検索キーワード： 著者 "Michela Bertazzo" すべてのカテゴリー

John Fletcher's comedy (probably written and performed around 1611) is a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, in which, as the title suggests, the tamer will be tamed. Petruchio, the shrew-tamer, has been widowed, and marries a second wife, Maria, a "chaste witty lady." At the instigation of her cousin Bianca, and with the fellowship of her sister Livia, Maria decides to go on strike for equal rights, refusing to behave as a proper 17th century wife. Fletcher's play addresses the issue of men and women's roles within marriage, a controversial issue for his day. (Summary by ...

Mother Elizabeth Sawyer is a poor, lonely, and unfairly ostracized old woman with nothing left to lose. Frank is a poor farmer who intends to marry his beloved Winnifred, who is pregnant with his child, but is pressured to marry Susan, the rich yeoman's daughter. Young Cuddy Banks is a clown who pines after a girl who doesn't love him. When Mother Sawyer turns to witchcraft after being unjustly accused of it, a talking devil-dog named Tom (performed by a human actor) comes to her aid, becoming her familiar and only friend. Though she intends to get her revenge, little does she know many of ...

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play in five acts, first performed in 1607. It is the first whole parody (or pastiche) play in English. The play is a satire on chivalric romances in general, similar to Don Quixote. It breaks the fourth wall from its outset. As a play called "The London Merchant" is about to be performed, a Citizen and his Wife "in the audience" interrupt and demand that the players put on a play of their own choosing and suggest that their apprentice, Rafe, should have a part in the play as a knight errant. He refers to himself as the "Grocer Errant" and has a burning ...

Albert, a handsome French pirate, and his crew get shipwrecked on a barren, rocky island after a severe storm. They encounter another pair of castaways who reveal a quite unusual secret- yet another strange group of people inhabit the island. Albert soon learns that these people are actually an Amazonian-like tribe of women, and proposes an alliance for the benefit of both parties. Love and hijinks ensue in a battle of the sexes.Notable for imitating many elements of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the collaborators also consulted nonfictional traveler's accounts to bring their vision to ...

The Two Noble Kinsmen is a Jacobean tragicomedy co-written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, first published in 1634. Set in ancient Greece during a war between Athens and Thebes, the narrative follows the title characters, Palamon and Arcite, noble youths whose friendship is destroyed by their mutual love for the beautiful Emilia. The subplot deals with the love and eventual madness of the Gaoler's Daughter, who falls hopelessly in love with Palamon. The play is based on "The Knight's Tale" by Chaucer, but also has echoes of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, as two of the major...

The Broken Heart stands next to ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore as Ford's most popular drama. All is not right in Sparta because of, as is typical in this era of tragedies, the issue of marriage. In brief, Penthea wishes to marry Orgilus, but her brother Ithocles gets involved and bans them from doing so. He forces her to marry Bassanes, an abusive brute who happens to be wealthier than Orgilus. Ithocles then realises what he's done wrong and tries to get his friend Prophilus to marry Orgilus's sister Euphrania. Ithocles himself wants to marry the princess of Sparta, Calantha, who chooses him over ...

The Odysseys are a collection of stories about Ulysses' journey home from the war at Troy purportedly written in the 8th century BCE by Homer, a blind poet thought to have lived in the Greek colonies in Asia Minor, possibly at Smyrna. The events described are thought to have occurred centuries before being recorded by Homer, handed down orally since the twelfth century BCE, the golden era of the Greek Bronze Age when the world was populated by heroic mortals and often visited by the Gods. This verse translation in couplets by George Chapman was originally published in 1616, the first ...

“Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?”The wonder-decade of the English drama was suddenly interrupted in 1592, when serious plague broke out in London, forcing the closure of the theatres. Leading playwrights took to penning languorously erotic poetry to make ends meet: so we have Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece - and Marlowe’s blazing masterpiece, Hero and Leander.Marlowe’s poem became more notorious than either of Shakespeare’s, due not only to its homophile provocations but also to the scandal attaching to every aspect of Marlowe’s brief life, violently ended...

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death.The Jew of Malta (1589) is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. The Jew of Malta is considered to have been a major influence on William Shakespeare's The...

Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy (first published 1619) is a sensational Jacobean sex tragedy. When gentleman soldier Melantius returns to Rhodes, he finds his dear friend Amintor is recently married - but not to his troth-plight love Aspatia (the maid of the title). Instead, the King has arranged a match between Amintor and Melantius' sister, the beautiful Evadne. On his wedding night, Amintor finds that his new wife has married him under false pretenses - and this unleashes a torrent of dire consequences, sexual, emotional, and ultimately political. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)Cast...

Tamburlaine the Great is the name of a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur 'the lame'. Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage.Marlowe, generally considered the greatest of ...

Twelfth Night, or What You Wil is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as a boy) falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with the Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short...

Few plays have been seen as a more fitting conclusion to a playwright's career than Shakespeare's The Tempest. Focusing on the aging sorcerer and rightful Duke of Milan, Prospero, we are transported to a remote island where magic and strange music fill the air, and the monstrous slave Caliban roams in bitterness. Seeing an opportunity to restore his slandered name, Prospero conjures a mighty storm to bring down a ship containing his wicked brother and the King of Naples, both of whom had driven him out of Milan twelve years before. By stranding them on a remote end of the island, and with the ...

Cymbeline is one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote, classified by scholars as a late romance or comedy. It's famous for featuring a highly convoluted plot that oftentimes feels like a grab bag of elements from Shakespeare's greatest hits: we have virtuous lovers, a temperamental monarch, a conniving stepmother, an untrustworthy Italian, an arrogant clod, kidnapped siblings, cross-dressing, battles, a devious murder plot, and (of course) some shocking plot twists.And to perform it all? Three men (Tony Addison, Craig Franklin, and Tomas Peter) and one woman (Sonia), determined to give you a ...

Written around the middle of his career, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's great festive comedies. The men are back from the war, and everyone is ready for romance. The dashing young Claudio falls for Hero, the daughter of Leonato, governor of Messina, and his friend Don Pedro helps him secure her affection. These youthful lovers are contrasted with the more experienced (and more cynical) Benedick and Beatrice, who have to be tricked into falling in love. Don Pedro's bastard brother, Don John, provides the intrigue, and the dimwitted constable Dogberry provides the laughs. (...

The Life and Death of King John, a history play by William Shakespeare, dramatises the reign of John, King of England (ruled 1199–1216), son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and father of Henry III of England. It is believed to have been written in the mid-1590s but was not published until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623.John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216), also known as John Lackland or Softsword, was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death. His reign saw the loss of the duchy of Normandy to the French king Philip II in 1204, resulting in the collapse...

Shakespeare was passionately interested in the history of Rome, as is evident from plays like Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. His tragedy Coriolanus was probably written around 1605-07, and dramatizes the rise and fall of a great Roman general, Caius Martius (later surnamed Coriolanus because of his military victory at Corioli). This play is unusual in that it provides a strong voice for the ordinary citizens of Rome, who begin the play rioting about the high price of food, and who continually clash with Coriolanus because of his contempt for plebians. (Summary by ...

King Lear is widely held as the greatest of Shakespeare's tragedies; to some, it is the greatest play ever written. King Lear abdicates the British throne, to divide his kingdom among his three daughters in proportion to their professed love of him. His plan misfires when Cordelia, his youngest and favourite daughter, refuses to flatter her father; she is disinherited and banished.This LibriVox recording marks the 400th anniversary of the first performance of the play, on December 26th 1606. (Summary by David Barnes)LibriVox trivia….. This entire project was completed in just a week, from ...

Othello is the story of a cross-cultural romance between the title character, a noble moor who is a general in the Venetian army, and Desdemona, a beautiful and virtuous Venetian lady. The newly-married couple fall prey to the machinations of Iago, Othello's jealous ensign, who plots to destroy their union. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)Cast:Duke of Venice: Filippo GioachinBrabantio: om123First Senator: David LawrenceSecond Senator: Lucy PerryGratiano: Denny SayersLodovico: Lars RolanderOthello: Bruce PirieCassio: Mark F. SmithIago: mbMontano: Robert KeiperRoderigo: Matthew HillClown: ...

Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Marcus Antonius and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to Cleopatra's suicide. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumviri and the future first emperor of Rome. The tragedy is a Roman play characterized by swift, panoramic shifts in geographical locations and in registers,...