The Merry Wives of Windsor (Annotated)

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle-class life. It has been adapted for the opera on occasions. William Shakespeare was an English playwright, actor, English poet, widely regarded as both the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent. After some times when he was a very popular writer then he is called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of the uncertain authorship.