The Winter's Tale

by William Shakespeare, Paul Edmondson (Contribution by), Russ McDonald (Introduction), Russ McDonald (Revised by)

Overview

The jealous King of Sicily becomes convinced that his wife is carrying the child of his best friend. Imprisoned and put on trial, the Queen collapses when the King refuses to accept the divine confirmation of her innocence. The child is abandoned to die on the coast of Bohemia. But when she is found and raised by a shepherd, it seems redemption may be possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141921747
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	04/07/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Russ McDonald is Nation’s Bank Excellence Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The winner of multiple awards for distinguished teaching, he has recently edited Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1945-2000. Ernest Schanzer was a Shakespeare scholar who taught at the Universities of Liverpool and Munich. Author of a book on Shakespeare's Problem Plays, he also had a special interest in Shakespeare's sources and in his late plays. He edited Pericles for the Signet edition.


Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Russ McDonald is Nation's Bank Excellence Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The winner of multiple awards for distinguished teaching, he has recently edited Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1945-2000.
Ernest Schanzer was a Shakespeare scholar who taught at the Universities of Liverpool and Munich. Author of a book on Shakespeare's Problem Plays, he also had a special interest in Shakespeare's sources and in his late plays. He edited Pericles for the Signet edition.

William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote about 38 plays (the precise number is uncertain), many of which are regarded as the most exceptional works of drama ever produced, including Romeo and Juliet (1595), Henry V (1599), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1606) and Macbeth (1606), as well as a collection of 154 sonnets, which number among the most profound and influential love poetry in English. Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616.

Date of Death:

2018

Place of Birth:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Place of Death:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Read an Excerpt

HERMIONE, Queen of Sicilia
MAMILLIUS, their son
PERDITA, their daughter

POLIXENES, King of BOHEMIA
FLORIZELL, his son

CAMILLO, a courtier, friend to Leontes and then to Polixenes ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian courtier
PAULINA, his wife and lady-in-waiting to Hermione
CLEOMENES courtier in Sicilia
DION courtier in Sicilia
EMILIA, a lady-in-waiting to Hermione

SHEPHERD, foster father to Perdita
SHEPHERD'S SON
AUTOLYCUS, former servant to Florizell, now a rogue ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian courtier

TIME, as Chorus

TWO LADIES attending on Hermione
LORDS, SERVANTS, and GENTLEMEN attending on Leontes
An OFFICER of the court
A MARINER
A JAILER
MOPSA shepherdess in Bohemia
DORCAS shepherdess in Bohemia

SERVANT to the Shepherd

SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES
Twelve COUNTRYMEN disguised as satyrs

ACT 1

Scene 1
Enter Camillo and Archidamus.

ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed --

CAMILLO Beseech you --

ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence -- in so rare -- I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, hath been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves.

ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child -- one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son, they would desire to five on crutches till he had one.

They exit.

Table of Contents

Plot synopsis
who's who in "The Winter's Tale"
themes and images in "The Winter's Tale"
text commentary
self-test questions
self-test answers
writing an examination essay.

Interviews

Appropriate for all levels of Shakespeare courses, including courses on Shakespeare, or drama, or Renaissance drama as taught in departments of English, courses in Shakespeare or drama taught in departments of theater, Great Books programs where individual volumes might be used, or high school level courses.

Editorial Reviews

Beneduce (A Weekend With Winslow Homer, 1993, etc.) retells Shakespeare's play in a text that reads like a fairy tale.

This version emphasizes first the love story between Miranda and Ferdinand and then Prospero's forgiveness of his enemies. Some of the subplots have been eliminated (for reasons given in a careful author's note), but several songs and speeches have been folded into the story, much of which is told in dialogue. Spirin's beautiful watercolors are done in the manner of Renaissance paintings, even to the effect of old varnish affecting the tones. The scenes echo the narrative's focus on the enchantments of the play, presenting beasts worthy of Hieronymous Bosch and gentle spirits to rival the angels of Botticelli. This gorgeous picture book will be particularly useful in high school collections, for the story in the art sets the stage for this Renaissance drama. Recommended for public and school libraries: Not only does it work as a read-alone story but will prepare theatergoers for a performance of the full play.

Kirkus Reviews

"Aimed at a more scholarly audience, the New Cambridge Shakespeare produces superb editions that rank with the Arden and the Oxford as the best in the business. This year’s The Winter’s Tale is no exception. Edited by the late Susan Snyder and Deborah T. Curren-Aquino, this edition has a lucid and intelligent introduction that covers all of the crucial elements of this complicated late play: genre; Leontes’ jealousy; the bear; Time; act V and the ending. There is also a fascinating discussion of the revision theory—Forman did not mention the statue scene in his 1611 account of the play, after all—but the edition decides against the theory, in spite of Snyder’s having made the most eloquent case for it in 2002. There is a very useful discussion of sources, the notes to the play are exemplary, and the Selected Reading list is both excellent and up-to-date. Although the appendix concentrates on performance issues (Forman’s notes on the play, doubling possibilities, key staging choices, a performance chronology), the edition is notable for its blend of textual and performance discussions. Especially effective is the decision to match photographs of the play in performance with the thematic issues under discussion. The visual variations on the statue scene are especially welcome and will be a boon in the classroom. Finally, although it has become fashionable in recent years for critics, editors, and directors to darken the ending, this edition opts for ambiguity rather than pessimism and seems truer to The Winter’s Tale’s hybrid, tragicomic spirit as a result."
-Studies in English Literature, Spring 2008

From the Publisher