theatre, and that women of respectability were not frequentpatrons of the public playhouses, this attendance is remarkable.Arrangements for the comfort of the spectators were meager, and spectators were often disorderly.Playbills seem to have been posted all about town and in the theatre, and the title of the piece wasannounced on the stage. These bills contained no lists of actors, and there were no programs,ushers, or tickets. There was usually one door for the audience, where the admission fee wasdeposited in a box carefully watched by the money taker, and additional sums were required atentrance to the galleries or boxes. When the three o’clock trumpets announced the beginning of aperformance, the assembled audience had been amusing itself by eating, drinking, smoking, and playingcards, and they sometimes continued these occupations during a performance. Pickpockets werefrequent, and, if caught, were tied to a post on the stage. Disturbances were not infrequent, sometimesresulting in general rioting.The Elizabethan audience was fond of unusual spectacle and brutal physical suffering. They likedbattles and murders, processions and fireworks, ghosts and insanity. They expected comedy to aboundin beatings, and tragedy in deaths. While the audience at the Globe expected some of these sensationsand physical horrors, they did not come primarily for these. (Real blood and torture were availablenearby at the bear baitings, and public executions were not uncommon.) Actually, there were very fewpublic entertainments offering as little brutality as did the theatre.Elizabethans attended the public playhouses for learning. They attended for romance,imagination, idealism, and art; the audience was not without refinement, and those looking for foodfor the imagination had nowhere to go but to the playhouse. There were no newspapers, no magazines,16Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

almost no novels, and only a few cheap books; theatre filled the desire for storydiscussion among people lacking other educational and cultural opportunities.The most remarkable case of Shakespeare’s theatre filling an educational need is probably thatof English history. The growth of national patriotism culminating in the English victory over theSpanish Armada gave dramatists a chance to use the historical material, and for the fifteen years fromthe Armada to the death of Elizabeth, the stage was deluged with plays based on the events of Englishchronicles, and familiarity with English history became a cultural asset of the London crowd,Law was a second area where the Elizabethan public seems to have been fairly well informed, andsuccessful dramatists realized the influence that the great development of civil law in thesixteenth century exercised upon the daily life of the London citizen. In this area, as in others,the dramatists did not hesitate to cultivate the cultural background of their audience wheneveropportunity offered, and the ignorance of the multitude did not prevent it from taking an interest innew information and from offering a receptive hearing to the accumulated lore of lawyers,historians, humanists, and playwrights.The audience was used to the spoken word, and soon became trained in blank verse, delighting inmonologues, debates, puns, metaphors, stump speakers, and sonorous declamation. The public wasaccustomed to the acting of the old religious dramas, and the new acting in which thespoken words were listened to caught on rapidly. The new poetry and the great actors who recited itfound a sensitive audience. There were many moments during a play when spectacle, brutality,and action were all forgotten, and the audience fed only on the words. Shakespeare and hiscontemporaries may be deemed fortunate in having an audience essentially attentive, eager forthe newly unlocked storehouse of secular story, and possessing the sophistication and interest to befed richly by the excitements and levities on the stage.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788017

Shakespeare SnapshotsFrom Insights, 2002By Ace G. PilkingtonIt is hard to get from the facts of Shakespeare’s life to any sense of what it must have been like tohave lived it. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon and died there in 1616. The day of his birthis not certain, but it may have been the same as the day of his death—April 23—if he was baptized, aswas usual at the time, three days after he was born. He married Anne Hathaway in the winter of 158283, when he was eighteen and she was twenty-six. He became the father of three children. The firstwas Susannah, who was born around May 23, close enough to the date of the wedding to suggest thatthe marriage was not entirely voluntary. Shakespeare’s twins, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized onFebruary 2, 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes (at least unknown by us at this distance in time)in 1596. Shakespeare’s career as actor, theatre owner, manager, and, of course, playwright began in thevicinity of 1590 and continued for the rest of his life, though there are clear indications that he spentmore and more time in Stratford and less and less in London from 1611 on. His work in the theatremade him wealthy, and his extraordinary plays brought him a measure of fame, though nothing likewhat he deserved or would posthumously receive.It’s hard to get even the briefest sense of what Shakespeare’s life was like from such information. Itis probably impossible ever to know what Shakespeare thought or felt, but maybe we can get closer towhat he saw and heard and even smelled. Perhaps some snapshots—little close-ups—might help tobring us nearer to the world in which Shakespeare lived if not quite to the life he lived in that world.In Shakespeare’s youth, chimneys were a new thing. Before that, smoke was left to find its way outthrough a hole in the roof, often a thatched roof, and there were even some who maintained that thissmoky atmosphere was better than the newfangled fresh air that chimneys made possible—along witha greater division of rooms and more privacy.In the year of Shakespeare’s birth, Stratford had more trees than houses—”upwards of 400 housesas well as 1,000 elms and forty ashes” (Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Professional Career [Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1992], 1). Peter Levi says, “The town was so full of elm trees that it musthave looked and sounded like a woodland settlement. For example, Mr. Gibbs’s house on Rothermarkethad twelve elms in the garden and six in front of the door. Thomas Attford on Ely Street had anothertwelve. The town boundaries were marked by elms or groups of elms (The Life and Times of WilliamShakespeare [New York: Wings Books, 1988], 7). Shakespeare’s “Bare ruined choirs where late thesweet birds sang” becomes a far more majestic image with the picture of Stratford’s elms in mind. Andthe birds themselves had a sound which modern ears no longer have a chance to enjoy. “We must realizethat it was ordinary for . . . Shakespeare to hear a dawn chorus of many hundreds of birds at once. .. . as a young man thirty years ago I have heard a deafening dawn chorus in the wooded Chilterns, onShakespeare’s road to London” (Levi 10).Exactly what Shakespeare’s road to London may have been or at least how he first made his waythere and became an actor is much debated. He might have been a schoolmaster or fifty other things,but he may well have started out as he ended up—as a player. We can then, in John Southworth’swords, “Picture a sixteen-year-old lad on a cart, growing year by year into manhood, journeying out ofthe Arden of his childhood into ever more unfamiliar, distant regions, travelling ill-made roads in allweathers, sleeping in inns, hearing and memorising strange new dialects and forms of speech, meetingwith every possible type and character of person; learning, most of all perhaps, from the audiences towhich he played in guildhalls and inns” (Shakespeare the Player: A Life in the Theatre [Gloucestershire:Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000], 30). At some time in his life—in fact, many times—Shakespearemust have known theatrical tours very like that.18Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

In London itself, the new Globe, the best theatre in (or rather just outside of ) the city, wasin an area with a large number of prisons and an unpleasant smell. “Garbage hadpreceded actors on the marshy land where the new playhouse was erected: `flanked witha ditch and forced out of a marsh’, according to Ben Jonson. Its cost . . . included theprovision of heavy piles for the foundation, and a whole network of ditches in which the waterrose and fell with the tidal Thames” (Garry O’Connor, William Shakespeare: A Popular Life[New York: Applause Books, 2000], 161). The playgoers came by water, and the Globe, theRose, and the Swan “drew 3,000 or 4,000 people in boats across the Thames every day” (161).Peter Levi says of Shakespeare’s London, “The noise, the crowds, theanimals and their droppings, the glimpses of grandeur and the amazing squalor of the poor,were beyond modern imagination” (49).England was a place of fear and glory. Public executions were public entertainments. Severedheads decayed on city walls. Francis Bacon, whom Will Durant calls “the most powerful andinfluential intellect of his time” (Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from AncientTimes to the Dawn of the Modern Age [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001], 327), had been“one of the persons commissioned to question prisoners under torture” in the 1580s (Levi 4).The opportune moment when Shakespeare became the most successful of playwrights wasthe destruction of Thomas Kyd, “who broke under torture and was never the same again,” andthe death of Christopher Marlowe in a tavern brawl which was the result of plot and counterplot—astruggle, very probably, between Lord Burghley and Walter Ralegh (Levi 48).Shakespeare, who must have known the rumors and may have known the truth, cannot havehelped shuddering at such monstrous good fortune. Still, all of the sights, smells, and terrors,from the birdsongs to the screams of torture, from the muddy tides to the ties of blood, becamenot only the textures and tonalities of Shakespeare’s life, but also the information and inspirationbehind his plays.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788019

