Criticism
Most critics consider Merry Wives to be one of Shakespeare's weaker plays, and the Falstaff of Merry Wives to be much inferior to the Falstaff of the two Henry IV plays. That Shakespeare would so stumble with one of his greatest creations is puzzling and a satisfactory reason for this remains to be found. The likeliest explanation, if the Garter Feast theory is accepted, is that the play was written hastily, to order for a special occasion, within severe time constraints and rushed to meet a Royal deadline of possibly as little as only 14 days.
It has also been said that Shakespeare was one of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite playwrights and that she so enjoyed the buffoon Falstaff that she personally requested that Shakespeare write an entire comedy surrounding Falstaff. This would explain the powerful female characters as a bow to the queen and grand slapstick comedy surrounding Falstaff's mishaps in the play.
Read more about this topic: The Merry Wives Of Windsor
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he can divide.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)