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The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Ebook214 pages2 hours

The Two Noble Kinsmen

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Based on Chaucer's Knight's Tale, The Two Noble Kinsmen was written at the end of Shakespeare's career, as a collaboration with the rising young dramatist John Fletcher. Neglected until recently by directors and teachers, the play deserves to be better known for its moving dramatization of the conflict of love and friendship.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 1, 2013
ISBN9781625589804
Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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Rating: 3.2181817763636364 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Delightful edition of this challenging play, with great textual notes, detailed introduction, and just all around a high-quality elucidation of this collaborative work.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For a William Shakespeare play I'd never heard of, "Two Noble Kinsmen" was pretty entertaining. It is, however, very evident that parts were not written by Shakespeare himself (this play is thought to be a collaboration between the bard and John Fletcher.)The play tells the story of two cousins who are best friends but end up falling out after deciding on sight that they love the same girl. There is also a minor sub-plot about a jailer's daughter who is out of her mind. While there isn't a ton of action in the play, at least until the end, I really enjoyed all of the dialog. I'm surprised this play isn't staged more often.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As I work my way through the complete list of Shakespeare's plays, I'm stumbling upon many of his lesser-known works with little to no knowledge going into them. It's an interesting way to approach Shakespeare, because so many of the plays we read of his are ones we already familiar with before we ever reach the actual text. Shows like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are woven into the tapestry of pop culture in so many different ways that we learn the story even if we haven't read the book.Unlike those shows, I had no previous knowledge of The Two Noble Kinsmen before I started it. In my head I kept confusing it with The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and there's good reason for that. Both plays take a pair of best friends and then pit them against each other for the love of a woman. I can't help but wonder if this ever happened to Shakespeare, because he seems to bring it up a lot. Did he have some friend who was kind of a jerk and kept going after whoever his buddy Bill had a crush on?In The Two Noble Kinsmen we meet Palamon and Arcite. They are devoted friends… until they see Emilia. After that it’s every man for himself. Unfortunately another woman, the daughter of a jailer, falls for one of the two men, Palamon. So now she’s trapped in this horrible cycle too. In the end, one kinsman ends up with the girl and everyone is “happy”. It’s all tied up a bit too neatly to be believable. It’s also one of Shakespeare’s more frustrating plays when it comes to the women. No one seems to care what Emilia or the jailer’s daughter actually wants. I felt like the women in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, particularly Silvia, are much stronger characters. BOTTOM LINE: It’s Shakespeare’s final play, but not his strongest. A tidy ending and weak female characters don’t leave a great lasting impression, but it still holds some beautiful language from Shakespeare. “This world's a city full of straying streets, and death's the market-place where each one meets.”

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The Two Noble Kinsmen - William Shakespeare

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