Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 18th September 2013
Paperback
Published: 24th June 2015
Paperback
Published: 1st November 1998
Paperback
Published: 1st October 2021
Paperback, New edition
Published: 5th January 1995
Paperback
Published: 20th March 2025
Paperback
Published: 19th October 2010
Hardback
Published: 1st September 2010
The Winter's Tale: Third Series
By (Author) William Shakespeare
Edited by John Pitcher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
The Arden Shakespeare
1st September 2010
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800
Educational: First / native language: Literature studies
Classic and pre-20th century plays
822.33
Hardback
496
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 30mm
636g
One of Shakespeare's later plays, best described as a tragic-comedy, the play falls into two distinct parts. In the first Leontes is thrown into a jealous rage by his suspicions of his wife Hermione and his best-friend, and imprisons her and orders that her new born daughter be left to perish. The second half is a pastoral comedy with the "lost" daughter Perdita having been rescued by shepherds and now in love with a young prince. The play ends with former lovers and friends reunited after the apparently miraculous resurrection of Hermione.
John Pitcher's lively introduction and commentary explores the extraordinary merging of theatrical forms in the play and its success in performance. As the recent Sam Mendes production at the Old Vic shows, this is a play that can work a kind of magic in the theatre.
John Pitcher is Professor of English at St John's College, Oxford.