SOURCE: Reid, John. “Double Heresy and Bourgeois Humours in Windsor.” Shakespeare Studies 30 (1992): 35-55.

In the following essay, Reid argues that Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor employs humors in its burlesque of Christopher Marlowe's plays and in particular his bourgeois characters.

Is there not a double excellency in this? 

The germ of this essay lay in my inability, as a director, to answer the questions of an actor playing Sir Hugh Evans during rehearsals of an amateur production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. My subsequent efforts to make good this initial failure, forced me to rethink the handling of burlesque, particularly in relation to key roles like Evans and Ford. No one would want to dissent from G. R. Hibbard's claim that The Merry Wives of Windsor is “a most consummate piece of burlesque”.¹ Aside from the play's obvious targets of burlesque—such as Jonson and ‘humours comedies...