Winter's Tale
by William Shakespeare · first published 1735
50% recommend50% neutral
"Neither comedy nor tragedy, The Winter's tale contains elements of each genre, and defies easy classification. It experiments, like many of Shakespeare's late plays, with different styles and tones, and draws on a wide range of sources and inspirations. Full of mysteries and miracles, grief and dark humour, this strange play has fascinated critics and theatregoers for centuries. Theatrical and cinematic productions have tried to capture the range of interpretations and staging possibilities presented by The Winter's Tale, and the introduction to this edition explores the play's long history i
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In no particular order, except that #1 is #1. 1. Adventures of Huckelberry Finn 2. Little, Big 3. Winter's Tale 4. Titus Groan 5. Gormenghast 6. Titus Alone 7. Dune 8. The manuscript found in saragossa 9. The Three Musketeers 10. A Scanner Darkly 11. The Man in the High Castle 12. Do Androids dream of…
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?” ↗As an aside, “Exeunt, followed by a bear” from The Winter’s Tale was probably one of the greatest stage directions in English literature. One point worth mentioning is that Shakespeare was not particularly high literature for his time: these were plays written for…
on “Why Read the Classics? (1986)” ↗It's derived from one of Shakespeare's less popular plays, Winter's Tale, which contains the amusing stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear."[1] (Apologies if you knew this, sincerity via text is hard) Their actual headline/url seems to be "Technology startups are headed…
on “Exit unicorns, pursued by bears” ↗Shakespeare had some plays that had at least tragic elements--Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale. Maybe The Tempest.--with happy or happyish endings. But he mostly didn't do "Hollywood Endings" on his tragedies. So the something may simply have been "great source material but that ending has to go."
on “A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it” ↗Yes. Of those 4, only The Tempest is top-drawer Shakespeare although, to be honest, The Winter's Tale is the only one of the other three I've actually read/seen performed. The Tempest--which is one of my favorites--was one of his very last plays and certainly his last great one; it's hard not to see…
on “A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it” ↗