All's Well That Ends Well (30 page)

Authors: William Shakespeare

BOOK: All's Well That Ends Well

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Shakespeare's productivity rate slowed in the Jacobean years, not because of age or some personal trauma, but because there were frequent outbreaks of plague, causing the theaters to be closed for long periods. The King's Men were forced to spend many months on the road. Between November 1603 and 1608, they were to be found at various towns in the south and Midlands, though Shakespeare probably did not tour with them by this time. He had bought a large house back home in Stratford and was accumulating other property. He may indeed have stopped acting soon after the new king took the throne. With the London theaters closed so much of the time and a large repertoire on the stocks, Shakespeare seems to have focused his energies on writing a few long and complex tragedies that could have been played on demand at court:
Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus
, and
Cymbeline
are among his longest and poetically grandest plays.
Macbeth
survives only in a shorter text, which shows signs of adaptation after Shakespeare's death. The bitterly satirical
Timon of Athens
, apparently a collaboration with Thomas Middleton that may have failed on the stage, also belongs to this period. In comedy, too, he wrote longer and morally darker works than in the Elizabethan period, pushing at the very bounds of the form in
Measure for Measure
and
All's Well That Ends Well
.

From 1608 onward, when the King's Men began occupying the indoor Blackfriars playhouse (as a winter house, meaning that they only used the outdoor Globe in summer?), Shakespeare turned to a more romantic style. His company had a great success with a revived and altered version of an old pastoral play called
Mucedorus
. It even featured a bear. The younger dramatist John Fletcher, meanwhile, sometimes working in collaboration with Francis Beaumont, was pioneering a new style of tragicomedy, a mix of romance and royalism laced with intrigue and pastoral excursions. Shakespeare experimented with this idiom in
Cymbeline
, and it was presumably with his
blessing that Fletcher eventually took over as the King's Men's company dramatist. The two writers apparently collaborated on three plays in the years 1612â14: a lost romance called
Cardenio
(based on the love-madness of a character in Cervantes'
Don Quixote
)
, Henry VIII
(originally staged with the title “All Is True”), and
The Two Noble Kinsmen
, a dramatization of Chaucer's “Knight's Tale.” These were written after Shakespeare's two final solo-authored plays,
The Winter's Tale
, a self-consciously old-fashioned work dramatizing the pastoral romance of his old enemy Robert Greene, and
The Tempest
, which at one and the same time drew together multiple theatrical traditions, diverse reading, and contemporary interest in the fate of a ship that had been wrecked on the way to the New World.

The collaborations with Fletcher suggest that Shakespeare's career ended with a slow fade rather than the sudden retirement supposed by the nineteenth-century Romantic critics who read Prospero's epilogue to
The Tempest
as Shakespeare's personal farewell to his art. In the last few years of his life Shakespeare certainly spent more of his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he became further involved in property dealing and litigation. But his London life also continued. In 1613 he made his first major London property purchase: a freehold house in the Blackfriars district, close to his company's indoor theater.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
may have been written as late as 1614, and Shakespeare was in London on business a little over a year before he died of an unknown cause at home in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, probably on his fifty-second birthday.

About half the sum of his works were published in his lifetime, in texts of variable quality. A few years after his death, his fellow actors began putting together an authorized edition of his complete
Comedies, Histories and Tragedies
. It appeared in 1623, in large “Folio” format. This collection of thirty-six plays gave Shakespeare his immortality. In the words of his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, who contributed two poems of praise at the start of the Folio, the body of his work made him “a monument without a tomb”:

And art alive still while thy book doth live

And we have wits to read and praise to giveââ¦

He was not of an age, but for all time!

SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS:
A CHRONOLOGY

1589â91

?
Arden of Faversham
(possible part authorship)

1589â92

The Taming of the Shrew

1589â92

?
Edward the Third
(possible part authorship)

1591

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth
, originally called
The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous
Houses of York and Lancaster
(element of coauthorship possible)

1591

The Third Part of Henry the Sixth
, originally called
The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York
(element of co-authorship probable)

1591â92

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

1591â92; perhaps revised 1594

The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
(probably cowritten with, or revising an earlier version by, George Peele)

1592

The First Part of Henry the Sixth
, probably with Thomas Nashe and others

1592/94

King Richard the Third

1593

Venus and Adonis
(poem)

1593â94

The Rape of Lucrece
(poem)

1593â1608

Sonnets
(154 poems, published 1609 with
A Lover's
Complaint
, a poem of disputed authorship)

1592â94/1600â03

Sir Thomas More
(a single scene for a play originally by Anthony Munday, with other revisions by Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Heywood)

1594

The Comedy of Errors

1595

Love's Labour's Lost

1595â97

Love's Labour's Won
(a lost play, unless the original title for another comedy)

1595â96

A Midsummer Night's Dream

1595â96

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

1595â96

King Richard the Second

1595â97

The Life and Death of King John
(possibly earlier)

1596â97

The Merchant of Venice

1596â97

The First Part of Henry the Fourth

1597â98

The Second Part of Henry the Fourth

1598

Much Ado About Nothing

1598â99

The Passionate Pilgrim
(20 poems, some not by Shakespeare)

1599

The Life of Henry the Fifth

1599

“To the Queen” (epilogue for a court performance)

1599

As You Like It

1599

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

1600â01

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
(perhaps revising an earlier version)

1600â01

The Merry Wives of Windsor
(perhaps revising version of 1597â99)

1601

“Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” (poem, known since 1807 as “The Phoenix and Turtle” [turtledove])

1601

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

1601â02

The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida

1604

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice

1604

Measure for Measure

1605

All's Well That Ends Well

1605

The Life of Timon of Athens
, with Thomas Middleton

1605â06

The Tragedy of King Lear

1605â08

? contribution to
The Four Plays in One
(lost, except for
A Yorkshire Tragedy
, mostly by Thomas Middleton)

1606

The Tragedy of Macbeth
(surviving text has additional scenes by Thomas Middleton)

1606â07

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

1608

The Tragedy of Coriolanus

1608

Pericles, Prince of Tyre
, with George Wilkins

1610

The Tragedy of Cymbeline

1611

The Winter's Tale

1611

The Tempest

1612â13

Cardenio
, with John Fletcher (survives only in later adaptation called
Double Falsehood
by Lewis Theobald)

1613

Henry VIII
(
All Is True
), with John Fletcher

1613â14

The Two Noble Kinsmen
, with John Fletcher

FURTHER READING
AND VIEWING
CRITICAL APPROACHES

Calderwood, James L., “Styles of Knowing in
All's Well,
”
Modern Language Quarterly
25, September 1964, pp. 272â94. Examines the play's various problems in relation to Shakespeare's narrative poem,
Venus and Adonis
, and the importance of literal, symbolic, and self-knowledge.

Cole, Howard C.,
The All's Well Story from Boccaccio to Shakespeare
(1981). Thorough review of all the source material.

Findlay, Alison,
A Feminist Perspective on Renaissance Drama
(1999). Discusses
All's Well
in relation to female self-fashioning, pp. 91â100.

Frye, Northrop,
The Myth of Deliverance: Reflections on Shakespeare's Problem Comedies
(1983). Brilliant analysis of comedy in terms of mythic structures and cultural history across a broad terrain of classical literary texts, arguing that
All's Well
is untypical in its emphasis on social change.

Haley, David,
Shakespeare's Courtly Mirror: Reflexivity and Prudence in All's Well That Ends Well
(1993). Argues the play offers a critical analysis of courtly society.

Hopkins, Lisa,
The Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands
(1998). Examines all aspects of contemporary marriage and its significance in Shakespeare's plays:
All's Well
is treated at pp. 56â62 and
passim
.

