sicily (italy)

Presents William Shakespeare's comedy "The Winter's Tale" along with study tools including explanatory notes, character sketches, a plot synopsis, scene summaries, background on Shakespeare's life and times, comprehension questions, activities, and essay and project ideas.

Having lost everything in a tidal wave in 1169 Sicily, nineteen-year-old Don Giovanni makes a simple-sounding wager with a stranger he recognizes as the devil but, while desperate enough to surrender his pride and good looks for three years, he is not willing to give up his soul.

King Leontes, in a fit of jealousy, accuses his wife of having an affair with his friend Polixenes and banishes her newborn daughter, who grows up and falls in love with Polixene's son, and returns to King Leontes to set everything right.

Star-crossed lovers Rosa and Alessandro are attacked by an unknown adversary while searching for ways to thwart a prophecy that predicts the destruction of their families if they unite in marriage.

The author chronicles her travels throughout Sicily, showing how the island's modern culture keeps its past alive.

In search of food, Leander, King of the Bears, leads his subjects from their safe caves in the mountains of Sicily to the valley where they triumph over many enemies.

Reconstructs the life of Constance of Hauteville--wife of twelfth-century Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI of Germany and mother of Emperor Frederick II--chronicling, among other topics, her return to Sicily at the age of forty to rule her homeland.