Macbeth-El Rey Lear

by William Shakespeare

“El rey Lear “se basa en un cuento popular que aparece incorporado a la historia antigua de Inglaterra desde el siglo XII. Cuentan las crónicas que el viejo Lear quiso conocer el grado de afecto de sus tres hijas para designar sucesora a quien más le quisiera. Dos se deshicieron en halagos y la menor le contestó que le quería como padre y nada más. Le pareció poco al rey, que la castigó. El tiempo vendría a demostrar más tarde que era la única digna del trono que, por fin, tras una guerra con las hermanas, consiguió. Shakespeare amplía la trama e infunde a la historia una visión muy personal. Lo que en definitiva presenta es una experiencia extrema de dolor, locura y destrucción expresada crudamente y sin reservas. Traducción y edición de Ángel-Luis Pujante, premio Nacional de Traducción.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1623

About the author

William 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".

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Absolutamente genial!
La edición de Oveja Negra es excelente, se trata de una traducción del Instituto Shakespeare, dirigida por Miguel Ángel Conejero, muy recomendable.
Últimamente he podido conocer gentuza fanatizada con ideologías resentidas que ataca a Shakespeare. Al respecto solo me queda decir que solamente un insano mental enfermo y perdido mediocre podría negarle a Shakespeare su puesto central que en la literatura universal.

[Martin Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este tomo se reúnen dos de las tragedias más conocidas de SHAKESPEARE, ambas escritas y estrenadas en los primeros años del reinado de Jacobo I, sucesor de la Reina Isabel. Ambas obras tienen como personaje principal a un rey (tema frecuente tratándose de SHAKESPEARE), el primero medieval, mientras que el Lear histórico habría vivido antes de la fundación de Roma. De las dos obras, me pareció más interesante "Macbeth" por la forma tan descriptiva como retrata el aspecto psicológico de quienes, cegados por la ambición política, buscan el poder por el poder.