So keeping the word of promise to the ear, he obeys by breaking it to the sense.  To show Falstaffe as a lover amounts to showing him as no lover at all.

In this sense, the Play might be called a courteous satire upon the Queen’s request.

THE STORY OF ACT I

FALSTAFFE IS FORCED TO “CONICATCH”

How Falstaffe falls into trouble, turns away his followers and begins a new enterprise:  How do his followers take revenge?  What light upon this opening of the story do scenes i. and iii. show?

What is the underplot as shown in scenes ii. and iv and a part of scene i?

Do they appear to have anything to do with each other?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Which of her suitors does Anne prefer?  Which is to be preferred?

Is the grievance of Shallow against Falstaffe a necessity of the plot to show the fat knight in love, or an episode introduced out of Shakespeare’s grudge towards Sir Thomas Lucy? (See pp. 117-119, 138-141, etc., “First Folio Edition.”)

THE STORY OF ACT II

THE MERRY WIVES AND FORD LAY PLOTS

In Act II a third under-intrigue that of Ford with Falstaffe is added to the two before introduced.

Show how the Merry Wives reveal their separate personalities in their reception of the duplicate letters, and their plot to dupe Falstaffe.

Contrast their two husbands as their natures and marital relations are shown by their different manner of taking the information given them by Nym and Pistol.  Ford, considered as Shakespeare’s first study of jealousy.  How does he compare with Leontes?

How does Ford assist in the plot of the Play?

What pertinence to Ford’s jealousy is there in the allusion to Queen
Elizabeth’s Sonnet? (II, ii, 199-200).

The Sources of the Merry Wives’ intrigue and what Shakespeare has done with them. (See “Sources,” First Folio Edition).  How is the Duel scene related to the underplot?

What characters belong in common to plot and counterplot?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Does Falstaffe show any material differences in character as he appears in this Play, in comparison with the way he appears in “Henry IV?”

THE STORY OF ACT III

THE DOUBLE DUPERY

Contrast the feelings of Falstaffe before and after the Buckbasket episode?

In which scene is Ford the worst duped?

Give an account of Dame Quickly’s relations to the intrigues, and show how her multitudinous offices as go-between interfere with each other so that she is “slacke” in one of her errands.  What is the effect of her slackness on the contradictions in the time of the action. (See Duration of the Action, in “First Folio Edition").  Are they only seeming contradictions?  The Sources of the Ford intrigue and what Shakespeare has done with them.