The Winter's Tale Paperback – November 12, 2005

“The Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare is a fascinating, tragic, psychological but little known play that Shakespeare wrote about five years before his death. It is about a pagan king with a loving lovely pregnant wife, and a son. He develops an unfounded jealousy and is convinced despite no one agreeing with him that his wife, the queen, was unfaithful to him with his friend and the child in her body is not his. Despite being assured by the Oracle that his wife committed no adultery and the child is his, he has her killed and banishes his just born daughter. His son dies out of anguish. He soon realizes that he was wrong. But it is too late. Now he suffers for what he did.Sixteen years pass. His daughter is raised in another kingdom. By chance, she comes to his land, he meets her, realizes she is his daughter, and embraces her. He is shown a statute of his late wife. The statute comes alive and his wife forgives him saying she still loves him. He is is now after sixteen years given a second chance, forgiven for what he thought was unforgivable – although his son is lost.The play is well-worth watching. Its moral is that problems, even the worst ones, can be resolved in a large measure, at least somewhat.

I feel like this Shakespearian play doesn't get enough face time. The first time I ever saw its title, I was in High School, looking at the names of all the plays Shakespeare ever wrote. We all know about his overly famous plays, like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, but what about The Winter's Tale? I was intrigued by the title at the time, and the fact that I'd never heard of it before (and with a brother heavily into Shakespeare and acting, that was unusual). I've never seen this title on a playbill, though I'm sure it must be preformed somewhere, and my curiosity about this play was peaked--though in High School I didn't do anything about it. Recently, I had to teach Hamlet, and as I was looking on Amazon for a copy for my Kindle, I once again came across The Winter's Tale. As it was a free copy, I scooped it up and read it right away, just to assuage my curiosity.It was interesting. In my opinion, it's not really like Shakespeare's other plays. It's a bit intense in the beginning, and though there are comedic scenes, I wouldn't necessarily classify this as a comedy, nor a tragedy either. A romance, I suppose, but for me, it's a bit strange. Through a little research I found that Shakespeare actually modeled his play off Pandosto, by Robert Greene (which I've never read), but I, personally, see much of Oedipus Rex in this play. I know Shakespeare dealt a lot with Greek mythology in his works, and The Winter's Tale seems to really follow that of Oedipus Rex. I'm not going to give the entire synopsis away, or any spoilers, but, like Oedipus, King Leontes is a haughty man, paranoid. He refuses to listen to oracles and attempts to do away with his newborn child by sending her away to die. While there are many differences between The Winter's Tale and Oedipus, there are also many similarities and I found this rather interesting, especially because I really enjoy Oedipus. That being said, I'd like to see this play preformed someday, I always tend to like plays more when they're preformed, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for this one.(Please note: I use the star rating system of Goodreads, which is different from that of Amazon. My overall rating is that I liked it.)

People have tended to react one of two ways about The Winter’s Tale. One is exemplified by the Oxford World Classics edition and has a near one hundred page introduction. Here the editor sees perennial Shakespearean themes, comments on its subtleties and generally provides a defense of the play as a great work of art.On the other hand The Winter’s Tale has also consistently been derided as written when Shakespeare’s imaginative powers were declining (it is one of his last works). This is the typical reaction of a first time reader. One notices the lack of pithy sayings, the seeming disorder of the plot and the deus ex machina sort of ending.I can’t say that I differed from any other first time reader in seeing the play as largely an exercise in banality. But I plan on returning to the play and seeing whether I can start to see the brilliance described by the editor. My only recommendation is for first time readers to buy an edition with an ample introduction so that one gets a hint of the ostensible depth of the play.I did enjoy reading the Winter’s Tale. Perhaps the editor is right and there is depth beyond the surface inanity. But I would recommend this work only to those, like me, who cannot get enough of Shakespeare.

je recommande ce vendeur, je n'ai jamais été déçue des produits acheté chez MOMOX

It was practically as new. Did not seem second-handed

Le edizioni Arden sono una certezza, ottime per gli studenti di letteratura inglese anche grazie alle corpose introduzioni ben curate. Non ho quindi dubbi e se dovessi valutare solo il libro che mi è arrivato o la velocità di spedizione darei sicuramente 5 stelle, il problema è che il pacco mi è arrivato con diverse botte, aperto e strappato in vari punti. Questo ha causato vari acciacchi e piccoli strappi nel libro. Sono cliente Amazon Prime da molti anni e non mi era mai capitato che una spedizione arrivasse in condizioni così indecenti, ma purtroppo non posso restituire il libro perché ne ho bisogno lunedì mattina e non farei in tempo a riceverne un altro. Comunque sono abbastanza delusa dalla noncuranza con cui è stato evidentemente trattato il pacco.

Da meine Tochter zur Zeit das Abitur macht und dort Shakespeare im Original gelesen wird, hat sie sich schon einige Bücher auf ihr Kindle geladen.

Tutto fantastico 🤩!Spedizione puntualissima come sempre e imballato e arrivato in perfette condizioni!Consiglio veramente il volume più importante di The Winter's Tale di Shakespeare, oltre ovviamente la versione di melchiori. C'è tutto ciò che riguarda l'opera, comprese le musiche di scena.