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Introduction to Merry Wives reading
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For some reason I thought this was an early play from Shakespeare. It isn't. And official timelines are sketchy. Most informed sources have it sandwiched in between the first and second parts of Henry IV (around 1597/98) while others have it right after Hamlet (about 1602). Apparently, the first public record of it that we have is a 1602 performance by Shakespeare's company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men, at court and subsequently at public theaters. Of course, the legend of its conception which goes that Queen Elizabeth requested a special Falstaff play after enjoying his character in of one the Henry IV/V plays still persists. And in the 2018 RSC production they actually introduce the play with a projection of the queen's head over the set and a voiceover reading a hypotheical letter from Queen Bess to Shakespeare requiring a Falstaf play to be performed at court within a week! Highly doubtful if the Queen ever corresponded directly with Shakespeare (she'd have surely addressed Henry Carey, her Lord Chamberlain, in charge of court entertainments, primarily). But it's an intriguing idea. The thought of Shakespeare brainstorming with the Queen of England in Whitehall Palace as Tim Curry does in the 6 part British tv Shakespeare series is actually pretty funny though they don't play it for humor (they should have!). But the play is about commoners - everyday, middle class characters - modern productions usually feature suburban types. It's the only Shakespeare play to be set in an explicitly English town. Scholar, Anne Barton, who wrote the intro to Merry Wives in my huge Riverside edition of the plays calls it a fabliau - a merry tale dealing with sexual adventure. The form would seem to make it rife with comic possibilities. But W.H. Auden in his famous lectures on Shakespeare, which are published in book form now, only dedicates a paragraph to it. Calls it a very dull play and end his summation with "Let's listen to the Verdi Opera". lol
And, actually, Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff was my first aquaintance with the plot of Merry Wives. After listening to the seedy goings-on in some of Mozart's operas Falstaff seemed pretty tame but, of course, the music is glorious.
Then there's the source of the plot. Is anyone here aware of its source? Perhaps someone has an edition with an introduction which reveals it. Barton didn't seem to know it either.
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Great idea
I would request identification of editions for anyone here, please? I see Riverside edition, Anne Barton...could you include year, ISBN as well just s we can totally nerd out. Or order the same publication...
:)
I only mentioned my Riverside copy as a point of reference. The thing is huge. I'm still waiting for my portable Arden edition (978-1904271123) to arrive. I am curious about the old Signet version. The Folger edition (978-0671722784) is the one I mostly see on bookstore shelves today.Incidentally, if anyone is curious about the Riverside edition - or wants a quick on-line reference - just Google "Internet Archive" "Riverside Shakespeare" and "pdf" and you'll have access to the entire volume for free once you log in. I'm not sure if the archive has other editions - they must. But it's a great source for older editions with scholarly takes on the classics.
Just checked: there are myriad editions of Merry Wives on the archive - even the initial Quartos! May come in handy when stumbling on passages from the the 1623 Folio. (The volume will have its 400th year anniversary in 2023!)
Okay, Candy and I have read it before in the S fans group, as long ago as 2014, seehttps://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
and so has "Bill", an old friend of me and Candy, though he did not join in the S fans fun, but wrote this goodreads review, a not atypical response to this wonderful play,
"Okay, I finished it. After all these years, the only Shakespeare play I could never get interested in is finally completed. I read every word of it, and I am sure I'll never read it again. It's not that bad, really--if you like bedroom farces punched up with dialect humor, second-rate puns and third-rate malapropisms. I found it pretty dreary . . ." etc
A lot of people react this way to MWW, ranking it almost at the bottom of S's work. A pity. First to clear up some common myths:
1) It is actually frequently performed. The last S play I saw in England was this one, outside the Maddermarket Theatre here in Norwich in the open air (lockdown rules). Here in fact:
The last time I went to Stratford MWW was on while I was there. (Didn't see it: we were on a countryside holiday.)
2) It is actually very funny. Audiences can be got rolling in the aisles with helpless laughter.
3) It is not just a spin-off of the other plays with Falstaff, but is a work of total integrity. Falstaff is one among a balanced ensemble cast. (Look at the title.) This myth of its derivative nature dies hard. Here is a something from the old read,
"Think of MWW as a spin-off of Henry IV, just like Frasier was a spin-off of Cheers."
Yes, and think of S as someone who churns out TV sitcoms ...
4) "second-rate puns" (see above). Actually all this stuff about puns in S is overdone. In MWW, as in the rest of S, you get the next speaker using a word of the current speaker in a different sense, either deliberately or through misunderstanding, and this is not a pun. Stoppard does the same thing. MWW is no different from the other plays in this respect.
5) "bedroom farces" (see above). There is a lot of hiding, but not in bedrooms. In Cymbeline there really is hiding in a bedroom. And there is lots of hiding in S generally (Hamlet).
