All's Well That Ends Well

Content Group

Overview
All's Well That Ends Well, 19th Century

This script is often called a "problem play" because it does not conform to conventional plot or character expectations. The heroine aspires to marry above her social class and succeeds by using her father's medical resources to cure a king who thereupon orders her target aristocrat to marry her. After the wedding he runs off to make war, but she entraps him into impregnating her by substituting herself for a young woman he wishes to debauch. Dazed by this "bed-trick" he accepts her as his wife. Many romantics, like Coleridge, find Helena manipulative and Bertram callow.

However, Helena's determination and resilience match many characteristics of modern women as evoked in the "feminist" plays of Bernard Shaw, in which the "life force" provides women with a psychological drive to procreation that overrides male will, as in Man and Superman. As a result of such role-revisionism, modern performances of the play have increased (see OSF 2009 and RSC 1982), but Bertram's lack of charm still leaves many women unconvinced about the plausibility of Helena's obsession with him, particularly in view of his debasing association with a contemptible rogue called Parolles—though Parolles' misconduct and ultimate humiliation provide some humor. It is a very difficult play for which to predict audience reaction. Shakespeare follows Lope de Vega's specifications that heroines should be socially agile and their lovers inept, but this will not please romantic spectators.

Images
All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982
All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982
All's Well That Ends Well, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2009
All's Well That Ends Well, 19th Century
All's Well That Ends Well, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, 2007
All's Well That Ends Well, Anne B. Warren as Helena, 1786
Bibliography

"All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare." In Shakespearean Criticism, vol. 26, edited by Michael Magoulias. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.

Alexander, Peter, ed. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare. London: BBC; New York: Mayflower, 1981.

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Carson, Neil. "Some Textual Implications of Tyrone Guthrie's 1953 Production of All's Well That Ends Well." Shakespeare Quarterly 25, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 52-60.

Carter, Albert Howard. "In Defense of Bertram." Shakespeare Quarterly 7, no. 1 (Winter 1956): 21-31.

David, Richard. "Plays Pleasant and Plays Unpleasant." Shakespeare Survey 8 (1955): 132-8.

Evans, Bertrand. "When Degree is Shak'd: All's Well and Troilus and Cressida." In Shakespeare's Comedies, 144-6. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.

Everett, Barbara, ed. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare. New Penguin Shakespeare. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.

Halio, Jay L. "All's Well That Ends Well." Shakespeare Quarterly 15, no. 1 (Winter 1964): 33-43.

Hapgood, Robert. "The Life of Shame: Parolles and All's Well." Essays in Criticism 15, no. 3 (July 1965): 269-78.

Hunter, G. K., ed. All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare. London: Methuen, 1959.

Hunter, G. K. "The BBC All's Well That Ends Well." In Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews, edited by James C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen, 185-87. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1988.

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Marks, Ben. Review of All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz. KQED ARTS, August 9, 2008.

McCandless, David. "All's Well That Ends Well": Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.

McCandless, David. "Helena's Bed-Trick: Gender and Performance in All's Well That Ends Well." Shakespeare Quarterly 45, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 449-68.

Price, Joseph G. The Unfortunate Comedy: A Study of "All's Well That Ends Well" and Its Critics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.

Price, Joseph G. "All's Well That Ends Well in the American Theatre." Theatre Survey 7, no. 1 (1966): 44-58.

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Schoff, Francis G. "Claudio, Bertram, and a Note on Interpretation." Shakespeare Quarterly 10, No. 1 (Winter 1959): 11-23.

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All's Well That Ends Well at Talkin' Broadway.

Toscano, Michael. Review of All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC. Theatermania, September 13, 2010.

Turner, Robert Y. "Dramatic Conventions in All's Well That Ends Well." PMLA 75 (1960): 497-502.

Warren, Roger. "Comedies and Histories at Two Stratfords, 1977." Shakespeare Survey 31 (1978): 141-53.

Warren, Roger. "Does It End Well? Helena, Bertram and the Sonnets." Shakespeare Survey 22 (1969): 79-92.

Warren, Roger. "Some Approaches to All's Well That Ends Well." In Aspects of Shakespeare's Problem Plays, edited by Kenneth Muir and Stanley Wells, 114-20. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Willis, Susan. "Making All's Well That Ends Well: The Arts of Televised Drama at the BBC." In Shakespeare and the Arts, edited by Cecile W. Cary and Henry S. Limouse, 155-63. Washington: University Press of America, 1982.

Wilson, Harold S. "Dramatic Emphasis in All's Well That Ends Well." Huntington Library Quarterly 13, no. 3 (May 1950): 217-40.

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