The Winter's Tale

'It is required You do awake your faith' Variously seen as a romance, a comedy, and a tragic fairytale, The Winter's Tale is a radical experiment with genre, character, and storytelling towards the end of Shakespeare's career as a playwright. Addressing key cultural, religious, and theatrical contexts, this edition's introduction explores the play's preoccupation with fiction and game-play, its fraught representation of misogyny and female agency, its foregrounding of nonhuman objects, animals and creatures (toys, spiders, bears, flowers, ghosts, statues), and its provocations on different kinds of faith and magical thinking. The introduction emphasises what was and is startlingly new and urgent about the play, in the early seventeenth century and in our own historical moment. But it also attends to the play's retrospective impulses as a work that looks back, achingly, at 'old tales' on the stage and beyond. The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare's works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare's work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'It is required You do awake your faith' Variously seen as a romance, a comedy, and a tragic fairytale, The Winter's Tale is a radical experiment with genre, character, and storytelling towards the end of Shakespeare's career as a playwright. Addressing key cultural, religious, and theatrical contexts, this edition's introduction explores the play's preoccupation with fiction and game-play, its fraught representation of misogyny and female agency, its foregrounding of nonhuman objects, animals and creatures (toys, spiders, bears, flowers, ghosts, statues), and its provocations on different kinds of faith and magical thinking. The introduction emphasises what was and is startlingly new and urgent about the play, in the early seventeenth century and in our own historical moment. But it also attends to the play's retrospective impulses as a work that looks back, achingly, at 'old tales' on the stage and beyond. The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare's works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare's work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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. The Winter's Tale , one of Shakespeare's very late plays, is filled with improbabilities. Before the conclusion, one character comments that what we are about to see, "Were it but told you, should be hooted at / Like an old tale." 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. This edition 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.

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. The Winter's Tale , one of Shakespeare's very late plays, is filled with improbabilities. Before the conclusion, one character comments that what we are about to see, "Were it but told you, should be hooted at / Like an old tale." 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. This edition 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.

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. ''The Winter's Tale' is high fantasy, a tale to be told by the fire…The play belongs to the type known as "tragicomedy", but Shakespeare has separated the tragedy from the comedy. The first part has the same kind of tragic development as 'Othello'; the second part is pure idyllic comedy. 'The Winter's Tale' is a far better play to hear and see than to read; it needs the voice of the actor to give it life.' G.B. HARRISON, editor of texts for The Shakespeare Recording Society.