Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Two Noble Kinsmen
    The Two Noble Kinsmen
    The Two Noble Kinsmen
    Ebook480 pages4 hours

    The Two Noble Kinsmen

    By William Shakespeare, John Fletcher and Paul Werstine

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The authoritative edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

    Written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, this play tells the familiar story of a love triangle. Here, though, it seems distant and strange. Initially, the Theban knights Arcite and Palamon are devoted kinsmen, both serving their king, Creaon, who is defeated by Theseus, Duke of Athens. After they are imprisoned in Athens, they see Emilia, sister of the Duchess of Athens, through a window. They become rivals for her love, eager to fight each other to the death, even though she does not know they exist.

    After Arcite is released and banished, and Palamon escapes, they begin their would-be fight to the death with chivalric ceremony. Theseus, happening on them, decrees that they must compete for her in a tournament, after which the loser will be executed.

    Emilia is no willing bride; as a girl, she loved Flavina, who has died. Still, she tries to avert the tournament by choosing between Arcite and Palamon, only to find she cannot. The jailer’s daughter, a character added by the playwrights, is infatuated with Palamon and helps him escape. But the social gulf between her and Palamon is unimaginably wide. Only the gods can bring the play to resolution.

    This edition includes:
    -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
    -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
    -Scene-by-scene plot summaries
    -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
    -An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
    -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
    -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
    -An annotated guide to further reading

    Essay by Dieter Mehl

    The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateNov 8, 2016
    ISBN9781501150005
    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.

    Read more from William Shakespeare

    Related to The Two Noble Kinsmen

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      We Laughed–until We Cried

      Feb 5, 2020

      We Laughed–until We Cried
      4 min read

    • Article

      “Where Did You Laugh?”

      Dec 14, 2019

      “Where Did You Laugh?”
      4 min read

    • Article

      Saoirse Ronan

      Jun 4, 2016

      Saoirse Ronan
      5 min read

    • Article

      Theatre And The Last Pandemic

      Apr 27, 2020

      Theatre And The Last Pandemic
      8 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Shows

      Dec 19, 2016

      The 10 Best Shows
      3 min read

    • Article

      Mfa Or The Highway?

      Dec 25, 2019

      FOR YEARS, I IDENTIFIED AS A PLAY ‑ wright who wanted an MFA. I had seen those coveted three letters in almost every playwright’s bio, often attached to an illustrious university—an Ivy, or maybe a West Coast equivalent. I spent three autumns writing

      12 min read

    • Article

      Shakespeare's Conservatism

      Aug 5, 2014

      Shakespeare's Conservatism
      3 min read

    • Article

      Carrie Coon Has Drawn Acclaim for Her TV Work, but Her Return to Theater in 'Mary Jane' Brings a Welcome Clarity of Character

      Oct 27, 2017

      NEW YORK - You can tell by the way Carrie Coon confidently maneuvers around the tables of a crowded Tribeca restaurant that this is an actress who has hit her stride. She recently completed two tours of television duty, receiving acclaim for her work

      6 min read

    • Article

      Pain And Love In The Backyard

      Feb 25, 2020

      In Will Arbery’s new play, five conservative Catholics in Wyoming gather late at night by a fire pit to argue, commiserate, and face the uncertain future of their faith and their country. Danya Taymor, who directed the play’s premiere at New York Cit

      8 min read

    • Article

      Sam Shepard’s Dynamic Women

      Aug 11, 2017

      Sam Shepard’s Dynamic Women
      4 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Jul 25, 2019

      IF THE FIERCE WOMAN IN A BROCADE JACKET ON OUR cover is unfamiliar to you, allow us to correct that. Playwright Adrienne Kennedy is an American original as distinctive as any artist who’s ever walked among us. Born in 1931, she began writing her lyri

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks

      Nov 25, 2019

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Shakespeare’s Library’ Imagines The Bard’s Bookshelves

      Apr 18, 2019

      Stuart Kells explores the source materials that would have been necessary to write all those plays and poems.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Shakespeare's First Folio

      Jun 15, 2023

      Price: £20 Released: Out now Within Shakespeare’s First Folio Emma Smith has provided a fascinating insight into the history of the First Folio of The Bard of Avon’s work, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Within the pages of this book, we found the rich

