Winter’s Tale

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex ‘The Winter’s Tale’, one of Shakespeare’s later romantic comedies, offers a striking and challenging mixture of tragic and violent events, lyrical love-speeches, farcical comedy, pastoral song and dance, and, eventually, dramatic revelations and reunions. Thematically, there is a rich orchestration of the contrasts between age and youth, corruption and innocence, decline and regeneration. Both Leontes’ murderous jealousy and Perdita’s love-relationship with Florizel are eloquently intense. In the theatre, ‘The Winter’s Tale’ often proves to be diversely entertaining and deeply moving. This volume is part of the Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series, in which each volume has been edited by Cedric Watts. AUTHOR: William Shakespeare (1564-1616) needs little introduction. As we approach the four-hundredth anniversary of his death, his reputation as one of the greatest writers in the English language is undeniable – except by those who attribute his works to other writers.