Edward III
William Shakespeare
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2022
Edward III comes to life in a new version by playwright Octavio Solis.
Written after England’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, Edward III follows the exploits of King Edward III and his son Edward, the Black Prince of Wales. England dominates on the battlefield as the play explores questions of kinghood and chivalry through the actions of King Edward and his son. Octavio Solis’s translation of the play provides all of the complexity and richness of the original while renewing the allusions and metaphors lost through time.
This translation of Edward III was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present work from “The Bard” in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare’s verse. Enlisting the talents of a diverse group of contemporary playwrights, screenwriters, and dramaturges from diverse backgrounds, this project reenvisions Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. These volumes make these works available for the first time in print—a new First Folio for a new era.