20Ghosts, Witches, and ShakespeareBy Howard WatersFrom Insights, 2006Some time in the mid 1580s, young Will Shakespeare, for reasons not entirely clear to us,left his home, his wife, and his family in Stratford and set off for London. It was a time whenElizabeth, “la plus fine femme du monde,” as Henry III of France called her, had occupied thethrone of England for over twenty-five years. The tragedy of Mary Stuart was past; the ordealof Essex was in the future. Sir Francis Drake’s neutralization of the Spanish Armada was pendingand rumors of war or invasion blew in from all the great ports.What could have been more exciting for a young man from the country, one who was alreadymore than half in love with words, than to be headed for London!It was an exciting and frightening time, when the seven gates of London led to a maze ofstreets, narrow and dirty, crowded with tradesmen, carts, coaches, and all manner of humanity.Young Will would have seen the moated Tower of London, looking almost like an island apart.There was London Bridge crowded with tenements and at the southern end a cluster of traitors’heads impaled on poles. At Tyburn thieves and murderers dangled, at Limehouse pirateswere trussed up at low tide and left to wait for the water to rise over them. At Tower Hill theheadsman’s axe flashed regularly, while for the vagabonds there were the whipping posts, andfor the beggars there were the stocks. Such was the London of the workaday world, and youngWill was undoubtedly mentally filing away details of what he saw, heard, and smelled.Elizabethan people in general were an emotional lot and the ferocity of their entertainmentreflected that fact. Bear-baiting, for example, was a highly popular spectator sport, and thestructure where they were generally held was not unlike the theatres of the day. A bear waschained to a stake in the center of the pit, and a pack of large dogs was turned loose to bait,or fight, him. The bear eventually tired (fortunately for the remaining dogs!), and, well, youcan figure the rest out for yourself. Then there were the public hangings, whippings, or drawingand quarterings for an afternoon’s entertainment. So, the violence in some of Shakespeare’splays was clearly directed at an audience that reveled in it. Imagine the effect of having an actorpretend to bite off his own tongue and spit a chunk of raw liver that he had carefully packed inhis jaw into the faces of the groundlings!Despite the progressing enlightenment of the Renaissance, superstition was still rampantamong Elizabethan Londoners, and a belief in such things as astrology was common (RalphP. Boas and Barbara M. Hahna, “The Age of Shakespeare,” Social Backgrounds of EnglishLiterature, [Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1931] 93). Through the position of stars manyElizabethans believed that coming events could be foretold even to the extent of mapping out aperson’s entire life.Where witches and ghosts were concerned, it was commonly accepted that they existed andthe person who scoffed at them was considered foolish, or even likely to be cursed. Considerthe fact that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was supposedly cursed due to the playwright’s havinggiven away a few more of the secrets of witchcraft than the weird sisters may have approvedof. For a time, productions experienced an uncanny assortment of mishaps and injuries. Eventoday, it is often considered bad luck for members of the cast and crew to mention the nameof the production, simply referred to as the Scottish Play. In preaching a sermon, Bishop Jewelwarned the Queen: “It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers withinthese last few years are marvelously increased. Your Grace’s subjects pine away, even untodeath; their color fadeth; their flesh rotteth; their speech is benumbed; their senses bereft”Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

(Walter Bromberg, “Witchcraft and Psychotherapy”, The Mind of Man [New York: HarperTorchbooks 1954], 54).Ghosts were recognized by the Elizabethans in three basic varieties: the vision or purely subjectiveghost, the authentic ghost who has died without opportunity of repentance, and thefalse ghost which is capable of many types of manifestations (Boas and Hahn). Whena ghost was confronted, either in reality or in a Shakespeare play, some obviousdiscrimination was called for (and still is). Critics still do not always agree on which of thesethree types haunts the pages of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Richard III, or Hamlet, or, in somecases, why they are necessary to the plot at all. After all, Shakespeare’s ghosts are a capriciouslot, making themselves visible or invisible as they please. In Richard III there are no fewer thaneleven ghosts on the stage who are visible only to Richard and Richmond. In Macbeth theghost of Banquo repeatedly appears to Macbeth in crowded rooms but is visibleonly to him. In Hamlet, the ghost appears to several people on the castle battlements but onlyto Hamlet in his mother’s bedchamber. In the words of E.H. Seymour: “If we judge by sheerreason, no doubt we must banish ghosts from the stage altogether, but if we regulate our fancyby the laws of superstition, we shall find that spectres are privileged to be visibleto whom they will (E.H. Seymour “Remarks, Critical, Conjectural, and Explanatory onShakespeare” in Macbeth A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare [New York: DoverPublications Inc., 1963] 211).Shakespeare’s audiences, and his plays, were the products of their culture. Since the validity ofany literary work can best be judged by its public acceptance, not to mention its lasting power,it seems that Shakespeare’s ghosts and witches were, and are, enormously popular. If modernaudiences and critics find themselves a bit skeptical, then they might consider bringing along asupply of Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” Elizabethans simply had no need of it.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788021

Shakespeare’s Day: What They WoreThe clothing which actors wear to perform a play is called a costume, to distinguish it fromeveryday clothing. In Shakespeare’s time, acting companies spent almost as much on costumesas television series do today.The costumes for shows in England were so expensive that visitors from France were alittle envious. Kings and queens on the stage were almost as well dressed as kings and queens inreal life.Where did the acting companies get their clothes? Literally, “off the rack” and from usedclothing sellers. Wealthy middle class people would often give their servants old clothes thatthey didn’t want to wear any more, or would leave their clothes to the servants when they died.Since clothing was very expensive, people wore it as long as possible and passed it on from oneperson to another without being ashamed of wearing hand-me-downs. However, since servantswere of a lower class than their employers, they weren’t allowed to wear rich fabrics, and wouldsell these clothes to acting companies, who were allowed to wear what they wanted in performance.A rich nobleman like Count Paris or a wealthy young man like Romeo would wear a doublet,possibly of velvet, and it might have gold embroidery. Juliet and Lady Capulet would haveworn taffeta, silk, gold, or satin gowns, and everybody would have had hats, gloves, ruffs (anelaborate collar), gloves, stockings, and shoes equally elaborate.For a play like Romeo and Juliet, which was set in a European country at about the same timeShakespeare wrote it, Elizabethan everyday clothes would have been fine—theaudience would have been happy, and they would have been authentic for the play. However,since there were no costume shops who could make clothing suitable for, say, medievalDenmark for Hamlet, or ancient Rome for Julius Caesar, or Oberon and Titania’s forest for AMidsummer Night’s Dream, these productions often looked slightly strange—can you imaginefairies in full Elizabethan collars and skirts? How would they move?Today’s audiences want costumes to be authentic, so that they can believe in the world ofthe play. However, Romeo and Juliet was recently set on Verona Beach, with very up-to-dateclothes indeed; and about thirty years ago, West Side Story, an updated musical version of theRomeo and Juliet tale, was set in the Puerto Rican section of New York City.Activity: Discuss what the affect of wearing “special” clothes is—to church, or to a party. Doyou feel different? Do you act different? How many kinds of wardrobes do you have? School,play, best? Juliet and Romeo would have had only one type of clothing each, no matter hownice it was.Activity: Perform a scene from the play in your everyday clothes, and then in moreformal clothes. Ask the participants and the spectators to describe the differences between thetwo performances.22Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

