Set in the heat and dust of Andalusia in seventeenth-century Spain, Cardenio is the story of a friendship betrayed, with all the elements of a thriller: disguise, dishonour and deceit.
A woman is seduced, a bride is forced to the altar, and a man runs mad among the mountains of the Sierra Morena.
The history of the play is every bit as thrilling, and this text is the result of a masterful act of literary archaeology by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran, to re-imagine a previously lost play by Shakespeare.
Based on an episode in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the play known as Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher was performed at court in 1612. A copy of their collaboration has never been found; however, it is claimed that Double Falshood by Lewis Theobald is an eighteenth-century adaptation of it.
Since Theobald's play misses out some crucial scenes in the plot, Doran has turned to the Cervantes original to supply the missing episodes, using the original English translation by Thomas Shelton (1612) that Fletcher and Shakespeare must themselves have read.
Cardenio re-opened the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's fiftieth birthday season in 2011.
Kom i gang med denne bog i dag for 0 kr.
Få fuld adgang til alle bøger i appen i prøveperioden
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) var engelsk digter og dramatiker.
Da han ikke var så kendt i sin samtid, ved man ikke meget om hans opvækst. Han fødtes og døde i byen Stratford-upon-Avon og var gift med den 8 år ældre Anne Hathaway med hvem han havde tre børn. Han ernærede sig først som skuespiller, siden som manuskriptforfatter og instruktør, og var ved sin død en velhavende mand.
Shakespeare er en af de helt store skikkelser i litteraturhistorien, og hans teaterstykker er verdensberømte. Hans popularitet skyldes især hans forståelse for den menneskelige psyke, som ses i de nuancerede personportrætter, og hans evne til at skrive i flere genrer - og blande dem sammen.
Læs mere om William Shakespeare hos Den Store Danske.