McCandless, David, “Helena's Bed-Trick: Gender and Performance in
All's Well That Ends Well,
”
Shakespeare Quarterly
45 (1994), pp. 449â68. Theoretically informed exploration of the problematic nature of Helen's physical desire and its representation in performance, including the possibility of staging the bed trick.

Muir, Kenneth, ed.,
Shakespeare: The Comedies
(1965). Collection of distinguished earlier critical essays, including M. C. Bradbrook, “Virtue Is the True Nobility: A Study in the Structure of
All's Well,
” pp. 119â32, and G. Wilson Knight's “Helena,” pp. 133â51.

Price, Joseph G.,
The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of All's Well That Ends Well and Its Critics
(1968). Dated but still useful: Part I covers stage history,
including chapters on the Kemble “Text” and “All's Well in America.” Part II discusses the critical history to 1964.

Rossiter, A. P.,
Angel with Horns, and Other Shakespeare Lectures
, ed. Graham Storey (1961). Chapter 5 on
All's Well
, pp. 82â107, discusses the significance of Shakespeare's various “additions” and “alterations” to his source material in order to elucidate its problematic nature and deeper philosophical strain.

Waller, Gary, “From âthe Unfortunate Comedy' to âthis Infinitely Fascinating Play,' the Critical and Theatrical Emergence of
All's Well That Ends Well,
” in
All's Well That Ends Well: New Critical Essays
(2007), pp. 1â56. Excellent, varied collection of essays, covering aspects of the play from structure to genre, religion, gender politics, and performance.

Zitner, Sheldon P.,
All's Well That Ends Well: Harvester New Critical Introductions to Shakespeare
(1989). Good overview of play's critical reception and discussion of its status as a “problem play.”

THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCE

Dobson, Michael, “Shakespeare Performances in England, 2004,” in
Shakespeare Survey
58 (2005), pp. 268â297. Detailed, thoughtful discussion.

Magoulias, Michael, ed.,
Shakespearean Criticism
26 (1995). Useful overview of stage history with a good selection of reviews.

Price, Joseph G.,
The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of All's Well That Ends Well
(1968). Dated but still useful: Part I covers stage history, including chapters on the Kemble “Text” and “All's Well in America.” Part II discusses the critical history to 1964.

Styan, J. L.,
Shakespeare in Performance: All's Well that Ends Well
(1984). Detailed analysis of the play in performance, focusing on important twentieth-century productions.

Waller, Gary, “The Critical and Theatrical Emergence of
All's Well That Ends Well,”
in
All's Well That Ends Well: New Critical Essays
(2007), pp. 1â56. Excellent, varied collection of essays, covering aspects of the play from structure to genre, religion, gender politics, and performance.

AVAILABLE ON DVD

All's Well that Ends Well
directed by Elijah Moshinsky for BBC Shakespeare (1981, DVD 2006). Starring Angela Down, Ian Charleson, Michael Hordern, Celia Johnson, and Donald Sinden, it won both BAFTA and RTS awards and was considered one of the best of the BBC Shakespeare series.

REFERENCES

1.
The Works of Shakespeare
, ed. Samuel Johnson (1765), vol. 3, p. 399.

2.
A. W. Schlegel,
Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
(1808â11), in
The Romantics on Shakespeare
, ed. Jonathan Bate (1992), p. 260.

3.
George Bernard Shaw, letter to Janet Achurch, 23 April 1895. On Helen as proto-Ibsenite heroine, see
The “Shakespearean Law,”
in
Shaw on Shakespeare: An Anthology of Bernard Shaw's Writings on the Plays and Production of Shakespeare
, ed. Edwin Wilson (1961), p. 240.

4.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets
, ed. T. Ashe (1900), p. 298.

5.
Coleridge, from
Table-Talk
, 1 July 1833, in
Coleridge's Criticism of Shakespeare: A Selection
, ed. R. A. Foakes (1989), p. 176.