Synopsis: The Merry Wives of WindsorSir John Falstaff is up to his usual tricks. Justice Shallow and his cousin, Slender, complain to Sir HughEvans that Falstaff has swindled them. Evans suggests they forget their grievances and that Slender courtAnne Page, master Page’s daughter. The unrepentant Falstaff arrives on the scene, admitting to the swindle.Later, he decides to generate some income for himself. Convinced that both women are enamored of him,he writes identical love letters to Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, intending to gain access to their husbands’wealth.Elsewhere in Windsor, Mistress Quickly tells her employer, Dr. Caius, about Slender’s plan to woo AnnePage. Caius, also in love with the lass, writes a letter challenging Evans to a duel, which leads to some hilarious“sparring.” Soon, Fenton enters and reveals himself to be a third suitor for the hand of Anne Page.Shortly, Falstaff ’s amorous letters are delivered, and Mistress Page and Mistress Ford decide to teach hima lesson, with Mistress Quickly acting as go-between. Meanwhile, their husbands have learned of Falstaff ’splans. The jealous Ford decides to put his wife’s honor to the test and arranges to be introduced to Falstaff indisguise as “Mr. Brook.”Mistress Quickly hurries to tell Falstaff that Mistress Ford wants him to visit her while her husband is away.Ford, disguised as “Mr. Brook,” offers Falstaff money to court his wife as a test of her virtue. Falstaff boasts thathe has already arranged a tryst with her, and Ford leaves, enraged at his wife’s apparent infidelity.Mistress Page meets Ford, who is on his way to catch his wife and Falstaff together, and she rushes towarn Mistress Ford. Cleverly, the wives contrive to involve Ford’s arrival into their plot against Falstaff. Whenthe rotund rogue arrives, Mistress Page cries out in alarm that Ford is coming. Falstaff hides in a hamper ofdirty laundry, which is soon dumped into the river.Meanwhile, Anne Page, who loves Fenton, must submit to the clumsy wooing of Slender, whom herfather supports, and of Caius, whom her mother encourages.Falstaff boasts to “Mr. Brook” about his narrow escape in the laundry basket, and about his upcomingsecond rendezvous with Mistress Ford. He leaves for the Ford home with “Mr. Brook” close behind. Thistime, the women disguise Falstaff as the fat witch of Brainford. Ford cudgels the witch from his home, andthe wives decide it’s time to let their husbands in on the joke.Mr. Ford and Mr. Page plan further fun at Falstaff ’s expense. They will lure him to a haunted park wheretownspeople disguised as fairies, will frighten him. Later, in the park, Mr. Page advises Slender to elope withAnne, whom he thinks will be disguised as a fairy dressed in white. Mistress Page informs Caius that Annewill be dressed in green. Everyone else is ready, and they take their places. Falstaff arrives, fully dressed asHerne the Hunter. The fairies appear, the women flee, and Falstaff is pinched and taunted unmercifully.Meanwhile, Slender and Caius snatch their green and white “Annes” as Fenton escapes with the real one.The Fords and Pages reveal their joke to Falstaff, but their joy is short lived as Slender and Caius appear,each of whom has discovered that his beloved has turned out to be a boy in a fairy costume.Anne and Fenton, now married, return, and their parents accept the situation philosophically. MistressPage invites the entire company to her home for a laugh over all the complications that have finally beenresolved.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788023

Characters: The Merry Wives of WindsorSir John Falstaff: A farcical old knight, Sir John tries to “woo” Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. He isunsuccessful and becomes, instead, the butt of their jokes.Fenton: A penniless gentleman and suitor of Anne Page, Fenton is Anne’s true love and elopes withher, in defiance of her parents.Robert Shallow: A country justice, Shallow encourages his nephew Slender’s suit of Anne Page.Abraham Slender: A cousin of Shallow and unsuccessful suitor of Anne Page, Slender’s wit is as slim ashis name implies.Francis Ford: A gentleman of Windsor and husband of Mistress Alice Ford, Master Ford disguiseshimself as “Brook” to spy on his wife and Falstaff.George Page: A gentleman of Windsor and husband of Mistress Margaret Page, Master Page is morereasonable and less jealous than Master Ford.William Page: The youngest son of Master and Mistress PageSir Hugh Evans: A Welsh parsonDoctor Caius: A French physician and unsuccessful suitor of Anne PageHost of the Garter InnBardolph: A follower and friend of FalstaffPistol: A follower and friend of FalstaffNym: A follower and friend of FalstaffRobin: A page of FalstaffPeter Simple: A servant of Slender, Simple’s name describes him wellJohn Rugby: A servant of Doctor CaiusMistress Alice Ford: The wife of Francis Ford and one of the objects of Falstaff ’s wooing, MistressFord not only teaches Falstaff a lesson, but also exposes her husband’s jealousy and foolishness.Mistress Margaret Page: The wife of George Page and one of the objects of Falstaff ’s wooing, MistressPage helps in teaching Falstaff a much-needed lesson.Mistress Anne Page: The daughter of Master and Mistress Page, Anne is in love with and eventuallyelopes with Fenton.Mistress Quickly: A servant of Doctor Caius24Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

The Merry Wives of Windsor:Herne the HunterFrom Insights, 1992As with many of William Shakespeare’s plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor is full of real places,real people, and real folklore. For example, Herne’s Oak, where the inept old con man, Falstaff, is luredfor his final humiliation, is a real place, located in the play with accuracy. The character and legend ofHerne the Hunter were definitely familiar to the Elizabethans, and antiquarian research has demonstratedthe exactness of Shakespeare’s knowledge of Old Windsor.It would seem that there existed in Shakespeare’s day a tradition at Windsor that Herne was one ofthe keepers of the park, who, having committed an offense for which he feared to be disgraced, hunghimself upon an oak, which was ever afterwards haunted by his ghost: thus Herne’s Oak.The Quarto and Folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays both refer to the legend. The Quarto reads,“Oft have you heard since Herne the hunter dyed.” However, the Folio makes the tale a much moreancient one.Another, somewhat later, notice of Herne’s Oak is in a “Plan of the town and Castle of Windsorand Little Park” (1742); in a map therein, a tree marked “Sir John Falstaff ’s oak” is represented asbeing on the edge of a pit just on the outside of an avenue which was formed in the seventeenth centuryand known as Queen Elizabeth’s Walk.Later still, but adding to the evidence that such a tree existed, is Halliwell’s edition of the Quarto,which includes a set of verses “Upon Herne’s Oak being cut down in the spring of 1796.”Thus, whether the legend being Herne the Hunter is true or not, really doesn’t matter. The legenddid exist, even to the extent that the tree and the park where he killed himself were known to thepeople of the day.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788025

