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Pericles; Cymbeline; The Two Noble Kinsman
The magic and art of Shakespeare is made even easier to understand in this revised edition of three of his plays. Includes a general discussion of his life, stage histories of his time, and dramatic criticism by noted scholars.
728 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
William Shakespeare
18.2k books48.4k followersWilliam Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
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December 19, 2021So far I have only read Pericles - December 2021
62. Pericles by William Shakespeare
written: 1608?
format: 192 pages within a 2006 Signet Classic paperback with Cymbeline and The Two Noble Kinsmen
acquired: September
read: Nov 17 – Dec 12, 2021
time reading: 8:24, 2.6 mpp
rating: 3
locations: various places in the pre-Christian eastern Mediterranean
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616
Editors
Ernest SchanzerErnest Shanzer – (1963)
Sylvan Barnet – series editor (1963, 1988, 2006)
Sources
John Gower – from Confessio Amantis, Book VIII (1390)
Laurence Twine – from The Patterne of Painful Adventures, Chapters XI-XV (1607)
Criticism
G. Wilson Knight – from The Crown of Life (1948)
John F. Danby – from Poets on Fortune’s Hill (1952)
Kenneth Muir – from Shakespeare as Collaborator (1960)
Carol Thomas Neely – Pericles: Incest, Birth, and the Death of Mothers (from Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays, 1985)
Michael Dobson – Adrian Nobel’s Pericles, 2002 (from Shakespeare Survey 55, 2003)
Sylvan Barnet – Pericles on Stage and Screen (2006)
How to sum up? This play is weird in several ways. The storyline is deranged, the themes are subtly disturbing, and it has a curious textual lineage. Pericles, here prince of Tyre, goes through a number of travails, first discovering a desired princess is in an incestual relationship with her dad, then fleeing an assassin sent by that dad. On his travels he has a shipwreck, wins a wife, loses her during childbirth, but gains a daughter, who he drops off for fourteen years when he is told she has died. But the play ends as the depressed prince is revived by his not-dead daughter, and later finds his not-dead wife. My summary is botched, but I tried to note that it begins with dad-daughter incest and ends in daughter reviving dad. So, there's an interesting theme.
As for the text, it comes first from John Gower, a Chaucer associate, author of Confessio Amantis, an English poem of several tales written around 1390. A Lawrence Twine published a prose version of Gower's tales in 1607. Then at some point this text shows up, a pirated version. It's not in the First Folio. But it was reprinted several times and forms a messy source text. It has several styles. A character named Gower opens each act with an explanatory narration. That's one style. But then acts 1 & 2 are flat poetry. Heavy plot, dull reading. Acts 3-5 are not. The general consensus is someone else wrote acts 1 & 2, and then Shakespeare finished the play. (And, personally, I wonder what role the incest theme might play within the text's history). It makes for a weirdly uneven and poor read. But, for production, it's a great text because it's not sacred. Directors can do what they like with this text, guilt-free, and they do.
Recommended only for Shakespeare completists (and that's not a bad goal). But I really liked John Gower's original. So, that does get a recommendation (although I only read a really tiny part of book VIII).
62. Pericles by William Shakespeare
written: 1608?
format: 192 pages within a 2006 Signet Classic paperback with Cymbeline and The Two Noble Kinsmen
acquired: September
read: Nov 17 – Dec 12, 2021
time reading: 8:24, 2.6 mpp
rating: 3
locations: various places in the pre-Christian eastern Mediterranean
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616
Editors
Ernest SchanzerErnest Shanzer – (1963)
Sylvan Barnet – series editor (1963, 1988, 2006)
Sources
John Gower – from Confessio Amantis, Book VIII (1390)
Laurence Twine – from The Patterne of Painful Adventures, Chapters XI-XV (1607)
Criticism
G. Wilson Knight – from The Crown of Life (1948)
John F. Danby – from Poets on Fortune’s Hill (1952)
Kenneth Muir – from Shakespeare as Collaborator (1960)
Carol Thomas Neely – Pericles: Incest, Birth, and the Death of Mothers (from Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays, 1985)
Michael Dobson – Adrian Nobel’s Pericles, 2002 (from Shakespeare Survey 55, 2003)
Sylvan Barnet – Pericles on Stage and Screen (2006)
How to sum up? This play is weird in several ways. The storyline is deranged, the themes are subtly disturbing, and it has a curious textual lineage. Pericles, here prince of Tyre, goes through a number of travails, first discovering a desired princess is in an incestual relationship with her dad, then fleeing an assassin sent by that dad. On his travels he has a shipwreck, wins a wife, loses her during childbirth, but gains a daughter, who he drops off for fourteen years when he is told she has died. But the play ends as the depressed prince is revived by his not-dead daughter, and later finds his not-dead wife. My summary is botched, but I tried to note that it begins with dad-daughter incest and ends in daughter reviving dad. So, there's an interesting theme.