      1 min read

    • Article

      Shakespeare And Religion

      Apr 15, 2021

      Shakespeare was a product of the English Reformation. England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church started under Henry VIII, and was well established by the time Shakespeare started writing. Yet in Shakespeare’s late and coauthored play Henry VIII,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Small Press Submissions

      Aug 3, 2023

      Delphinium Books has an editorial team ‘committed to publishing original, important voices, be it fiction or non-fiction, in contemporary society.’ Both literary fiction and exceptional nonfiction, over 50,000 words are accepted from agented and unag

      2 min read

    • Article

      How the World’s Most Famous Book Was Made

      Nov 8, 2023

      The creation of Shakespeare's Folio was not straightforward, and the people who compiled it had their own aims with its publication. The post How the World’s Most Famous Book Was Made appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Love’s Labour’s Found

      Dec 6, 2020

      From late summer 1592 until the end of the following year, the plague was rife in London, and to stop packed crowds from spreading infection, theatres were closed. William Shakespeare, who had just begun to make a name for himself as a playwright, tu

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Two Noble Kinsmen

    3.5/5

    67 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.”

    Book preview

    The Two Noble Kinsmen - William Shakespeare

    Q.abook_preview_excerpt.html}ےGa ̒R4RK`P$LW% T^YkYYtco1f*:!Ocѵ8Cڢ 1-qqL3qKױ˿~cBw-ɶ;쌄n`7Xv6`b/cWc/-`o(j׮Genw_xKGp>B)t$ $1[t86-bQ,qvUq+ mo*`wہzO;6(Fa#I&wB햵_}_^ 뺋%WeE;aʰp/./>߼]w].޿8wqgC" IkIB3yWWat}h#re9HQKOuؖ8g3KڽEƱi\<ַnz .GfQx}lMܿu=VUF'*TWߺ^\]#P-dla {V\r# o{r%/%-pbXzxI'޾\~S(:i%+/ϰ4?ZǪnghvnH1Vc?PEb[ ֋aUtL*d,#N@뗮wY9-u% y#v}1SV7`,9wcEt (r3{XɨJQ7Y#_OqF+xHN OUu&[7GZvE 钒6лjh/7]W' ( k}xӳQ>,@~l}`" MMG#ڵc,\x>D= ;gI[^e.rFWoffn/j.n0@}vlĒ?