Description
The Arden Shakespeare is the established edition of Shakespeare's work. Justly celebrated for its authoritative scholarship and invaluable commentary, Arden guides you a richer understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays.This edition of All's Well That Ends Well provides, a clear and authoritative text, detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text, a full introduction discussing the critical and historical background to the play and appendices presenting sources and relevant extracts.
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G. K. Hunter was Founding Professor of English Literature at Warwick University and Emily Sanford Professor of English at Yale University. His publications include editions of King Lear and Macbeth for The Penguin Shakespeare, English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of Shakespeare, and Dramatic Identities and Cultural Tradition: Studies in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. He also wrote John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier, widely regarded as the best critical study of Lyly. The editor’s introduction includes extensive discussion of the text, date, and source of the play. That the play is only found in 1623’s First Folio makes dating it difficult; in his attempt to do so, Wilson uses previous scholarship, including hypotheses that the play was once called Love’s Labour’s Won, and compares the play to 1604’s Measure for Measure. A critical introduction of the play first lays out its structure and themes, then discusses the problematic roles of Bertram, Parolles, and Helena, and finally examines the play’s unity (or lack thereof). Following the text of All’s Well That Ends Well is an appendix, “Giletta of Narbona” by William Painter, a probable source of the play. The Arden Shakespeare has developed a reputation as the pre-eminent critical edition of Shakespeare for its exceptional scholarship, reflected in the thoroughness of each volume. An introduction comprehensively contextualizes the play, chronicling the history and culture that surrounded and influenced Shakespeare at the time of its writing and performance, and closely surveying critical approaches to the work. Detailed appendices address problems like dating and casting, and analyze the differing Quarto and Folio sources. A full commentary by one or more of the play’s foremost contemporary scholars illuminates the text, glossing unfamiliar terms and drawing from an abundance of research and expertise to explain allusions and significant background information. Highly informative and accessible, Arden offers the fullest experience of Shakespeare available to a reader.
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