Slender

Play

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Summary

Slender is Master Page's nephew and one of the suitors for Anne Page's hand, pushed forward by his guardian Shallow and his own dim-witted ambition. He is a beautifully realized comic type — lanky, vapid, entirely without genuine feeling or conversation, and haplessly reliant on others to speak for him. His courtship of Anne consists mostly of silence and awkward references to bear-baiting. In the play's finale he is fooled into eloping with a boy dressed as Anne, and his outrage at the substitution is one of the play's final comic flourishes.

Notable Quotations

"I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy." *(5.5)*

"I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong indeed, la." *(1.1)*

Cross-references

• The Merry Wives of Windsor — the play
• Comedies
• character_mistress_page — Anne's mother, who favors him as a match
• character_shallow — his guardian and promoter
• character_evans_mww — who helps advocate for his suit