6.
Anna Jameson,
Characteristics of Women: Moral, Poetical, and Historical
(1832, reprinted 1879), p. 125.

7.
Ellen Terry,
Four Lectures on Shakespeare
(1932), cited by Joseph G. Price,
The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of All's Well That Ends Well and its Critics
(1968), pp. 99â100.

8.
Coleridge,
Table-Talk
, p. 176.

9.
Sheldon P. Zitner,
All's Well That Ends Well
(1989), p. 13.

10.
Price,
The Unfortunate Comedy
, p. 134.

11.
Price,
The Unfortunate Comedy
, p. 135.

12.
James L. Calderwood, “Styles of Knowing in
All's Well,
”
Modern Language Quarterly
25 (1964), p. 274.

13.
W. W. Lawrence,
Shakespeare's Problem Comedies
(1931), p. 32.

14.
David McCandless, “Helena's Bed-Trick: Gender and Performance in
All's Well That Ends Well,
”
Shakespeare Quarterly
, 45 (1994), p. 450.

15.
Barbara Everitt, ed.,
All's Well That Ends Well
(1970), p. 16.

16.
A. P. Rossiter,
Angel with Horns, and other Shakespeare Lectures
(1961), p. 87.

17.
R. B. Parker, “War and Sex in
All's Well That Ends Well,
”
Shakespeare Survey
37 (1984), p. 105.

18.
Northrop Frye,
The Myth of Deliverance: Reflections on Shakespeare's Problem Comedies
(1983), p. 49.

19.
Frye,
The Myth of Deliverance
, p. 55.

20.
Rossiter,
Angel with Horns
, p. 85.

21.
J. Dennis Huston, “ââSome Stain of Soldier': The Functions of Parolles in
All's Well That Ends Well
,”
Shakespeare Quarterly
21 (1970), p. 433.

22.
Frye,
The Myth of Deliverance
, p. 52.

23.
Calderwood, “Styles of Knowing in
All's Well,
” p. 274.

24.
John Barton, in “Directing Problem Plays: John Barton talks to Gareth Lloyd Evans” (1972), in
Aspects of Shakespeare's “Problem Plays,”
ed. Kenneth Muir and Stanley Wells (1982), p. 5.

25.
Athenaeum
, No. 1297, 4 September 1852, p. 955.

26.
William Archer, review of
All's Well That Ends Well
, in
The Theatrical “World” of 1895
(1896), pp. 37â41.

27.
George Bernard Shaw, “Poor Shakespear!,” in
Our Theatres in the Nineties
, Vol. I (1932), pp. 24â30.

28.
Joseph G. Price, “The Director and the Search for Unity,” in
The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of All's Well That Ends Well and Its Critics
(1968), pp. 43â72.

29.
Price, “The Director and the Search for Unity.”

30.
Price, “The Director and the Search for Unity.”

31.
Robert Speaight,
William Poel and the Elizabethan Revival
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32.
T. Moult,
Athenaeum
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33.
John Francis Hope,
The New Age
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34.
Hope,
The New Age
.

35.
Hope,
The New Age
.

36.
J. C. Trewin,
The Birmingham Repertory Theatre: 1913â63
(1963), p. 90.

37.
Trewin,
The Birmingham Repertory Theatre
.

38.
Ivor Brown,
Punch
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39.
Brown,
Punch
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40.
Alan Dent,
Manchester Guardian
, October 1940, reprinted in
Preludes & Studies
(1942), pp. 102â29 and 121â22.

41.
Herbert Whittaker,
The Stratford Festival 1953â1957
(1958), pp. xâxv.

42.
Tyrone Guthrie, “First Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Ontario,” in
Renown at Stratford: A Record of the Shakespeare Festival in Canada, 1953
(1953), p. 49.

43.
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44.
Price, “The Director and the Search for Unity.”

