those in the "Comedie of Errors," or to a teeming variousness in the
human naturalness of all the characters?


THE STORY OF ACT IV

FORD'S ENLIGHTENMENT

Why is the Old Woman of Brentford trick a climax upon that of the
Buckbasket?

Falstaffe's wish that all the world might be cheated is true to the
method of the Play. Show in exemplification of this, how a fourth
intrigue grows out of the third, and is introduced as late as this
fourth Act. How is the joke of the Host against Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh
Evans avenged? Is this reference to the "three Cozen Jermans" that are
said to run away with the Host's horses, liklier to be an allusion
seriously made to a real event or to make use of it as an entirely
fictitious intrigue and practical joke in the Play? Is this mock
happening such as could be clear by the method of enacting it and one
entirely consonant with this Comedy as a farce-mosaic of laughable
tricks? (See pp. 120-121, 179-180, also Note on IV. iii. 6). Discuss
probabilities. The turn taken in the plot: Show how all combine
against Falstaffe; also the place of this intrigue in making material
for Act V.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Has the "Merry Wives" any serious or tragic moments such as belong
usually to Shakespeare's Comedies?