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Title: Winter's Tale Cd (Caedmon Shakespeare) by William Shakespeare, Gielgud Sir John ISBN: 0-694-51743-7 Publisher: HarperAudio Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 3 List Price(USD): $29.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Terrible Costs of Jealous Rage
Comment: The Winter's Tale contains some of the most technically difficult solutions to telling a story that have ever appeared in a play. If you think you know all about how a play must be constructed, read The Winter's Tale. It will greatly expand your mind.
The play opens near the end of a long visit by Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, to the court of his childhood friend, Leontes, the king of Sicily. Leontes wants his friend to stay one more day. His friend declines. Leontes prevails upon his wife, Hermione, to persuade Polixenes. Hermione does her husband's bidding, having been silent before then. Rather than be pleased that she has succeeded, Leontes goes into a jealous rage in which he doubts her faithfulness. As his jealousy grows, he takes actions to defend his misconceptions of his "abused" honor that in fact abuse all those who have loved him. Unable to control himself, Leontes continues to pursue his folly even when evidence grows that he is wrong. To his great regret, these impulsive acts cost him dearly.
Three particular aspects of the play deserve special mention. The first is the way that Shakespeare ties together actions set 16 years apart in time. Although that sounds like crossing the Grand Canyon in a motorcycle jump, Shakespeare pulls off the jump rather well so that it is not so big a leap. The second is that Shakespeare captures entirely different moods from hilarious good humor to deep depression and remorse closely adjacent to one another. As a result, the audience is able to experience many more emotions than normally are evoked in a single play. Third, the play's final scene is as remarkable a bit of writing as you can imagine. Read it, and marvel!
After you finish reading this play, think about where your own loss of temper has had bad consequences. How can you give yourself time to get under control before acting rashly? How can you learn to be more open to positive interpretations of events, rather than dark and disturbing ones?
Love first, second, and always!
Rating: 5
Summary: Tired of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar...?
Comment: Then read this before you retire from Shakespeare! I read this in AP English after Hamlet, and I have to say that this was a surprise to me. The Winters Tale is refreshing compared to Shakespeare's earlier tragedy works. No one dies in this play except for one person instead of the entire cast.
This is mainly a love story with several different types of love affairs- Leontes and Hermoine, Leontes and Polizenes, Farid and Perdita... There is no single major character as this play is set up in two different time periods and each character mostly acts independently of each other.
As for the characterization in the play, readers can observe the classical Shakespearean characters (similar characteristics to the earlier plays) and newly personality designed characers. This mixed play reveals Shakespeare's transition from his original writings to his attempt to prove his audience that there is good in life.
I recommend this play for readers and interested literature majors because I have found this play to be widely used on college campuses and I can see why. Although we are done and we spent some time but I felt that this play deserves to be discussed in depth since there are many different elements to it. Even short plays can evolve into a course as well as long Russian style novels.
Rating: 3
Summary: The high price of Jealousy
Comment: Ask anyone to name a play by Shakespeare and it most likely will be Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet, or Macbeth or even Othello. Rarely will you ever hear anyone say The Winter's tale, but is its lack of popularity due to it being any lesser than Shakespeare's other works? Unfortunately I would have to say yes.
The play is taken from Greene's Pandosto and follows it quite closely in most parts. The plot is fairly simple, Leontes, the King of Sicilia gets into a jealous rage over his what he believes is his wife's infidelity with his friend. This causes him to break off a close relationship with his childhood friend the King of Bohemia and his servant Camillo. He also banishes his daughter, and kills his wife and son by flouting Apollo's judgement that Hermione, his wife, is innocent.
The second part of the play is concerned with the reunion of his banished daughter and her newly acquired husband with Leontes. There is a surprise at the ending which I will not spoil for those who have not yet had the opportunity to read the play.
If you've read Othello, you will find similarities between Othello and Leontes and also between Desdemona and Hermione. The only major difference is that there is no Iago in this play; Leontes is his own Iago. Shakespeare in Othello develops the reasons for Othello's suspicion of Desdemona, unfortunately this is lacking in The Winter's Tale. There is not much of a motive and the reader (or audience) is asked to believe that Leontes develops his jealous rage over one minor incident and almost immediately.
Another problem I have with this play is with the surprise ending. Here again, there is not much of a clue as to how this happens, it is just assumed that we will accept it unquestioningly as fact. Apart from these minor 'faults' the play is still an interesting read, and as always the inclusion of the clowns and Autolycus give it some lightness which balances the tragedies.
If you'd like to dive deeper into the play, I'd suggest the commentary by Fitzroy Pyle (1969) which I found to be quite helpful.
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Title: The TEMPEST by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722905 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: COMEDY OF ERRORS by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722573 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: RICHARD III by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722840 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: RICHARD II by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722832 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: Troilus and Cressida (Arden Shakespeare Series) by David Bevington ISBN: 1903436699 Publisher: Arden Shakespeare Pub. Date: 25 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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