We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Cleaning House: the Courtly and the Popular in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
- Authors
Holderness, Graham
- Abstract
This paper explores the controversy as to whether The Merry Wives of Windsor is a celebration of royal and aristocratic power and of an imagined national community, or a suburban comedy whose viewpoint is that of the contemporary English middle-class. Drawing on recent work on female authority in household and community, it is suggested that Shakespeare's Windsor is not only discontinuous with the culture of nobility, but is presented as a parallel world or alternative universe where things are done quite differently. The play thus engages in a critique of the aristocratic values embodied in the Order of the Garter, and offers an alternative source of power in the domestic lives of ordinary women.
- Subjects
MERRY Wives of Windsor, The (Play : Shakespeare); CRITICISM; SHAKESPEARE, William, 1564-1616; WOMEN in literature; ENGLISH drama (Comedy); DRAMA criticism
- Publication
Critical Survey, 2010, Vol 22, Issue 1, p26
- ISSN
0011-1570
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.3167/cs.2010.220102