26The Merry Wives of Windsor:A Good Time for AllFrom Insights, 1992There can be little doubt about when Shakespeare’s knavish knight Sir John Falstaff was born--1597. He came to life in that year on the stage of the Globe Theatre in Henry IV, Part I, andLondoners immediately took him to their hearts. Falstaff appeared again in Henry lV, Part II, andwhen the epilogue promised more Falstaff in Henry V and then he didn’t appear but was killed offstage,his scenes remained so popular that Shakespeare may have regretted the necessity of dispensingwith him.Demand for more comic scenes with the roguish knight may have induced him to write one moreplay utilizing the fat old turkey cock.Thus, The Merry Wives of Windsor is and has been for almost 400 years one of Shakespeare’s morepopular comedies. It is the only play Shakespeare wrote that takes place in the England of his own time.It is a fractured tale of middle class chicanery and romance. resembling a first class television situationcomedy. It brings together an assortment of sure-fire theatrical elements: an inept con-man, a jealoushusband with a mischievous wife, a pair of young lovers, a dose of disguise, slapstick, elopements, and aforgive-and-forget ending. Shakespeare sets out, in short, to give the audience a good time.Victorian critics found the Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor too gross for their tastes andcondemned Shakespeare for writing a play lacking in those genteel qualities that literary men of thenineteenth century thought Shakespeare ought to have displayed. Forgetting that Shakespeare was apractical man of the theatre, ready to capitalize upon the popularity of a character who had alreadywon the plaudits of Elizabethan audiences, even later scholar-critics have worried about the “degeneration”in Shakespeare’s concept of the fat knight and the “claptrap” introduced in The Merry Wives ofWindsor.The truth is that this play is highly effective upon the stage and has enjoyed a more continuouslife in the playhouse than most of Shakespeare’s comedies. It was written to be seen on the stage ratherthan to be read in the study, although its dialogue is funnier in reading than that of many plays moreesteemed by critics. Shakespeare, the successful producer, knew precisely what he was about when heput together The Meny Wives of Windsor, and we too can share the enjoyment experienced by theElizabethan audience if we disregard “literary” criticism that misses the point of Shakespearean farce.Early in the eighteenth century a story gained currency that Queen Elizabeth herself commandedShakespeare to write a play showing Falstaff in love. John Dennis, who made an adaptation of TheMerry Wives of Windsor in 1702, was the first to publish this tale; he declared that the Queen was soeager to see it acted “that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days.” Nicholas Rowe in 1709repeated the story, either taking it from Dennis or from their common source.This explanation of the composition of The Meny Wives of Windsor cannot be proved, but it iseasy to believe. From what we know about Queen Elizabeth, she had a robust sense of humor capable ofappreciating Falstaff and it is not out of character for her to order the dramatist to show Falstaff in love.This is the most English of Shakespeare’s comedies, and the queen herself was proud to declareherself “mere English.” And it is also not out of character for Shakespeare to supply scenes of boisterouscomedy portraying the lecherous old braggart discomfited by the two virtuous wives of Windsor, whothemselves loved a practical joke.o profound lessons are implicit in this play, and no refinements of aesthetic theory can be foundby the most diligent searcher, for Shakespeare was not only a poet and analyst but also, and primarily, apractical playwright who himself would have greeted the worry of the aesthetes about Falstaff ’s degenerationwith a roar of gusty laughter.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

The Merry Wives of Windsor:Double, or Even Triple, EntendreBy Diana Major SpencerFrom Souvenir Program, 1992Interesting, isn’t it, that their queen should live at Buckingham—the washing place—and ourpresident should live in Washington? Buck, wash, launder, bleach, whiten—these near-synonyms possiblydescribe an imperative of politics, but they certainly offered Shakespeare several choices as hecomposed his Falstaffian fabliau, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Further, as one comes to expect fromthe Bard’s renditions of commoners, he used the one most likely to titillate his audience with its doubleor, in this case, triple entendre.Indeed, Shakespeare could easily have had Falstaff hide in a washing basket, whiting-basket, clothesbasket, or laundry basket; but he chose instead a buck-basket. All were current in Shakespeare’s language,and, in fact, he uses all five in this play alone. To wit, before we even meet Mistress Quickly,Sir Hugh Evans identifies her as Dr. Caius’s “laundry—his washer and his wringer” (1.2.4-5). Later,Falstaff escapes the wrath of Master Ford in a buck-basket “with stinking clothes that fretted in theirown grease” (3.5.113-14), and since it is “whiting-time” (3.3.132), Mistress Ford sends the buck-basket“to the laundress in Datchet-mead” (3.3.148) a direction repeated by the servant: “To the laundress,forsooth” (3.3.152).Of these words, however, buck alone furnishes not only a laundry term, but a raunchy pun as well.Questioning her husband’s unwholesome interest in the laundry, Mistress Ford chides, “You were bestmeddle with buck-washing,” at which Ford exclaims, as the servants carry the basket out beneath hisvery nose: “Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! ay buck! I warrant you,buck, and of the season too, it shall appear” (3.3.155-59). So much repetition in such a state of agitationsignals a word of great import.To the innocent understanding (so they would have their husbands believe) of the chaste wives,buck-washing begins with steeping the dirty clothes in a solution of lye to bleach them—it is, afterall, “whiting time” (3.3.131). Thus, a buck-basket is merely a basket to carry laundry to the “buckingplace”(or bucking-ham). But to a frantic husband under threat of witolly (cuckolding), buck wouldautomatically signify the male of various horned species, such as deer and goat; and most likely, hethinks, himself—the cuckold, the man whose wife is unfaithful, the man with horns on his forehead.Paradoxically, buck also refers to notoriously lusty male animals, as stags, goats (satyrs), rabbits, orhares—or Falstaff: the (would-be) perpetrator rather than the passive victim of cuckoldry. In the finalscene at Herne’s Oak, Falstaff uses both meanings within a few lines; he enters “with a buck’s headupon him” and invokes the power of Jove: “Thou wast a bull for thy Europa, love set on thy horns”(5.5.1-4). He implores the wives to “divide me like a brib’d-buck, each a haunch . . . and my horns Ibequeath to your husbands” (5.5.24-27).But why, if horns signify hot-bloodedness, would they also signify a man who apparently lacks it?Moreover, if the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, why should the one whose nest was fouled becalled “cuckoo”? Originally, so the theory goes, the sign of the horn and cries of “cuckoo” were directedtoward the wronged husband to warn of the approach of his wife’s paramour. Over time, the signalswere understood as identifying the cuckold himself, whether or not the lover were present; thus thepoor, unfortunate husband became “cuckold” and “wore the horns.”Nowhere has Shakespeare’s language changed so much as in its slang—especially its slang forlechery, lasciviousness, and cuckoldry. The Merry Wives of Windsor provides a treasury of visual andverbal references to cuckoldry. Aside from the attention to bucking and such direct labels as cuckold,Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788027

peaking Cornuto, and wittolly, Shakespeare twice alludes to Actaeon, the unfortunate Greek hunterturned into a stag (with horns) and torn to pieces by his dogs after he stumbled upon Diana bathing.Ford characterizes himself as horn-mad, a term also used by Mistress Quickly of Dr. Caius in anothercontext.In the end, of course, Falstaff wears the horns, not as buck or cuckold, but as a chump—or, as hesays, “I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass” (5.5.119). Master Ford promises never again toimagine horns (mistrust his wife), and Master Page pronounces universal forgiveness: “What cannot beeschew’d must be embrac’d” (5.5.237). Above all, honorable love triumphs.28The Merry Wives of Windsor:The Same Sir John StillBy Ace G. PilkingtonFrom Midsummer Magazine, 1992Sometime between the fall of 1596 and the spring of 1597, John Falstaff first stepped onto theboards of the Globe Theatre. His coming was an extraordinary event, like the sighting of a new andhuge planet in the sky. In his case the planet must have been a gas giant, accompanied by a number ofsmaller satellites and so luminous that it all but eclipsed even the royal son it accompanied. In largemeasure because of Falstaff, Henry IV, Part I was an instant, and has been a continuing, success. If quartoeditions are anything to go by, the play was the most popular of all Shakespeare’s works during hislife and soon after his death, with seven editions before the First Folio and two following it. Falstaff ’sfame (and unmistakable form) were carried on into Henry IV, Part II, and his dying words give a reverberatingpathos (even in the Hostess’s mouth) to the early scenes of Henry V.The roguish old knight and highwayman, whose cowardice was exceeded only by his cunning,established himself as the best known of all Shakespeare’s creations in the seventeenth century. TheShakspere Allusion-Book cannot deal with him as a mere character in a play but indicates, “For thepurposes of this Index, Falstaff is treated as a work.” He has, as the Allusion-Book says, “131 referenceswhile Othello (the next highest) . . . scores only 55” (“Introduction,” Shakespeare: Henry IV, Parts I andII, A Casebook, ed. G. K. Hunter [London: Macmillan, 1983], 16).According to legend, Falstaff ’s popularity was not confined to the groundlings and middle classbut extended to Queen Elizabeth herself: “The Restoration theatre tradition recorded by John Dennisin 1702 and Rowe in 1709 was that the Queen had demanded a play about Falstaff in love, andShakespeare wrote it in a fortnight” (Peter Levi, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare [NewYork: Henry Holt and Company, 1988], 209). That play was, of course, The Merry Wives of Windsor.WITS’ COMBAT AND CRITICS’ CONFLICT. But, as Falstaff knew, honor will not live withthe living (or even with literary immortals) because detraction will not suffer it, and the fat knight’svery popularity engenders arguments, just as his many incarnations inspire partisans. He says in HenryIV, Part II that “I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men” (The CompleteSignet Classic Shakespeare, ed.Sylvan Barnet [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972], 1.2.9-10). He is in additionthe cause of wits’ combat and critics’ conflict; there are those who believe that even for someone of SirJohn’s appetites, his appearances in the second tetralogy constitute a surfeit of sequels, and The MerryWives of Windsor is one course too many. Further, they believe that Falstaff in moving from history tocomedy has lost much of his savor and most of his weight and is not, so to speak, a “twentieth part theUtah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

