Книга для чтения на английском языке (задания и комм. Тумбиной О. В. ) - 64 с. {Original reading English} Life and adventures of illustrious pirate (Сэр Уолтер Роли): Sir Walter Raleigh:

Both Southampton and Essex were arrested, tried for treason, and convicted in February 1601. Essex was, indeed, executed on February 25, but Southampton's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and, after Elizabeth's death in 1603, he was released. It is tempting to think that Shakespeare wrote Troilus and Cressida under the deep shadow of the misfortunes of Essex and Southampton. To him, the expedition against Troy may have seemed very much like Essex's expeditions against Cadiz and, later, against Ireland. These expeditions were fought for what seemed to Shakespeare, perhaps, to be a most ungrateful and worthless woman who was oblivious to the sufferings of her faithful servants and whom he may have envisioned as amusing herself with Essex's rival, Sir Walter Raleigh, while the faithful Essex was suffering in the field. Could this be why Shakespeare draws Helen as so contemptible (see page I-111)? The factions that disrupted the Greek effort on the fields of Troy were magnified by Shakespeare, perhaps as a bitter satire on the factions at the English court that had, in the view of the Essex faction, stabbed Essex in the back ...»