The Late Romances

The Late Romances PDF

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Bantam Classics

Published: 2009-08-26

Total Pages: 850

ISBN-13: 030742183X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Pericles The first of Shakespeare’s late romances moves spectacularly from one dramatic period to another as the hero, Pericles, sails off to adventure and love, and experiences what for him is a miracle. Cymbeline A favorite romantic drama, this play of a wife unjustly accused of faithlessness moves from a world of intrigue and slander to one of reconciliation and forgiveness, and contains two of Shakespeare’s most poignantly beautiful songs. The Winter's Tale From a darkly melodramatic beginning to a joyous pastoral ending, this romance of a jealous king and his long-suffering queen is superb entertainment, with revelations, plot twists, and a final compelling theatrical moment of discovery. The Tempest This tale of the exiled Duke of Milan, marooned on an enchanted island, is so richly filled with music and magic, romance and comedy, that its theme of love and reconciliation offers a splendid feast for the senses and the heart.

The Winters Tale

The Winters Tale PDF

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9781557832962

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

(Applause Books). If there ever has been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be the Applause Folio Texts. If there has ever been an accessible version of the Folio, it is this edition, set for the first time in modern fonts. The Folio is the source of all other editions. The Folio text forces us to re-examine the assumptions and prejudices which have encumbered over four hundred years of scholarship and performance. Notes refer the reader to subsequent editorial interventions, and offer the reader a multiplicity of interpretations. Notes also advise the reader on variations between Folios and Quartos. The heavy mascara of four centuries of Shakespearean glossing has by now glossed over the original countenance of Shakespeare's work. Never has there been a Folio available in modern reading fonts. While other complete Folio editions continue to trade simply on the facsimile appearance of the Elizabethan "look," none of them is easily and practically utilized in general Shakespeare studies or performances.

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale PDF

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher:

Published: 2018-01-07

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 9781976833991

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's final plays. Composed and performed around 1610-11, it joins Pericles , Cymbeline , and The Tempest in the list of genre-defying later plays that are usually referred to as romances, or tragicomedies. Each of these productions has a happy ending that sets them apart from earlier histories and tragedies, but each emphasizes the danger and power of evil in the world, and death, while never finally victorious, is an ever-present force in the stories. In The Winter's Tale, we are given a joyous ending, but the playwright demands that we endure the savage madness of Leontes, and the deaths of three innocent people before we reach the happy resolution.There is no one source for The Winter's Tale, although Shakespeare relies heavily on the works of Richard Greene, a London writer in the 1580s and '90s. (Greene may have been the author of a 1592 pamphlet attacking Shakespeare, which makes the Bard's borrowings from the deceased writer particularly appropriate.) From Pandosto, Greene's 1588 prose romance, Shakespeare borrowed most of the characters and events of the first three acts; and the character and habits of Autolycus seem to be drawn from Greene's pamphlet accounts of criminals in Elizabethan London. The story of the abandoned royal baby, meanwhile, owes much to popular folklore of the time, and the seasonal themes touched on in Act IV echo Ovid's Metamorphoses--Perdita is associated with Proserpina, whose emergence from the Underworld in Greek myth was supposed to herald the return of spring. Finally, the resurrection of Hermione in Act V owes an obvious debt to the Pygmalion story, in which a sculptor's work comes to life through divine intervention.In terms of strength of character, unity of plot, and audience satisfaction, The Winter's Tale may be the best of the later romances, and it has been a favorite of directors and audiences down to the present day.

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale PDF

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher:

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781698819181

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Written toward the end of William Shakespeare's theatrical career, The Winter's Tale (1609-1611) is a story of loss and redemption. In a fit of wild and unfounded jealousy, Leontes, the King of Sicily, convinces himself that his pregnant wife is carrying his best friend's love child. Leontes's jealousy turns to tyranny as the king proceeds to destroy his entire family and a lifelong friendship. Sixteen long years pass, and we witness one of the most astonishing endings in English literature.The play is famous for its two-part structure, which makes The Winter's Tale seem like two entirely different plays that are joined together at the end. The first three acts enact a mini-tragedy and occur in wintery Sicily, while the second half of the play occurs in Bohemia during the summer months and features the kind of restorative ending typical of Shakespeare's "comedies."Because of its mixed genre, the play is often referred to as one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" (a group that also includes Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest). To complicate matters, these works are also referred to as Shakespeare's "romances," which you can read more about in "Genre."Aside from its unique structure and Shakespeare's experiments in genre, The Winter's Tale is also famous for its flagrant disregard for the "classical unities" (of time, place, and action), literary rules that say all plays should have the following features: 1) the action should take place within a 24 hour time span; 2) the action should take place in one geographical place/setting; 3) the play should have one main plot and no sub-plots. Most of Shakespeare's plays ignore the "classical unities," but The Winter's Tale takes it a step further by having the figure Time appear on stage at the beginning of Act 4 to announce that Shakespeare is fast-forwarding sixteen years and changing the location from Sicily to Bohemia - if anyone has a problem, they should just get over it, please.Much of The Winter's Tale is based on Robert Greene's Pandosto, The Triumph of Time (published 1588), a pastoral romance about a jealous king who banishes his infant daughter and drives away his friend. Shakespeare also draws from the story of Pygmalion in Book 10 of Ovid's Metamorphoses.Over the years, there's been some speculation that The Winter's Tale is really about King Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded after being (unfairly) accused and convicted of adultery in 1536.