Quotes & Possible Essay Questions for The Merry Wives of Windsor

Quotations:

1. "I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt." Slender (1.1)

2. "Truly, mine Host, I must turn away some of my followers." Falstaff (1.3)

3. "I have operations which be humors of revenge." Nym (1.3)

4. "Vat shall de honest man do in my closset?" Caius (1.4)

5. "Why, I’ll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men." Mistress Page (2.1)

6. "What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor?" Mistress Ford (2.1)

7. "I think if your husbands were dead, you two would marry." Ford

"Be sure of that—two other husbands." Mistress Page (3.2)

8. "What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May." Host (3.2)

9. "I know not which pleases me better: that my husband is deceived, or Sir John." Mistress Ford (3.3)

10. "Alas, I had rather be set quick i’ th’ earth, / And bowled to death with turnips." Anne Page (3.4)

11. "I suffered the pangs of three several deaths . . ." Falstaff (3.5)

12. "Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again." 2 Servant (4.2)

13. "For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i’ the forest." Falstaff (5.5)

14. "Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?" Falstaff (5.5)

15. "When night dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased." Falstaff (5.5)

Possible Essay Questions:

1. Discuss Falstaff as a scapegoat.

2. Discuss the BBC production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

3. Compare and contrast the two productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

4. Discuss the position of women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. In what ways are they subversive?

5. Discuss the playacting in Merry Wives. Does Shakespeare draw attention to the playacting and to the play itself as a play? Why?

6. Compare and contrast the various Falstaffs in the BBC version of the Second Tetralogy, in Merry Wives of Windsor, and in Chimes at Midnight.