The Winter's Tale
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The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comic and supply a happy ending.
Act II, scene 3: Antigonus swears his loyalty to Leontes, in an attempt to save Leontes' young daughter's life. From a painting by John Opie commissioned by the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery for printing and display.
John Fawcett as Autolycus in The Winter's Tale (1828) by Thomas Charles Wageman
An ink drawing of Act II, Scene iii: Paulina imploring Leontes to have mercy on his daughter, Perdita. Illustration was designed for an edition of Lamb's Tales, copyrighted 1918.
An engraving of Florizel and Perdita by Charles Robert Leslie.
Ben Jonson
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Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."
Westminster School master William Camden cultivated the artistic genius of Ben Jonson.
The Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden was friend and confidant to Jonson.
Title page of The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (1616), the first folio publication that included stage plays