tithe of [his] precedent” lard (Hamlet, 3.4.98-99).A. C. Bradley, who calls this comic Sir John “the imposter,” wrote in 1909, “To picture the realFalstaff befooled like the Falstaff of the Merry Wives is like imagining Iago the gull of Roderigo. . . .The separation of these two has long ago been effected by criticism, and is insisted on in almost allcompetent estimates of the character of Falstaff ” (“The Reject ion of Falstaff,” Shakespeare: KingHenry IV Parts I and II, A Casebook, ed. G. K. Hunter [London: Macmillan, 1983], 57).However, I am about to insist that Sir John is “constant as the Northern Star,” jumping genreswith the same nimbleness that he avoids debts and finding himself much the same man whether he ismatched with the wild prince or the merry wives. Part of the problem with Bradley’s position is that,having rightly idealized Sir John as a wonder of wit, he insists, against all the evidence, that the fatknight is also a master tactician. Nothing could be more wrong. Falstaff is a superb talker, an incomparableperformer, a veritable “star of England,” but he could never be considered for the criminalmastermind Oscar. As W. H. Auden observes in “The Prince’s Dog,” Falstaff and his cohorts are “byany worldly standards, including those of the criminal classes, all of them failures” (emphasis his; TheDyer’s Hand and Other Essays [London: Faber and Faber, 1962], 183).In Henry IV, Part I, Falstaff has his horse stolen and his pocket picked and is outmaneuvered byPoins with Prince Hal’s help so that the fat knight finds his ill-gotten loot stolen from him in turn bytwo mysterious figures in buckram. Further, even the first part of this robbery goes awry; he is recognizedas a result of his size and pursued to his tavern lair. Only the intervention of the Prince of Walesand the paying back of the twice-stolen money saves Falstaff from prison.In Henry IV, Part II, the Lord Chief Justice accuses Sir John of crimes in general, the Hostess joinsin with the specific accusations of evasion of debt and breach of promise, Hal and Poins fool him bydisguising themselves once again, Prince John threatens him with a hanging for coming late to thebattle, and, finally, when Jack Falstaff interrupts Hal’s coronation procession, the young king rejectsand banishes him. At the last, the Chief Justice gives orders to “Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet”(5.5.93). The Fleet was a prison for distinguished prisoners, but it was a prison just the same.CONSTANTLY BEING CAUGHT. Where is there anything in Falstaff ’s history to justifyBradley’s confidence that the fat knight cannot be fooled? It is true he cannot be outfaced or outtalked,but he is constantly being caught by a plot or caught out in one of his schemes. Indeed, Poins earlyidentifies the central comic satisfaction which attaches to Sir John, “The virtue of this jest will be theincomprehensible [unlimited] lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper” (HenryIV, Part I, 1.2.183-5). It is vital that Falstaff be caught so that he may save himself with his wit, befooled so that he may whip his persecutors with words, and be abused so that he may strike back withhis most unsavory similes. In short, Falstaff is funniest when he fails and most enjoyable when he isleast at ease, giving us his best when he is suffering the worst. It is a measure of his comic power that nodefeat can vanquish him and a feature of his character that no disappointment (until Hal’s rejection)can put out the light of his optimism.In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff suffers the pangs of three several deaths and gives birth tomuch humor. Here, he is among the bourgeoisie and not the aristocracy, and (as Sir John to all Europe)he tends to underestimate his opposition, but he is the same Falstaff still with the same glorious foiblesand follies. As Ruth Nevo writes, “the character of Falstaff has not changed. The craft, the shrewdness,the brass, the zest are all there. The very accents and rhythms, the vivid similes, the puns, thepreposterous hyperboles, the loving ingenuity with which he enlarges on his monstrous girth” (ComicTransformations in Shakespeare [London: Methuen, 1980], 155). It is a prose that in Peter Levi’swords “sparkles and crackles along . . . crammed with short, sensuous phrases” (The Life and Times ofWilliam Shakespeare, 210).Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788029

There is, however, one difference between Falstaff ’s defeats in the second tetralogy and his griefsin The Merry Wives of Windsor that may be troubling some critics. In Merry Wives, the fat knightis not bested by that royal manipulator Prince Hal but by two middle class women. And here, I suspect,is the real center of Bradley’s outrage, the real reason for his cry of “imposter.” But this, after all,is Shakespeare’s universe, a place much like the real thing, where women are almost always as clever asmen and usually cleverer.Indeed, Ruth Nevo sees The Merry Wives of Windsor as a turning point in Shakespeare’s development,a shift from masculine to feminine merrymakers, and “comic heroines, it will transpire, may evenbetter their instruction” (Comic Transformations in Shakespeare, 153).THE SAME SIR JOHN STILL. If Falstaff is defeated in The Merry Wives of Windsor, he is thesame Sir John still, unsinkable in any water, irrepressible in any difficulty, impervious to discouragementbecause he knows and loves his own ability to slip from the grip of any adversity. He is a scapegoatwhose own weight of sin is so great that he can bear all of Windsor’s in addition without noticingthe difference.And if, at the end of the play, he is laughed at, he gets to laugh in his turn. As James J. Christywrites in his preliminary notes to the 1992 Utah Shakespeare Festival production, “the Pages, whofancy themselves so well on top of things with respect to Sir John, find themselves the dupes of theirdaughter and Fenton and have to accept an aristocratic alliance that has the blessing of true love.”Fenton, too, is a friend of the wild prince, and the victory goes at last to Falstaff ’s party, as it mustin any stage performance where that great, glowing, humorous planet fills the skies with his uniquewarmth. And, oh yes, there is only one Sir John, wherever he may show himself and whatever laundrybaskets he may hide his light under. “Is not the truth the truth?” (Henry IV, Part I, 2.4.230-31).30Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

