Pericles The first of Shakespeare’s late romances moves spectacularly from one dramatic period to another as the hero, Pericles, sails off to adventure and love, and experiences what for him is a miracle. Cymbeline A favorite romantic drama, this play of a wife unjustly accused of faithlessness moves from a world of intrigue and slander to one of reconciliation and forgiveness, and contains two of Shakespeare’s most poignantly beautiful songs. The Winter's Tale From a darkly melodramatic beginning to a joyous pastoral ending, this romance of a jealous king and his long-suffering queen is superb entertainment, with revelations, plot twists, and a final compelling theatrical moment of discovery. The Tempest This tale of the exiled Duke of Milan, marooned on an enchanted island, is so richly filled with music and magic, romance and comedy, that its theme of love and reconciliation offers a splendid feast for the senses and the heart.

Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest--three of Shakespeare's final plays diverge from his usual standards. Mowat posits that by confronting the comic form with the tragic, the realistic with the artificial, the dramatic with the narrative, Shakespeare frees romance from the traditional bounds and makes meaning in a new way.

This work is a critical study of Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, with a focus on Shakespeare's exploration of language in its destructive potentialities and its redemptive workings.

Describes the geography, plants and animals, history, economy, language, religions, culture, and people of the People's Republic of China, home of one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations.

This is the first study to relate the Greek romances to Elizabethan drama. It focuses upon the Greek romance materials in Shakespeare's plays to clarify the background of his art and to illuminate the relationship between the two literatures. The Greek romance tradition is described historically and traced through the works of Boccaccio and Cervantes, as well as other continental and English writers. Then, full attention is given to those plays of Shakespeare which utilize the Greek materials. The notes are full and, with the aid of the extensive index, can serve as a manual of the Greek romance materials in Renaissance literature. A bibliographic appendix lists the known editions, translations, and adaptations of Greek romances from about 1470 to about 1642. The manuscript history is reviewed briefly. Thorough, careful, the book will be indispensable for concerned scholars and libraries.