Taking on Shakespeare would make even the most talented writer pause, but you can’t feel the pause in Jeanette Winterson’s rewriting of Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale. Winterson’s masterful new novel plays to her gifts of mingling fairytale storytelling with stark realism, as seen in her past classics, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and The Passion.
The Winter's Tale (Folger Shakespeare Library)
352The Winter's Tale (Folger Shakespeare Library)
352Paperback(Mass Market Paperback)
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Overview
It includes murderous passions, man-eating bears, princes and princesses in disguise, death by drowning and by grief, oracles, betrayal, and unexpected joy. Yet the play, which draws much of its power from Greek myth, is grounded in the everyday.
A “winter’s tale” is one told or read on a long winter’s night. Paradoxically, this winter’s tale is ideally seen rather than read—though the imagination can transform words into vivid action. Its shift from tragedy to comedy, disguises, and startling exits and transformations seem addressed to theater audiences.
The authoritative edition of The Winter’s Tale from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading
Essay by Stephen Orgel
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780743484893 |
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Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date: | 01/01/2005 |
Series: | Folger Shakespeare Library Series |
Pages: | 352 |
Product dimensions: | 4.19(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.90(d) |
Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.
Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare and of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.
Date of Death:
2018Place of Birth:
Stratford-upon-Avon, United KingdomPlace of Death:
Stratford-upon-Avon, United KingdomRead an Excerpt
Characters In the Play
LEONTES, King of SICILIA
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.