The Merry Wives of Windsor:For Love or MoneyBy Ace G. Pilkington and Angel M. PilkingtonInsights, 2000Comedies are supposed to be about love as surely as tragedies are supposed to be about death.As Harold Bloom said, “The tradition is that Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives . . . in response toQueen Elizabeth’s request to show Sir John in love” (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human [NewYork: Riverhead Books, 1998], 315). But Shakespeare is never that simple, and he is far more likely torevise and reverse a pattern than he is to follow it. Park Honan traces the legend of The Merry Wivesof Windsor to John Dennis in 1702 and to Rowe seven years after that. In Honan’s words, “Falstaff isnot in love, just broke, and hopes with identical love letters to seduce both Mistress Page and MistressFord and so live off both” (Shakespeare: A Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], 223).Indeed, with the possible exception of Anne Page, it is difficult to identify anyone at the beginningof the play who is unequivocally in love in the way one expects characters in a comedy to be inlove. Ford seems to have no positive feelings for his wife but is profoundly and unreasonably jealous.Mrs. Ford is as displeased with her husband as he is jealous of her, and when Ford is caught in the trapthe two wives set for Falstaff, Mrs. Ford says, “I know not which pleases me better, that my husband isdeceived, or Sir John” (The Folger Library Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor, eds. Louis B.Wright and Virginia A. LaMar [New York: Washington Square Press, 1964], 3.3.168–9). The Pages,although in ordinary circumstances a loving and trusting couple, are fighting over which suitor theirdaughter should marry. Doctor Caius and Slender, who are the candidates of Mrs. Page and Mr. Pagerespectively, are as unattractive a pair of suitors as ever convinced a girl that marriage was a fate worsethan death. Anne says of Slender, “Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool” (3.4.90). Her opinionof Caius is even lower. When her mother suggests that Anne marry him, she declares, “I had rather beset quick I’ the earth / And bowled to death with turnips” (3.4.94-5).Fenton, according to the Host’s description, best fits the pattern of a young lover, “What say youto young Master Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday,he smells April and May. He will carry’t” (3.2.62-66). But Fenton has a host of drawbacks. In additionto keeping company with the wild prince and Poins, he has serious financial difficulties which he hopesto solve by marrying. He admits to Anne, “Thy father’s wealth was the first motive that I wooed thee”(3.4.14-15).This, as Benedick says in Much Ado about Nothing, “Looks not like a nuptial.” However, thevarious actions in The Merry Wives of Windsor move inexorably toward the natural ending of a comedy—themarriage of two young lovers. Ironically, it is Falstaff who bears the burden of this transition.Falstaff destabilizes everyday life in the small town of Windsor. Because of him a husband runs nearlymad with jealousy, wives deceive their husbands, children and adults dress up as fairies, and Anne andFenton have the freedom to elope successfully. Because of him the whole town gathers around Herne’soak in Windsor forest. In the words of Jeanne Addison Roberts, “The forest, an assembly of trees, withtheir ambivalent connotations of both male and female, and their eerie approximation of the humanform, is a suitable arena for the pursuit of the urgencies of the sexual drive. It serves equally well asthe locale for defining sexual identities, for sorting out male and female characteristics in the selectionof suitable mates, and for confronting the inevitable conflicts that arise between the young and theauthority figures of family and society” (Shakespeare’s English Comedy: The Merry Wives of Windsorin Context [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979], 121–2).Falstaff may seem an odd and loveless bridge to a lover’s happy ending, but he brings more intoUtah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788031

Windsor than disorder and dry wit. Falstaff is the embodiment (and a very large body it is) of the hopeand pleasure that make life worthwhile. It is hard to imagine anyone of Falstaff ’s obvious intelligenceand sophistication being deceived not once but three times. Harold Bloom, who can’t imagine it, callsthe Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor “a nameless imposter” (315). However, Falstaff is not takenin by the deceptions of the merry wives so much as he is lifted up by his own imaginations. He hopesand believes that some good, some great pleasure will come to him today, tomorrow, or the day after.He cannot be quenched by Thames water or beaten into pessimism by Ford’s cudgel. He will ventureinto the forest at night as readily as into a tavern by day if only because he has faith, Nature spirit thathe is, in the spirit of life that guides and guards him. As Joseph Rosenblum puts it, “Falstaff devotes hiswhole life to play, the gratification of instincts, and the preservation of the self. His dalliance with theMistresses Page and Ford may be a mockery of good burgher virtue, but he also pursues it with a gooddeal of pleasure, pleasure for its own sake. Everyone wins in the process. Anne is married to the man sheloves, and the Pages, the Fords, and Sir John all have a thoroughly fine time in the romp” (A Reader’sGuide to Shakespeare [New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1998], 214).In the end love triumphs. Fenton and Anne Page have found each other as true lovers. Fenton says,“I found thee of more value / Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags; / And ‘tis the very richesof thyself / That now I aim at” (3.4.16-19). Even Ford has come to see wives as something more thanproperty to be owned and jealously guarded. He concludes, “In love the heavens themselves do guidethe state. / Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate” (5.5.240-1). And at the last Fenton restoresorder as he has discovered love. He condemns the Pages for attempting to force their daughter into aloveless marriage and maintains that the very disorder and deception that has swirled around Falstaffhas led to virtue. In his defense of his new wife (and himself ) he says, “The offense is holy that she hathcommitted; / And this deceit loses the name of craft, / Of disobedience, or unduteous title” (5.5.233-5). Love has not only conquered all, it has also justified it, and though Jack Falstaff may never havebeen in love, he has certainly been love’s inadvertent servant.32Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

Let the Sky Rain PotatoesBy Diana Major SpencerFrom Midsummer Magazine, 2000Queen Elizabeth may have asked to see Falstaff in love, but Shakespeare gave her Falstaff in lust--not for the merry wives, but for food and drink. His seduction letter begins with three “sympathies”:we’re similar in age; we both are merry; and “you love sack, and so do I” (2.1.9; all line references arefrom The Riverside Shakespeare [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974]). He ends the play witha posset, hot milk curdled with wine or ale and flavored with spices (true eggnog is a posset). Between,greeting the wives in the forest, he prays, “Let the sky rain potatoes; let it . . . hail kissing-comfits, andsnow eringoes” (5.5.18–20), all aphrodisiac sweetmeats. Protestations of love come from Slender, Dr.Caius, and Fenton, only Fenton’s ringing true. But the abundance of references throughout the play tofood and drink, meals and manners, and Falstaff ’s bulk demonstrates where the focus lies.Falstaff ’s motive for wooing the women is not love, but his own penury--or scarcity of pounds, ifwe use the British monetary system—which threatens to lead to a physical loss of pounds and a pun:Just before bringing out the buck-basket, Mistress Ford avows, “I had rather than a thousand pounds hewere out of the house” (3.3.123–24). These wives are attractive to Falstaff primarily because they controltheir husbands’ purses. They can solve his cash-flow problem.In Act 1, Scene 3, Falstaff, complaining of his expenses of ten pounds per week, dismisses Bardolphand devises the plan to improve his means. Pistol agrees that “young ravens must have food” (1.3.35),a proverb about necessity which also underscores their role as scavengers. Falstaff then begins to tellPistol and Nym “what [he is] about,” to which Pistol answers, “Two yards, and more.” Falstaff acknowledgesthat indeed he is “in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift”(1.3.40-42).His girth demands something to wash down his food or grease its way. When he isn’t courting,he is drinking, usually sack (dry [sec] sherry), though mine Host of the Garter hopes to drink canary(wine from the Canary Islands, similar to sherry) with him, while Ford thinks pipe wine (new winefrom the cask) will “make him dance” (3.2.88–89) to the piper.Liquor figures in puns, characterizations, and stereotypes. Ford, posing as Brook, introduces himselfto Falstaff via a “morning’s draft of sack” (2.2.146-47). Falstaff slurps, “Such Brooks are welcometo me that o’erflows such liquor” (2.2.150-51). Bardolph was “gotten in drink” (1.3.22), which explainshis red complexion, his propensity for drink, and his suitability for tapstering. Mistress Page callsFalstaff a “Flemish drunkard” (2.1.23), and Master Ford wouldn’t trust “an Irishman with [his] aquavitaebottle” (2.2.304).While Falstaff drinks, the middle-class folks of Windsor gather for meals. Five separate meals occurduring the play--none on stage. Master Page seals Anne’s betrothal to Slender over a meal at whichvenison pasty will be served and “we shall drink down all unkindness” (1.1.195-97). Slender’s triplelack—of intelligence, passion for Anne, and manners--is shown in his lengthy refusal of the invitation(1.1.261-313). Later, to cool Caius’s choler at his failed duel, the Host offers to take him where Anne is“at a farm-house a-feasting” (2.3.87).In Act 3, Scene 2, two meals occur simultaneously: Ford invites the other men to share his “goodcheer” (3.2.51); they decline because they “have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne” (3.2.54–55).Ford persuades Caius, Page, and Evans to accompany him, but dinner is postponed by the buck-basketepisode. Ford also invites his friends to breakfast the next morning (3.2.230). Finally, Ford’s concernabout his absurd jealousy is that he might become “table-sport” (4.2.62).Named foods are plain fare rather than aristocratic: “bread and cheese” (2.1.36), now found as“Plowman’s Lunch” on pub menus; “a mess of porridge” (3.1.63), any thickened, boiled concoctionUtah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788033

