WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
All's Well That Ends Well cover

All's Well That Ends Well

Chapter 2: Dramatis Personæ
By William Shakespeare
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

British LiteraturePlays/Films/Dramas

About This Book

A resourceful gentlewoman uses her late father's skill to cure a king’s wasting illness and obtains, as reward, the right to choose a husband; she selects a young nobleman who spurns the idea and departs to war, setting impossible conditions for marriage. The woman pursues him, disguises and stages a bed-trick with allies to secure consummation, and exposes a boastful companion while testing the nobleman's fidelity and honor. The play examines social rank, gendered agency, deception and the ethics of means used to achieve love, ending in a reconciliation that leaves questions about consent and the costs of cleverness.

Dramatis Personæ

KING OF FRANCE.
THE DUKE OF FLORENCE.
BERTRAM, Count of Rossillon.
LAFEW, an old Lord.
PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.
Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine War.
RYNALDO, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
Clown, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
A Page, servant to the Countess of Rossillon.
COUNTESS OF ROSSILLON, mother to Bertram.
HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess.
An old WIDOW of Florence.
DIANA, daughter to the Widow.
VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.
MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Lords attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine.

SCENE: Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.