@LE\l\۷dP|LM W`U${9 bae,w_=-fyJyM?BA4uKMd)rΛ / 8Gpv d'ieB_% QaSm6ѕ7IRʌ 0VN~]5̉*ՐM{0z)6M 3zZG.0VbinW9JشQw/;\m,:΀$ $(cG+JCLeV^~x}VϹ7?d:J[%bz^/޽d'$Z/AêW&ϓ 3u}y)gzи5SÙBɍuVe&*6o7[EwzK 1H(߁uTs^ /cF}&]⻹7]TI: ʷvzRA8Rszc&`}-= 8)&tFQhaRW(\n(چ~\ъWyvIa}Ճw-̼ LY? 7ᘅYOכb vcBޯi G,͏ד` "!I(PuHw'v'kv(?CKz ].N`[|z j͍Le$w˘?oAQFZv~`A^Hth˭u^'va'%&BvqAԸbz>$ϸ%b<+P,X*5c<3uHCVlM"Y XaEoigTy٫JRRG86 ,+ߵf~`u[B-mU1e #-,|=J1nD}E b8 3pU!L|_GIkaPvaGafEr]Isv[FvN(14xўSA}y8q*[܎Ǯ:!-WRp%wn.$%vY4iHhR ba_1>z3J t7E ~rnKC> vК}1% [{஗7҄<ȹ a"O'>TcIXN_>?XQV~sb]G_QOۋmǯ:Vp탙n4;!'p+ ɳ^M}4s&u'/k 5vӻxm7I!~j2 k$ ܐ%y|pQƭK_Cs'cJ-3IaYhR{{wl-XV`s΁ڇl'X:y,:BL;)Jr'ӧ3dOΡwJsM`A.|^ 7]yy+(MiɝOHcC7Km~ߌ1rm:B 6aǻ)2R~:I*BWn[9js)"F{^K̙Tv- NNc],+9ϙ?./%,ϊ'{j Q,'i"b'_aXx)q}ߩ}TX3lO:]W TIesV3yT',6b+Њ#Hm?Eס ] G߶=ܓM(~ræxo @tK_^.7;<2(KB,|^Z)W0el=^ ̓`ئ) Yrށ7w1\/9C:D6[NuIk - &aJIJ;LyW'?^uӬL:^kXN3_flX橋ҁNg$03zF8HEƏ[Sң@zvZP_@$3HlV \;M|4B"1aY|unJ{8A|s -'JL\`s -:Ie[]"15%/trV _xՌ6*#kSK]9n*,Y3s6ҴALBc~ÿl?KLԮ1gNuqW (99/N>`Ն1j طfb|9:ehf@te N#< ?#)4{d@z'a+Xa4nbˠQFم&34<(61 8i{~)01ls4-i5NEؑTVH\i{,k}D\Jhi5%G!rJQ3VqZ=rV$S11=EkAn4.ki5@RyN1?V`Sz׮5tjh\d%I&I2lLWRV٘܃EQɜl uMO0 $+U+ 7]oy7X5yN1_N3( Qw΃U G+2ihqYni4iM߷zb 7CѪ *pk=ӌ :gX5; ƺ yWzH`mtzϒI}5\ݙQsqenې=s;h[ve Xld%5Bk՗ձp{`~a8c~]Jd:uc  {0㿳b~ߓ? VƂkwn0ŁU xYhĭ$n%'"G) ~;:Q t+zUOM#f畴?X 0dG@zUpD 9Rˠ2Gհ厈gLM]+T;GJ_} Uʼ?k. gw xm{-0fr@D.0)z'\ L5Oޚi6ylVɋkיPUt;p$BG)ʐjWA3D)(-h_b_\^"&LY~ub!vp6*ˎ؂(D*3R2 -Dj% 4/sqTAܐ}8~*O \QZd=[Om[R]z? i.FbaiɆ ߆RP;%e+"}"Nfc:8kE}'~N\d+2' >K74>nbԌ#oMp2=<s߆y,2v9:''  ēZQf$,I=#ii6Nh Zō<ʼnb/^SdI׶tєa0-]Ӎ/ηM**T;lD +wu @2eb3b]:Ńe><;s|t)M,&b(wr\ c6Ȃpr#3ao֧]ѕR;pޙPaK0 &ϩg7 ȿ 4]TaU$e"HYj ޸~X*o6b1Y+8[(*FKgDMgV1Y7Ub97< h3kf!ڒ3,!cYQੑޅς$ prցF5i,ּT"I[xW>W,OY ^/ 4'b,uՕnBc%h?F5]%@BmRz=LJ)8g+ }* P\rǓ{u$8`!ocA-9o.@͊嗒.f)3!t^o3Ї)G+_&6Z-%tǪNk"]M'ʎV ;WUH_B[ݝSYF˩QIJ YSpR&ăe% ¯`T=n3GHYs,:3FQ֒.7Eky7|o-*4:%VE"3-d,-qQ : 7=7` ̼4f\1iR,A/S[3ޑKW:KU$f] )`ݎ0鮩BxEseHI0JI&yg52gY S5 bִ'u])(%;p-M应۾2>~߼w! ߙ]rx(-LJ9 KԧƊvf킏|%§Jes`.h։&[M֐8HfKU떺{j➗5Qv#K~nˊZYYi$YX;K4nDCc OV* zu0#a ֒pen+`Vk-HYF`d8ݯuqI{(s_ŝ\ƧV}+Gɯn2L{L/}O[TJU;HEZxӆ+K܋r*2Yg?Wi™چkiKeV~,ڍ]I3'2(ˑ_1c;kxj/YW %Bj<'f|| sؒce˅yoxGEa& ^G2DZg!;N?<'cnb}/|f)NIE!ZkKif ڵoPae4tV2Ĝ|i *&MUIIU7kice1 stNn5WLs~Ɋ^9ӌW RPS#!o/yp'H|@c*4G `>ɺQNe.:p$-(s\ǃ.W(%cͭ+͊'.=u撬`魝Bb gx-'H5rqb^×%͉_ؖ)>NEK95%]&3Z3vpdavA*?4.Q)䝅zKyyOLΏ1LWʷ .U…6A-]XWԃė-6,Z-H\K+l5|=aSD:b~Q )(&'&6E>ź3LHn9'~|#0O6K,= 'UJڭ[ c+<_k+ r^j_&>~]v[crECTۉ9X|L1Mn[]1n_pKmڱhAq^#[{;8=6]?`LӞ^^9c wme?L4MA]as.ydUlY4wɎ$cVXƙjSjoB|s]< !wf
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1