Now for some positives.
Treat this as a play unlike any other by S. A social comedy of the world he knew, set outside his age but in a very familiar town near London. It is like a Jonson comedy. In Jonson men have their "humours", hence "Every man in (or out of) his humour", reflected in their names, Subtle, Surly, Lovewit, Sir Epicure Mammon and so on. In MWW similarly the humours are displayed to comic effect. So for instance Caius, the French (Huguenot?) doctor, who, following Galen, will believe in the balancing of humours, is himself totally controlled by his own irascibility. That is his humour. The characters mix and contrast and that makes the plot. But all these characters are likeable in their own way, especially Slender, the most endearing of complete fools, and "Sweet Mistress Page" the sensible girl he obviously will not marry. The play is mainly but not not completely urban, and ends with a magical rural scene in Windsor great park, where "Herne the Hunter", I recall, greatly intrigued Candy. (In the last scene try and imagine the couples slipping off stage at strategic moments. Seeing the performance really brought this alive for me.)
Hugh Evans, the Welsh clergyman and teacher, at one point is instructing a boy called Will in Latin grammar. You can guess who Will is ...
I forgot about last summer's New York Public Theater production of Wives! Perhaps that's what initially put the play in my mind (though I didn't see it).
In terms of major American productions this play isn't performed often. And despite what director, Shaleem Ali, and company did with the 2021 production I'd always thought of Wives as suburban - in the American sense. The play doesn't deal with typical inner city American (or just modern inner city) issues. They're middle class concerns; perhaps lower middle class, but distictly middle class. Not that the rich and poor communities have not been represented with their own spin on the sexual imbroglio but Shakespeare has a specific class of folk in mind with his version. Their cohesiveness as a community is especially pronounced. In contemporary city drama and/or comedy you'd be hard pressed to find anything resembling that sort of commonality.
I don't see Shakespeare as a 15th/16th century sitcom machine. The image feels a bit too pat, at any rate. Elizabethans went to hear plays, not see them like we do. Words were of primary consideration, situations second. We've had a hundred years of image entertainment (some would say conditioning) on the big and little screen and any producer worth their salt has to bear this mind when thinking of mounting any S play. Now, you can listen to any one of them and find yourself engaged. Ever just listen to a typical American sitcom? Oi. The human comedy has obviously not changed but the primacy of the aural component which Shakespeare had to consider when entertaining his audience (with only a wooden stage a few props for a set) is much different from the visual primacy of contemporary situation comedies. The language is the vehichle that takes us wherever Shakespeare wants to go with his stories. And, in this sense, Wives is like every other Shakespeare play.
But, indeed, Wives is a stand-alone play. In some productions, like the 1982 BBC film version, Richard Griffiths' Falstaff, aside from girth, bears no resemblance to the mischievous drunkard many are used to watching in the Henry IV and V plays (It's streaming on britbox, in case anyone wants a gander, btw). Here, he is just another member of the farcical cast (though Verdi didn't think so).
Marlin, I love that picture above. I've been in S fans since 2009 (13 years, can you believe it!) as has Candy, and one thing I have looked out for over the years is a reference to S and opera. We have had S and cinema, radio, TV, animated cartoons, strip cartoons, adaptations as novels, prequels, sequels, rewrites, everything you can imagine except opera. And then after 13 years you mention S and Verdi. I feel we have reached a significant moment!
Actually although I like some operas, I am not an opera buff, and have never seen/heard an opera based on a S play.
I did once see on the big screen Fonteyn and Nureyev dance their way through R and J. The music and costumes were gorgeous, but I did not get much of a feel for S himself there ...
I have my copy ready now. I’m looking forwards to this as, although I’ve heard about the play many times in my life, I have never either read it or seen it (although as a musician I have played in the orchestra pit for musical/operatic versions of it). But that never gives you any very clear idea of what the story really feels like. My study of Shakespeare is limited to my school days: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, and bits of Henry 5. I studied MacBeth on my own because I felt so ignorant not knowing about the ‘Scottish Play’ referred to so often in literature was about, but that, although rewarding, was not a lot of fun as a solo effort.
Which edition of the play do have, Jemima? My Arden edition just arrived.
Martin wrote: "I've been in S fans since 2009 (13 years, can you believe it!) as has Candy, and one thing I have looked out for over the years is a reference to S and opera..."Ha, glad to hear it. I think I just may wait until our discussion concludes before I venture another viewing but this 1979 production of Verdi's Falstaff (https://youtu.be/We0heyFkqXU) is expemplary. The libretto is in Italian but there are English subs. The lip synching is obvious but, overall, the production is a lot of fun. As per scholar, Andrew Porter - Arrigo Boito, Verdi's librettist, was apparently pleased pleased with The Merry Wives as a plot:
"Not only was it Shakespearian, it was based in part on Trecento Italian works – Il Pecorone by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, and Boccaccio's Decameron. Boito adopted a deliberately archaic form of Italian to "lead Shakespeare's farce back to its clear Tuscan source", as he put it. He trimmed the plot, halved the number of characters in the play, and gave the character of Falstaff more depth by incorporating dozens of passages from Henry IV."