from stew to mush; “fritters” (5.5.143), bits and pieces of anything, bound by a batter and fried; and“puddings” (2.1.31–32; 5.5.151), sausages or stuffings for whole animals.Mistress Ford calls Falstaff a “gross wat’ry pompion [pumpkin]” (3.3.41). Anne Page “had ratherbe set quick i’ the earth/ And bowl’d to death with turnips” (3.4.87) than marry Slender. Evans, whilewaiting for his duel with Caius, threatens to “kno[ck] his urinals about his knave’s costard [countryapple; i.e., Caius’s head]” (3.1.14). Evans mispronounces “words” as “worts,” meaning “vegetables,”which prompts Falstaff ’s “good cabbage” (1.1.120-21), short for “cabbage head,” or fool. Finally, “theworld is [Pistol’s] oyster” (2.2.3).In the dairy case, Slender’s pale, phlegmatic complexion reminds the red-faced tinderbox Bardolphof a “Banbury cheese” (1.1.128), a particularly thin and pallid type of cream cheese from Banbury,where stands the Banbury Cross of nursery rhymes, only fifteen miles from Stratford. Simple describesSlender to Mistress Quickly as “whey-face” (1.4.22), the pale liquid drained from curds in cheesemaking.More robust cheeses are associated with the Welsh: by Ford, who will not trust “Parson Hughthe Welshman with my cheese” (2.2.302–303), and by Falstaff twice in the forest: “Heavens defendme from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!” (5.5.82), and “Am I ridden with aWelsh goat too? . . . ’Tis time I were chok’d with a piece of toasted cheese” (5.5.139). Remember, Welshrabbit (the original name for Welsh rarebit) is made of cheese, an English sneer at Welsh poverty.The final food category--butter, grease and oil--mostly characterizes Falstaff, “this whale (with somany tuns of oil in his belly)” (2.1.64–65), “this greasy knight” (2.1.107-108), whose “wicked fire oflust [will] melt . . . him in his own grease” (2.1.67-68). He will be “ramm’d” in the buck-basket with“foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins” (3.5.91), “stinking clothes that frettedin their own grease” (3.5.113-14). “Think of that,” he laments, “that am as subject to heat as butter;. . . (when I was more than half stew’d in grease, like a Dutch dish) to be thrown into the Thames”(3.5.118-19).Falstaff never quite falls in love, though he falls into a lot of other places. Perhaps Shakespeareshowed him in the only love of which he was capable: food, drink, and the means to procure them.Elizabeth would not have been disappointed, however, for she loved the “potatoes,” “kissing-comfits,”and “eringoes” Falstaff wished for the wives (5.5.19–20). These candies, made from sweet potatoes,anise and caraway seeds, and roots of sea-holly, respectively, sweetened the breath and aroused sexualdesire. They also blackened Liz’s teeth.34Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

A Collection of All Things FamiliarBy Elaine PilkingtonFrom Insights, 2006Unlike most of Shakespeare’s comedies that take place in distant, exotic, or even magical locales,The Merry Wives of Windsor is set just outside of London during Shakespeare’s own time and is a collectionof all things familiar. Its established literary traditions, characters, plots, settings, and languagewould be well known to an Elizabethan audience, and the similarities of the play to Shakespeare’s othercomedies make it a comfortable fit for present-day audiences as well.In The Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare uses familiar stories and characters with a long literaryhistory. The elements of many literary traditions familiar to an Elizabethan audience come togethermost strikingly in Falstaff. He is a mixture of many dramatic types. His characteristics can be found inthe buffoon of Greek middle comedy (Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, [Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1957], 175), the lecherous old man of Roman new comedy, the braggartsoldier of the commedia dell’ arte, and the Vice of the medieval morality play. In addition, the play’sfarcical elements are hilariously apparent in stage productions as Falstaff suffers repeated physicalpunishments. He is carried in a basket full of dirty laundry to be dumped into the river, then later disguisedas the fat woman of Brainford only to be chased and beaten by Mistress Ford’s jealous husband,and finally he is pinched, burned, and made dizzy by masquerading fairies. Northrop Frye also seesFalstaff as an archetypal figure, “the victim . . . [of ] an elaborate ritual of the defeat of winter . . . ‘carryingout of death’” (183). These literary traditions and folklore elements give the play a secure foundation foraudiences from the Elizabethan period to our own.The main plot of the play, the duping of a character who so richly deserves to be deceived, is alsocommon and has a long dramatic history. The jealous husband and the potential cuckold are familiarcomedic characters, and comedy—at least Shakespearean comedy—is hardly comedy without at leastone set of young lovers. The romance of Anne Page and Fenton may seem a minor part of the play, butthe virtue of their love contrasts nicely with Falstaff ’s mercenary lust.With these stock characters and situations already so well known to audiences, it is hardly unusualthat the emphasis of the play is action rather than the development of complex personalities. Its suspenseand humor come from the stratagems the characters perpetrate, or attempt to perpetrate, on eachother.Falstaff tries to seduce Mistress Ford to gain access to Ford’s money. The wives repeatedly trickFalstaff. Ford attempts to catch his virtuous wife in a liaison. Page plots to have his daughter Annesecretly married to Slender while his wife plans a similar fate for her with Doctor Caius. Anne andFenton deceive both of her parents to prevent a marriage to either candidate. The humor comes in partfrom the number of the deceptions but more so from the fact that the audience knows the ploys of allthe characters while almost all the characters are unaware of some important detail ( JeanneAddisonRoberts, Shakespeare’s English Comedies: The Merry Wives of Windsor in Context [Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1979], 69).The familiar setting and topical references of the play would also have been entertaining forShakespeare’s audience. John Wilders sees The Merry Wives of Windsor as a “document in the socialhistory of England,” writing “[w]e can learn, and sense, from it how Shakespeare’s contemporarieslived” (New Prefaces to Shakespeare [Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1988], 125). The play is full ofEnglish proverbs as well as references to domestic life, country entertainments, and local geography(Wilders 125). Everyday life includes the humor to be found in a schoolboy’s Latin lesson and MistressQuickly’s misinterpretation of it and “several minor jests . . . [involving] quotations from the works ofSidney and Marlow” (Boyce, Shakespeare A to Z [New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1990], 424-425).Perhaps it is the folksy charm of the play that has caused critics to dismiss it as “an essentially trivialUtah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788035

