ABSTRACT
Before embarking on a chronological survey of the comedies, I shall look at one play out of its chronological sequence. The Merry Wives of Windsor comes, in assumed composition order, in the middle of the comedies, but it is a necessary starting point since it is the most naturalistic of Shakespeare’s plays in its almost exclusive use of prose dialogue and its contemporary English setting (contemporary in all but the introduction of Falstaff and his cronies). If Shakespeare’s choice of T or V forms for his characters was significant and was recognised as significant by his audience because it correlated roughly with their own usage, we would expect that correlation to be closest in The Merry Wives. The patterns to be found there will provide a template, therefore, for all the other plays.
