Wordsworth Classics of World Literature: Four Late Plays

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'It is required you do awake your faith' (The Winter's Tale). Written late in Shakespeare's life, these plays delightfully exhibit his interest in the conventions of the fairy-tale. They are tales of enchantment, heard from afar and seen through a fine gauze. In this fantasy world truths about the real world are played out on a different plane. In each play a family is forcibly divided through natural mischance (a storm at sea) or human folly (a wrongful accusation), and in each the lost ones are restored to their families. We move from the pain of separation through the despair of loss to the joy of restoration and resurrection. This mature vision of the world looks unblinkingly into the jaws of despair, yet still chooses to consider life worth celebrating.