Interesting adaption and we have sources for Shakespeare's plot! I haven't opened my Arden edition of Wives yet but I'm glad to get an answer to my question early on.
Two early versions of the play (where Falstaff is clearly identified as the main subject): the 1602 Quarto
and the republished 1619 edition as part of William Jaggard's "False Folio" (printed by Thomas Pavier)
The first recorded performance is dated 4 November 1604, in the banqueting hall of Whitehall Palace, performed by the King's Men for James I, 19 months after the death of Elizabeth I. It seems the old tale of Queen Bess making a special request for a Falstaff-in-love play which inspired the writing of Merry Wives must be just that.
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I do not have a copy yet...on hold at library and I may have to read first act online. I've ordered several cpies of plays with introductions by Barbara Mowat...I found her intros quoted recently on essays about stage craft,mneumonics and design...I decided I would order them up. Not sure when the TMWOW will arrive. But I'll figure out something.
Over the years that I have enjoyed participating in this discussion group I have noticed that people often say they have to acquire a copy of the play to be discussed as they do not have one. What surprises me is how few people seem to have a 'Complete Works of' of some sort. I have 2. I usually read the 1902 CWoS published by William Collins, Sons and CO. Is it is the less weighty in terms of pounds and ounces, and also it entertainingly contains 69 19th century photos of actors in costume and on stage in scenes from the various plays and a number of artists depictions of scenes from the plays.
I will share a few photos and also a color print of a scene from our play when I work out how to do that. Can anyone help me there?
I've also got a Norton 1997 Complete Works which I use mainly for the annotations and introductions.
I'm looking forward to reading and discussing what the Norton describes as Shakespeare's most (and a rare one at that) middle class play; or rather a play about the middle class off 16th century England.
James, posting a photo is fairly easy after you've found a picture hosting site. If you don't already have one try postimage.org. Once there choose the image size you want. Choose expiration date (no expiration is the wisest choice, imo). Then choose your image among those you have on your device (computer, laptop, etc.).Once upload is complete click image. Then right click on it and select "COPY image address". Then PASTE that URL address in between this html code in your message post:
< img src="YOUR URL ADDRESS" >
(Don't leave a space between the arrows and other characters. I did that for illustration purposes otherwise the coding will attempt to post a nonsense URL.)
That's it.
So really what is going on? It's March 13 and the 8th, the starting date for Act 1 is done and dusted. I'm impatient to get discussing the Merry Wives of Windsor.In fact I'm going to post something shortly for Act 1.
Candy did say that Tom would moderate so I'll happily wait for him to kick start the discussion, proper. Also, I just finished a rather lengthy intro to my edition (Arden) of Wives and have yet to start the play.But, James, you bring up an interesting query about which editions of the complete plays people currently own. As I've mentioned I own the heftly Second Edition Riverside Complete Plays (the online version of which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/riverside...) but I'm also reading a Gutenberg ebook version of Wives where scholar David Reed recounts the process of the first pressings of the First Folio:
"Another thing that you should be aware of is that there are textual differences between various copies of the first folio. So there may be differences between this and other first folio editions. This is due to the printer's habit of setting the type and running off a number of copies and then proofing the printed copy and correcting the type and then continuing the printing run. The proof wasn't thrown away but incorporated into the printed copies. This is just the way it is. The text I have used was a composite of more than 30 different First Folio editions' best pages."
It never occured to me that the 1623 printings might have been altered in their first run. So the likelihood of finding two extant identical copies (worth quite a lot today) from those initial runs is slim, not to speak of the subsequent editions edited, corrected, adjusted and/or amended over the last 400 years. I have to remind myself that the sacrosanctity of the text should probably be taken with a grain of salt as, just in Shakespeare's day, the text was tampered with from the beginning!
Still, the "No Fear Shakespeare" approach rankles my nerves. And like James, I wonder about the percentage of current English speaking homes with a complete set of the plays.
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I love this idea of a pre-game thread!!!
Here are some discussion ideas for this pre-game....from Marlin...
"We still have a couple of weeks before commentary and general impressions on the play proper begins but it would be great to talk about what some us know or don’t know about the play before we commence. Has anyone seen a live production of it, for instance? What do we know about why it was written and/or performed originally? What is its reputation and/or performance history in the canon of plays? Or just what piques your interest in it to begin with? Some of these introductory considerations may be interesting to ponder. "