As for the text, it comes first from John Gower, a Chaucer associate, author of Confessio Amantis, an English poem of several tales written around 1390. A Lawrence Twine published a prose version of Gower's tales in 1607. Then at some point this text shows up, a pirated version. It's not in the First Folio. But it was reprinted several times and forms a messy source text. It has several styles. A character named Gower opens each act with an explanatory narration. That's one style. But then acts 1 & 2 are flat poetry. Heavy plot, dull reading. Acts 3-5 are not. The general consensus is someone else wrote acts 1 & 2, and then Shakespeare finished the play. (And, personally, I wonder what role the incest theme might play within the text's history). It makes for a weirdly uneven and poor read. But, for production, it's a great text because it's not sacred. Directors can do what they like with this text, guilt-free, and they do.
Recommended only for Shakespeare completists (and that's not a bad goal). But I really liked John Gower's original. So, that does get a recommendation (although I only read a really tiny part of book VIII).
February 12, 2018
Only finished Cymbeline so far from this edition - the 4 stars applies to that. Absolutely bonkers and unexpectedly enjoyable.
March 19, 2026
(I read the "Pericles" in the Signet Classics edition, series editor Sylvan Barnett, and this volume edited by Ernest Schnauzer. My first reading date in this is 1973, and the cost of the book was 50 cents! This edition seems to have disappeared from Goodreads.)
I can't believe I haven't read this play before! But I'm sure I would have remembered how wonderfully weird it is if I had. It would be almost impossible to summarize the plot and the various twists. And then there are the times when the dead come back to life. The appearance of a God. Etc.! The language does shift about half way through (end of Act II, and now I know that the consensus seems to be that someone else wrote the first part, and Shakespeare came in to finish the last three acts). And then John Gower appears as the chorus, telling us how the setting has changed from scene to scene, how the plot has altered, who the new characters are, who died off stage, even why all these characters in such different places all seem to speak the same language. I know it's an ancient device, but it felt quite modern, almost like a voice-over in a film.
T.S.Eliot said the recognition scene in Act. 5, scene i is the greatest recognition reveal in all of literature. Of course, he liked to say definitive things like that, but I did find myself quite moved by that scene, as Pericles, Marina and Thaisa all come together. Maybe it's just because I only have one daughter, but I was amused at myself shedding tears over this comparatively unknown Shakespeare play.
The scholarly consensus seems to be that this is the first of Shakespeare's last four magical or miracle plays, the ones he wrote when he was almost out the door and headed back to Stratford. It does seem as if he's trying to avoid tragedy (even if tragic things happen along the way), and coming to a sense of possibility, of resolution, a sense that life might indeed make sense.
(T.S.Eliot's poem "Marina" is part of his group of poems that are clearly helping him move to Christianity. In Eliot's poem, the voices of the dead are revivified, and the dead begin to stir again. These lines, yes, coming off the play, but also very important to TSE's own spiritual rebirth:
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the wood thrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.)
I can't believe I haven't read this play before! But I'm sure I would have remembered how wonderfully weird it is if I had. It would be almost impossible to summarize the plot and the various twists. And then there are the times when the dead come back to life. The appearance of a God. Etc.! The language does shift about half way through (end of Act II, and now I know that the consensus seems to be that someone else wrote the first part, and Shakespeare came in to finish the last three acts). And then John Gower appears as the chorus, telling us how the setting has changed from scene to scene, how the plot has altered, who the new characters are, who died off stage, even why all these characters in such different places all seem to speak the same language. I know it's an ancient device, but it felt quite modern, almost like a voice-over in a film.
