Winter's Tale Cd

by William Shakespeare, Sir John Gielgud (Read by), Full Cast (Read by)

Overview

The Winter's Tale was one of the very last plays Shakespeare wrote, a moving romance whose themes are sin, forgiveness, death, rebirth, and the power of Time and Nature to heal all wounds. Based on a novella by Shakespeare's enemy and arch rival Robert Greene, The Winter's Tale introduces Perdita, perhaps the Bard's most richly symbolic character. At times tragic, at times humorous, but always entertaining and instructive, The Winters Tale is a complex and rewarding work by the greatest dramatist of all time.

A Shakespeare Society Production.

The complete play in four acts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780694517435
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/01/1996
Series:	Caedmon Shakespeare Series , #3
Edition description:	Abridged, 3 CDs
Product dimensions:	0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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

	Preface	vii
	Plan of the Work	ix
	The Winter's Tale: Text, Textual Notes, and Commentary	1
	Appendix
	Irregular, Doubtful, and Emended Accidentals in F1	567
	Unadopted Conjectures	569
	The Text
	Authenticity	586
	The 1623 Version of The Winter's Tale	586
	The F1 Copy	590
	Crane's Copy	598
	Crane's Reliability	600
	The Printer's Reliability	601
	Subsequent Early Editions	601
	The Date of Composition
	External Evidence	602
	Internal Evidence	609
	Summary	615
	Sources
	Primary Source
	Pandosto	616
	Shakespeare's Use of Pandosto	656
	General Indebtedness	656
	Genre	668
	Characters	670
	Other Sources
	Robert Greene's Cony-Catching Pamphlets	672
	The Second and last Part of Conny-catching	673
	The Thirde and last Part of Conny-catching	673
	Francis Sabie's Poems	674
	The Fissher-mans Tale	674
	Flora's Fortune	675
	Possible Sources, Analogues, and Imitations	680
	Criticism
	General Assessments	702
	Genre	717
	Themes and Significance	728
	Time's Mutability	728
	Nature (and Art)	730
	Repentance and Renewal	738
	Drame a Clef	742
	Technique	745
	Structure	745
	Language and Style	753
	Characters	761
	Antigonus	761
	Autolycus	762
	Camillo	768
	Florizel	770
	Hermione	771
	Leontes	775
	Mamillius	785
	Paulina	786
	Perdita	792
	Polixenes	796
	Shepherd and Clown	797
	The Winter's Tale on the Stage
	Performances	798
	Staging the Bear and Time	816
	Screen and Sound Recordings	818
	The Text on the Stage	819
	The Versions	819
	Reshaping the Text	826
	Cuts	826
	Substitutions, Transpositions, and Additions	840
	Music in the Winter's Tale	851
	Bibliography	875
	Index	933

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

Prospero-like in their artistry, Spirin's dazzling watercolors dominate this retelling of Shakespeare's final play. Shaped like altar panels fit for a Renaissance church or palace, the illustrations are romantic, regal and magical, richly interpreting the play's themes of betrayal, revenge and all-conquering love. A wispy ethereal air pervades island scenes, beautifully suggesting the atmosphere of enchantment, while Antonio and the King of Naples are pictured in brocade and velvet, the stench of power upon them. The other characters, too, are both otherworldly and very much flesh and blood. Especially well rendered is the monster Caliban, shown here as part man, part beast, part mythical creature, a sense of evil glee lighting his features. While this prose adaptation does not, of course, retain the full magic of the Bard's work, Beneduce nonetheless provides an intelligent, gripping story. Several passages from Shakespeare introduced at key points give a taste of the original. Symbols and small pictures integrated into the text further enhance the lavish presentation. All ages. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 3 Up-The play is set circa 1610. Spirin expands Beneduce's retelling by basing his lavish watercolors on Italian Renaissance paintings. Though the pages are carefully framed, highly ornate, and formally structured, there is plenty of leeway for individual imagination to make itself felt. Ariel is a decorative Renaissance angel. Caliban is given piscine characteristics and expressions that evoke the longing as much as the brutishness in his character. And the human characters have the complexity of portraits. Spirin's illustrations highlight the fantastic while Ruth Sanderson's landscapes for Bruce Coville's version of the play (Doubleday, 1994) focus on the effects of nature. Both are valid. Coville's simpler retelling is easier to follow. Beneduce, too, eliminates some of the subplots in order to avoid confusion, but her fuller text manages to incorporate most of the romantic, magical, and political elements. Within the main text, she modernizes the dialogue. This works smoothly for the most part, though it's hard to see how "What a wonderful new world I am about to enter..." is an improvement over "O brave new world..." A few passages of original text are set off in isolated frames, for a sense of the poetry. Readers and potential playgoers will need to see the play performed to experience the comic scenes of Caliban and his cronies. Brief appendixes explain the context in which the play was written and the reteller's choices and give an overview of Shakespeare's life. This is a case in which an acceptably graceful text plays a supporting role to the illustrations. They are worth the price of admission.-Sally Margolis, formerly at Deerfield Public Library, IL

School Library Journal

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