Читать книгу Shakespeare and the Rose of Love - John Vyvyan - Страница 7

THIS IS AN entirely new edition of the second of John Vyvyan’s three insightful books on the philosophy of Shakespeare. It is new in that the entire text has been reset, but without alteration, in the same style as our edition of The Shakespearean Ethic.

However, here too some additions have been made which we hope will enhance the usefulness of this edition. Having been educated in Switzerland, John Vyvyan was clearly familiar with the great literature of Italy, France and Germany and has sometimes quoted phrases or passages in the original language. In many cases he gave his own translation or paraphrased the quote. There are, however, some instances where we have felt it helpful, for the benefit of readers less familiar with these languages, to provide some translations as footnotes. We appreciate that translations can never be as apt as the original but we hope they will be useful.

Vyvyan illustrates his argument with many quotations from Shakespeare’s plays. To assist in finding where they appear in the respective plays, we have listed the first line of the quotations at the end of the book and relied on the Oxford University Press edition of The Complete Works for the references.

Writing of the Romance of the Rose, Vyvyan uses Chaucer’s translation. To assist readers, a short glossary of Chaucerian English is provided, which we hope will be helpful. There is also a short list of the books to which Vyvyan refers. Finally, the index has been considerably enlarged.

The Publishers would like to thank the Newman Trust in Dublin for their support in making possible this new edition.

Happily, since we published The Shakespearean Ethic, we have traced the copyright owner, John Vyvyan’s son.