{"id":"01KG8AYDCJ6HJ06B2T6J34KR5Z","cid":"bafkreictkweqxwojyaz3vfn43w6fmghfolg2k2hp5jod3bbjuv5ycpbraq","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreihgrzvmfmjzzukq57onbdux37kfddm3lsm2vfsglkoj6mn4r5x4ue","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"03_merry_wives_of_windsor_1905_page_0020.jpg","height":1778,"key":"pdf-page-1769806443565-hpm4eedo89i","label":"03_merry_wives_of_windsor_1905_page_0020.jpg","page_number":20,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":367527,"text":"14 Merry Wives of Windsor\nFiorentino ; and '' The Fishwife's Tale of Brainford \"\nfrom Westward for Smelts. This last, however, was\nprobably not published till 1620, though Malone refers\nto an edition of 1603.\nGeneral Comments on the Play\nThe critics have wasted much ink and ingenuity in\ntrying to decide at what point in the career of Falstaff\nthese Windsor adventures belong ; but, as already sug-\ngested, we may consider the comedy as having a certain\nindependence of the histories and not to be brought\ninto chronological relations to them. As White re-\nmarks, \"Shakespeare was not writing biography, even\nthe biography of his own characters. He was a poet,\nbut he wrote as a playwright ; and the only consistency\nto which he held himself, or can be held by others, is\nthe consistency of dramatic interest.\"\nIf we are to make a connected and consistent biog-\nraphy of Sir John out of the four plays, there is no\nalternative but to adopt the hypothesis of those critics\nwho put the Windsor exploits before all the other experi-\nences of the knight recorded by Shakespeare. Eliza-\nbeth may have induced the poet to write a play \" with\nSir' John in it \" in the role she proposed, but after com-\nparing the new Sir John with the old we are constrained\nto say \" this is not the man.\" At some uncertain period\nbefore we meet him in Eastcheap he may indeed have\nbeen capable of such fatuity, but he was too old a bird\nthen to be caught with the chaff of the merry wives.","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:54:03.565Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1084},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG89K4N3KNPAGDJAVRPVWBA4","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KG89JREDR8WY5QQGYR5FZRDY","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AYDBKYWG3DQN200KZESK4","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AYDBR9QJ2PT0V52AXG9W6","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:54:03.922Z","ts":"2026-01-30T21:06:03.609Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}