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Rating: Summary: A classic Review: "A sad tale's best for winter." And this tale is full of misperceived motives, anger, absurdities, seeming tragedy, and hysterical comedy. The Winter's tale is one of my all-time favorite Shakespearean stories. The story revolves upon tragicomic figure of Leontes, King of Sicilia. Essentially a good King, Leontes buys himself a heepin' spoonful o' trouble and grief because of his suspicion, envy, and foolish rashness. I won't spoil the story here so I will end by saying that The Winter's Tale is a wonderfully entertaining story of romance, loss, redemption and restoration. It is of course superbly written; with Shakespeare tossing in one of his great comic rogues: Autolycus. This book gets my highest recommendation
Rating: Summary: the winters tale Review: A sad romantic play about human behavior and emotions ...a merciless decision issued by the king Leontes against his wife Hermione and his boyhood friend Polixenes is the shocking beginning of a real tragedy ....immaturity,mistrust and devastating jealousy that completely blinds Leontes of seeing the truth and the consequences of his actions.. Just like a real life story ... call it destiny or Shakesperean justice ... everything evolves to bring those apart back together ... but it takes time to learn and change. The wittiness of Autolycus lightens the severity of the play and shows the opposite side of human nature and growth... I loved the country scenes where the new love of Perdita and Florizel flourishes, they are truly the most romantic and so pure.. beautiful images of blooming emotions reflecting the nature of life and relationships! I think the surprise ending is the climatic picture of remorseful emotions,transformed personalities and new love ... an amazing twist that gives the play a new definition! A magical romantic poetry of love, loss and new beginnings!
Rating: Summary: The high price of Jealousy Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: My personal favorite of Shakespeare's plays Review: For me The Winter's Tale is the most satisfying of Shakespeare's plays. And why? It may not be Hamlet for tragedy, it may not be Twelfth Night for comedy -- indeed, perhaps in the great objective sense this is not nearly his best; but as a coherent work this has them all beat. Here we find all sides of Shakespeare's genius on display: Leontes shares his intense sexual jealousy with Othello, and Florizel and Perdita take their light-hearted romantic comedy interplay (complete with disguises and recogntions) from the best of Shakespeare's comedies, before his sense of the romantic soured into the bitter genius of the problem plays. Add that to the eerily lyrical poetry of Act IV, and you've got a masterpiece. The Winter's Tale is laugh-out-loud funny at times; it's ribald; it's profoundly tragic; and in the end, it's a look at the craft of theater, the craft of literature and ultimately the craft of living. Unjustly ignored, The Winter's Tale is easily as good as its immediate successor, The Tempest -- and that's high praise indeed.
Rating: Summary: A real pleasure to read! Review: I really, really liked this play. This was my third of Shakespeare's, and I was pleased to discover that I hadn't wasted my time reading it. Oh, how sorry I felt for Hermione! After Leontes had done that to her, I just held a grudge against him for the rest of the play. I couldn't help it! Hehe. Anyway, this play is probably amongst my favorites of Shakespeare so far. It's light tone that lacks in syrupy drama and exaggeration yet contains elements that get you where it counts makes for a well put-together play. I recommend it.
Rating: Summary: The Terrible Costs of Jealous Rage Review: 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: Summary: A Redemptive Tragedy Review: The Winter's Tale is a lot of things: heart-breaking, exhilerating, funny, beautiful, romantic, profound, etc. Yeah, it's all here. This is one of the bard's best plays, and I can't believe they don't teach this in schools. Of course, the ones they teach are excellent, but I can see high school kids enjoying this one a lot more than some of those others (Othello, King Lear).
The story is, of course, brilliant. King Leontes goes into a jealous rage at the beginning against his wife Hermione. Leontes is very mistaken in his actions, and the result is tragic. Shakespeare picks the story back up sixteen years later with the children, and the story works to a really, really surprising end of bittersweet redemption. This is one of Shakespeare's bests. The first half is a penetrating and devestating, but the second half shows a capacity for salvation from the depths of despair. Also, this being Shakespeare, the blank verse is gorgeous and the characters are well drawn, and the ending is a surprise unparalleled in the rest of his plays. The Winter's Tale is a truly profound and entertaining read.
Rating: Summary: Tired of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar...? Review: 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: Summary: Tired of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar...? Review: 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: Summary: Billy Boy's GREATEST Play!!!!! Review: This play, in my opinion, is Shakespeare's greatest. It doesn't have the great quotes or the great characters or the action of many of his plays, but it has a 'Surprise Twist' which caused chills to run through my entire body. I read ALL of Shakespeare's plays and 'The Winter's Tale' is the ONLY one which shocked me at the end, took my breath away, and sent chills through my body. If you read only one Shakespeare play, make it 'The Winter's Tale'. I am so surprised that nobody ever recommended this play to us when we were in school. People just talk about Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet, but 'The Winter's Tale' beats them all. Read it!!! You WON'T be disappointed.
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