45.
Tyrone Guthrie, “Shakespeare at Stratford, Ontario,” in
Shakespeare Survey
8 (1955), pp. 127â31.

46.
Whittaker,
The Stratford Festival 1953â1957
.

47.
Derek Monsey,
Spectator
191(6535), 25 September 1953, pp. 322â23.

48.
Roger Wood and Mary Clarke,
Shakespeare at the Old Vic
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49.
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Shakespeare at the Old Vic
.

50.
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.

51.
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.

52.
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53.
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54.
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55.
The Times
(London), 22 April 1959.

56.
A. Alvarez,
New Statesman
LVII(1,467), 25 April 1959.

57.
M. St. Clare Byrne, “The Shakespeare Season at The Old Vic, 1958â59 and Stratford-upon-Avon, 1959,”
Shakespeare Quarterly
X, Autumn 1959, pp. 545â67.

58.
Patrick Gibbs,
New York Times
, 22 April 1959.

59.
St. Clare Byrne, “The Shakespeare Season at The Old Vic, 1958â59 and Stratford-upon-Avon, 1959.”

60.
Alan Brien,
Spectator
202(6826), 1959, pp. 577, 579.

61.
Joseph G. Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres,” in
The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of All's Well That Ends Well and Its Critics
(1968), pp. 43â72.

62.
Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres.”

63.
Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres.”

64.
Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres.”

65.
Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres.”

66.
Price, “
All's Well
in America and in the Minor Theatres.”

67.
Henry Hewes, quoted in
Shakespearean Criticism
26, 1995, p. 3.

68.
G. K. Hunter, “A Review of
All's Well that Ends Well,
” in
Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews
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69.
Jeremy Treglown, “Camera Cuts,”
Times Literary Supplement
, 9 January 1981, p. 33.

70.
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71.
Hunter, “A Review of
All's Well that Ends Well
.”

72.
Hunter, “A Review of
All's Well that Ends Well
.”

73.
Jeremy Gerard,
Variety
352(2), 23 August 1993, p. 23.

74.
Robert Brustein,
New Republic
209(14), 14 October 1993, pp. 32â34.

75.
Brustein,
New Republic
.

76.
Gerard,
Variety
.

77.
Brustein,
New Republic
.

78.
Grevel Lindop, “Cold Wars and Boors,”
Times Literary Supplement
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79.
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80.
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81.
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82.
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83.
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84.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 29 May 2009.

85.
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86.
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87.
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88.
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89.
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90.
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91.
J. L. Styan,
Shakespeare in Performance: All's Well That Ends Well
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92.
Birmingham Mail
, 2 June 1967.

93.
Desmond Pratt,
Yorkshire Post
, 2 June 1967.

94.
J. C. Trewin,
Illustrated London News
, 10 June 1967.

95.
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, 2 June 1967.

96.
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97.
Michael Billington,
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98.
Tom Vaughan,
Morning Star
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99.
Christopher Hudson,
Standard
, 7 July 1982.

100.
J. L. Styan,
Shakespeare in Performance: All's Well that Ends Well
(2007), pp. 115â16, quoting Roger Warren,
Shakespeare Quarterly
34(1) (1983), p. 80.

101.
James Fenton,
Sunday Times
(London), 11 July 1982.

102.
B. A. Young,
Financial Times
, 6 July 1982.

103.
Young,
Financial Times
, 6 July 1982.

104.
John Barber,
Daily Telegraph
, 7 July 1982.

105.
Gary Waller,
All's Well that Ends Well: New Critical Essays
(2007), p. 23.

106.
Charles Osborne,
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, 12 October 1989.

107.
Paul Lapworth,
Stratford Herald
, 13 October 1989.

108.
Waller,
All's Well That Ends Well
, p. 23.

109.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 12 October 1989.

110.
Terry Grimley,
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, 10 October 1989.

111.
Paul Taylor,
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112.
Michael Coveney,
Financial Times
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