T.S.Eliot said the recognition scene in Act. 5, scene i is the greatest recognition reveal in all of literature. Of course, he liked to say definitive things like that, but I did find myself quite moved by that scene, as Pericles, Marina and Thaisa all come together. Maybe it's just because I only have one daughter, but I was amused at myself shedding tears over this comparatively unknown Shakespeare play.
The scholarly consensus seems to be that this is the first of Shakespeare's last four magical or miracle plays, the ones he wrote when he was almost out the door and headed back to Stratford. It does seem as if he's trying to avoid tragedy (even if tragic things happen along the way), and coming to a sense of possibility, of resolution, a sense that life might indeed make sense.
(T.S.Eliot's poem "Marina" is part of his group of poems that are clearly helping him move to Christianity. In Eliot's poem, the voices of the dead are revivified, and the dead begin to stir again. These lines, yes, coming off the play, but also very important to TSE's own spiritual rebirth:
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the wood thrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.)
December 23, 2016
An interesting collection. Had the publishers decided to add Winter's Tale and The Tempest, this would have been the perfect collection of Shakespeare's Romances. As for the stories in this compilation: they are good! Pericles is a five star play, Cymbeline is a four star play, and The Two Noble Kinsmen is a three. Together I give the complete compilation four stars - a really good read. The commentary in the signet classic editions of Shakespeare's plays is strong. I Definitely recommend this collection.
January 3, 2009
Cymbeline "****" . (read 20100129) Shakespeare weaves several stories together into a complicated, even outlandish comic plot. Princess Imogen is married to Posthumus, who is banished by King Cymbeline so that his step-son can marry Imogen instead. Meanwhile, Iachimo bets that he can seduce Imogen in Posthumus' absence, and although he fails to do so, he convinces Posthumus that he has succeeded. As a result, Posthumus decides to kill Imogen, who has left court and gone to Wales where she thinks she can rejoin her beloved Posthumus. There Imogen meets with an old man and two youths who ultimately turn out to be Imogen's long lost brothers. Then a war happens (Rome invades over unpaid tribute), and Posthumus and Imogen's new companions distinguish themselves in battle. Imogen and Posthumus are reunited, the princes are restored to their father, and even the cynical Iachimo repents and is forgiven. Despite the extravagant and artificial comic plot, the characters in Cymbeline grow and develop under adversity, making the play both funny and touching.
Pericles "****" . King Pericles, through the vicissitudes of fate, loses the family he loves, but after years of grief they are all reunited through remarkable fortune.
Main Ideas: The strengths and virtues of men are no match for fate. We are not masters of our own destinies, but must bear up under misfortunes as best we can, and remember that fate can work for good as well as for ill.
(It helped having seen terrific productions of these plays at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va.)
Pericles "****" . King Pericles, through the vicissitudes of fate, loses the family he loves, but after years of grief they are all reunited through remarkable fortune.
Main Ideas: The strengths and virtues of men are no match for fate. We are not masters of our own destinies, but must bear up under misfortunes as best we can, and remember that fate can work for good as well as for ill.
(It helped having seen terrific productions of these plays at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2007
I read this for my college Shakespeare 2 class (wanted to skip all that I'd read for high school and run with the obscure); and later saw a live-action play version at the Intiman Theater in Seattle. They did a cowboy version with a little Asian gal as Cymbeline. Not my favorite, but I think everyone needs to go see a live-action Shakespeare play at least once (preferably one that doesn't suck as much).
May 18, 2009
To be honest, I've only read The Two Noble Kinsmen out of this lot, though I read all of the essays on the other plays. I intend to read the others, but I'm saving them for the rainy season. ;)
I liked this edition! I love reading scholarly essays in these kind of "Classics" collections, and the ones that they chose for this edition were all very interesting.
The Two Noble Kinsmen itself was much more interesting than I was expecting.
I liked this edition! I love reading scholarly essays in these kind of "Classics" collections, and the ones that they chose for this edition were all very interesting.
The Two Noble Kinsmen itself was much more interesting than I was expecting.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews