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W.H. Auden had only this to say on the play in his Shakespeare lectures:

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" is a very dull play indeed. We can be grateful for its having been written, because it provided the occasion of Verdi's "Falstaff", a very great operatic masterpiece. Mr. Page, Shallow, Slender and the Host disappear. I have nothing to say about Shakespeare's play, so let's hear Verdi."

Many critics consider this comedy Shakespeare's weakest, but the linguistic battle in the play is as comically ingenuous as any identity switch. "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is the one play written by Shakespeare that deals exclusively with the Elizabethan middle class. A comedy that capitalized on a robust sense of provincial life, the play was a favorite of Fredreich Engel, coauthor of "The Communist Manifesto". Records show "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was published in 1602, although the year it was created is unknown. It is speculated to be written no later than 1597 due to textual allusions to the Order of Garter. The comedy is a vehicle for the beloved Falstaff of Henry IV parts I and II. Legend or apocryphal tale has it that Queen Elizabeth requested Shakespeare write the play because she wanted to see Falstaff in love.

Although the Henry IV plays were set in the 1400s, "The Merry Wives of Windsor" places Falstaff in the 1600s, in contemporary Elizabethan day. Sir John Falstaff, ever the hedonist, sends the wives of two wealthy citizens, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, identical love letters. The two women uncover his double-dealings and scheme to turn the tables on him. The two husbands of the wives learn of the courting from Falstaff's servants. Page finds it trivial but Ford is inflamed with jealousy and persuades the Host of Garter to introduce him to Falstaff as "Master Brook".

Meanwhile, Anne Page, daughter of Mistress Page, has three suitors seeking her hand: Doctor Caius, a French physician and the suitor favored by Mistress Page; Master Slender, the suitor favored by Master Page; Master Fenton, the suitor Anne Page is in love with but who has been rejected by the Page family. Mistress Quickly in this play is servant to Doctor Caius and is asked by a Welsh parson to help Slender woo Anne. Doctor Caius discovers the secret entreaty and challenges the Welsh parson to a duel. The Host of Garter amuses himself by sending the two men to different meeting places.

Falstaff arrives at the appointed time to meet Mistress Ford. The two clever wives trick him into hiding in a laundry basket full of filthy clothes that need to be laundered. A jealous Ford tried to catch his honest wife in the act but the wives have already taken away the man and other contents in the basket and dumped it into the river. Falstaff's ego is magnanimously resilient. He is convinced the wives are playing hard to get and decides to gamely accept the chase.

In his next meeting with the wives, contrived circumstances force him to dress up as Mistress Ford's maid's obese aunt. Ford tries to catch his wife in the act yet again. Instead, he beats up the obese aunt and throws her out of the house. He has always despised this old woman. Falstaff contemplates his bad luck.

The wives tell their husbands about the practical jokes they have played on Falstaff. There is one more hoax they want to pull off to humiliate Falstaff in front of the whole town. Falstaff is dressed as "Herne, the Hunter" and is to meet the merry wives in Windsor Forest. (Herne, the Hunter was supposed to be a huntsman in the service of King Richard II. He hung himself and became the ghost that haunts Windsor Forest.) Several of the local children are in on the joke and are dressed as fairies who pinch and burn Falstaff. Anne and William Page are two of the fairies. Master Page tells Slender Anne will be in white so that Slender can take her away during the revels and marry her. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius have the same idea only they agree Anne will be dressed in green. The Host arranges for Anne and Fenton to be married. When the meeting with Falstaff occurs, Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their supposed bride-to-be.

 Identities unmasked and it turns out Slender and Caius married young boys. Fenton and Anne arrive announcing their mutual love for each other and their marriage. The parents accept the marriage. Congratulations are said.

For whatever reason, the jocular fat knight has been a popular icon in opera, inspiring four operas, one musical composition per century. The great Guiseppe Verdi's last opera, "Falstaff", was based on the play but with great liberties in the plot. Arrigo Boito wrote the libretto. Antonio Salieri, the very same Salieri Sir Peter Shaffer based his "Amadeus" villain on, wrote the 1799 "opera buffa Falstaff" with a libretto by Carlos Prospers Defranchesi. The opera adapts the main story line of Shakespeare's play. In 1849, Carl Otto Nicolai, founder of the Vienna Philharmonic, wrote the opera "Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" which is the German translation of the play's title in English. The libretto was written by Salomon Hermann von Mosenthal. One of the notable arias of the German opera is a number written by Falstaff, fittingly titled "The Drinking Song". English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote "Sir John in Love" in the years 1924-48. Ralph Greaves later wrote an arrangement of this for "Fantasia on Greensleeves".