work that does not warrant attention . . . [however its] success on the stage—historical and current—has affirmed its value, and modern commentators have increasingly found it to be a particularly interestingwork” (Boyce 424). For today’s playgoer the play is a delight, a revisiting of the standard conventionsso deftly used by Shakespeare in his other comedies. The Merry Wives of Windsor is almost arefrain, repeating what has come before and anticipating what lies ahead. Young love in the play, thestandard fare of comedy, gives us glimpses of The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice.All three plays have three different suitors. Like Gremio and Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrewor the Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Arragon in The Merchant of Venice, Caius and Slender arecompletely inappropriate. In both The Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor, the younglovers must deceive the older generation to attain their ends. Like the heroines Bianca and Portia, partof Anne Page’s initial desirability is her father’s wealth. Love, marriage, and money are again inextricablywoven together.Like so many of Shakespeare’s comedies, The Merry Wives of Windsor has a play within a play.Whereas the plays within the play of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and The Tempest are part of a weddingcelebration, the play within the play in The Merry Wives of Windsor provides the means for Anneand Fenton’s elopement. Its primary purpose, however, is the public censure of Falstaff. It is his journeyto the green world, as Northrop Frye called that natural place where characters find themselves and losea few of their flaws. There he wears the horns of the cuckold, is punished by fairies, and ridiculed by thepeople of Windsor. This is not an uncommon role for Falstaff. Prince Hal and his associates successfullydeceive and ridicule Falstaff in the Gadshill robbery of Henry IV Part One, and again in Henry IV PartTwo when, disguised as waiters, they catch him disparaging them.Once Falstaff ’s bad behavior has been exposed and ridiculed, the play can proceed to the naturalconclusion of a Shakespearean comedy, the forgiveness and inclusion of all. The Pages accept Fentonas their new son-in-law, Ford has accepted the fact that his wife “may be merry, and yet honest too”(4.2.105), and Sir John, who is at least temporarily contrite, is invited to the Page home “to laugh thissport o’er by a country fire” (5.5.242). All is well that ends well.36Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

The Merry Hunters of WindsorBy Jessica BolesShakespeare takes his puns very seriously. His play on “dear” and “deer” in The Merry Wives ofWindsor is no exception. In fact, this semantic echo reveals an entire framework through which toview this delightful comedy. The Merry Wives of Windsor is so well stocked with deer/dear puns, infact, that we can see the author working within an already well-established cultural metaphor. It is noaccident that a play about wooing and male/female relationships in the Renaissance contains so manyreferences to harts and hinds.Setting up his disgrace later in the play, Falstaff boasts to his fellows that he is sure Mistress Fordwill receive his attentions enthusiastically. He swears he has seen “the leer of invitation” in her eye,which signals her availability for an affair. Sir John goes so far as to say that her “familiar style” withhim is like a sign around her neck declaring, “I am Sir John Falstaff ’s” (William Shakespeare, “TheMerry Wives of Windsor,” The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, Eds. Richard Proudfoot, et al.,[London: Cengage Learning, 2001], 1.3.42–46). This line is a clear allusion to an earlier work by SirThomas Wyatt, renowned poet at the court of King Henry VIII. In an allegorical sonnet about thepoet’s impossible love for Anne Boleyn, Wyatt paints himself as a hunter who has given up the chase.He dares his fellow foresters to go after the female deer if they like, but the futility of chasing her hasstifled his desire. Wyatt claims that the deer only pretends to be tame in order to taunt her pursuers,who can never possess her because she is the beloved of the king. “Noli me tangere”—do nottouch me—says a collar around the deer’s neck, “for Caesar’s I am” (Thomas Wyatt, “Sonnet 11,” TheBroadview Anthology of British Literature: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century, Eds.Joseph Black, et al., [Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006], 12–14).More than just a narrative of the frustrations of the sport, Wyatt’s poem reveals how the hunt correlateswith sexual politics during the time period. Shakespeare borrows from this tradition, envisioningwomen as deer to be pursued in order to set up the way in which Mistress Ford and Mistress Page turnthese anti-feminist tropes upside down, bringing balance and harmony to the sexual politics of the play.From the earliest scenes, the men of The Merry Wives of Windsor equate women with deer andthe hunt. The initial reference comes from Falstaff, who, when accused of wronging Shallow by assaultinghis servants and hunting his deer, retorts, “But not kissed your keeper’s daughter” (1.1.104–106).He equates slaying a deer with kissing a woman, both of which celebrate the victories of a hunter overhis prey. Deer and women are considered commodities in this linguistic game preserve, which revealsFalstaff ’s gender prejudice. A similar comparison appears in a discussion of Anne Page, who is deemed“pretty virginity” by Sir Hugh Evans (1.1.41–42). Almost immediately afterwards, Evans and hischums turn to a discussion of deer meat, which they evaluate in much the same way they did Anne as atender marriage prospect for Slender. The parade of food imagery continues when Pistol reports howFalstaff “woos both high and low, both rich and poor . . . he loves the gallimaufry” (2.1.102–104), inwhich Falstaff ’s prospective harem is likened to a stew made of mixed meats. Women are clearly thequarry, and the hunters must be dogged in their pursuit if they hope to “eat well.” This explains Dr.Caius’s outrage when he hears another man has his eye on Anne Page as a marriage prospect: “I will cuthis throat in de park. . . . By gar, I will myself have Anne Page” (1.4.101–111). It’s a violent enterprise,getting a wife. The competition is fierce, and Dr. Caius must outfox his fellows in order to claim hiseventual prize.Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-788037

Shakespeare further embellishes his deer and hunting imagery with repeated references to thelegendary hunter Actaeon, who is transformed into a stag and set upon and killed by his own houndsafter he sees the goddess Diana bathing. Diana’s rage at being viewed naked cools only when the hunterbecomes the hunted. By comparing one another to Actaeon, the men reveal the anxiety the mythprovokes in them, and Falstaff ’s fears are realized by the end of the play. In the tradition of Diana,Shakespeare’s “merry wives” humiliate and destroy Falstaff as a sexual predator who has offended them.Mistress Ford and Mistress Page invert this amorous license by promising to “entertain” the lasciviousFalstaff “’til the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease” (2.1.58–61). In paintingFalstaff as a fatty piece of roasting meat, Mistress Ford flips the dynamic which prevails earlier in theplay. Falstaff, and not the women of Windsor, will be the quarry now.The crowning point of this reversal comes when they make an Actaeon out of Falstaff. Togetherwith their husbands, the women scheme to lure Sir John into the forest, demanding that he comedressed as Herne the Hunter, the figure of a local legend. The story goes that Herne, horned like one ofthe many stags he killed, haunts Windsor Forest because guilt over his crimes led him to commit suicide.Sir John duly meets them at Herne’s Oak with horns on his head. Thus, in accord with the mythof Diana and Actaeon, the wives turn Falstaff into a stag (if only for the night) and make him theirhapless prey.As he awaits Mistress Ford’s arrival at Herne’s Oak, Falstaff contemplates his newly-acquired cuckold’shorns, claiming that “love” has brought them to him (5.5.4). “O powerful love!” he says, “that, insome respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. . . . I am here a Windsor stag; and thefattest, I think, i’ the forest” (5.5.11–13). What Falstaff, in his pride, fails to recognize is that the truemagicians are not his feelings of love—or, more probably, lust—for the women (and their husbands’money), but the women themselves, who have orchestrated his disgrace. It is exactly this tendency todevalue women that leads them to “mock him home to Windsor” (4.4.64). Just as Actaeon thoughtDiana’s naked form was ripe for gazing, Falstaff thinks wooing Ford and Page’s wives is his chivalricprivilege. Moreover, he believes getting them into bed will be easy sport. The wives, of course, knowbetter. By ridiculing their wooer on such a grand scale, they gain release from Falstaff ’s desire and triumphover his distorted view of women as sustenance for men. In justifying the play’s title, MistressPage announces, “Wives may be merry, and yet honest too” (4.2.100).With the success of their scheme, the women assert their virtue and independence. BecomingDianas instead of deer, they turn the game around on their hunters, the men who would treat them aslesser creatures and pursue them metaphorically for sport.38Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880