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The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare.
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Dramatis Personae
Leontes, King of Sicilia
Mamillius, his son
Camillo, Sicilian Lord
Antigonus, Sicilian Lord
Cleomenes, Sicilian Lord
Dion, Sicilian Lord
Polixenes, King of Bohemia
Florizel, his son
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Biography Essay"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer,...
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The English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is generally acknowledged to be the greatest of English writers and one of the most extraordinary creators in human history.The ...
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Considered by critics, scholars, and the theater-going public the most important dramatist in the history of English literature, William Shakespeare occupies a unique position in the pantheon of great...
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"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or ...
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William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly ...
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In the following essay, Marshall argues that the statue scene in The Winter's Tale suggests a modification of orthodox Christian eschatology by denying the dualism of body and soul. Relating th...
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Nora Johnson, Swarthmore College
When historians discuss the relation between homosexual practice and homosexual identity in England before the eighteenth century, they often note that male same-sex ...
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In the following excerpt, originally delivered as a lecture at the Ohio Shakespeare Conference in Dayton, 1981, Davidson discusses the symbolic significance of visual effects in a series of episodes i...
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In the following excerpt, Kiefer emphasizes Time's restorative powers as well as its destructive ones in The Winter's Tale. Time's dual nature, the critic suggests, is symbolized ...
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In the following essay, Cohen compares the jealousy of Othello with that of King Leontes of The Winter's Tale, examining their fantasies of wifely infidelity and their need to regain social con...
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In the following essay, Abrams probes Leontes's seemingly “causeless, self-begetting jealousy” in The Winter's Tale.
Just before their duel, Hamlet apologizes to Laertes fo...
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In the following essay, Nathan finds that Leontes's jealousy of Polixenes in The Winter's Tale appears quite suddenly, but is nevertheless properly motivated by Shakespeare.
Perhaps the ...
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In the following essay, Schwartz offers a psychological explanation of the sources and motivations for Leontes's jealousy in The Winter's Tale.
Fatum est in partibus illis quas sinus abs...
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In the following essay, Bergeron argues that Hermione's trial in The Winter's Tale reflects a triumph of rationality over passion.
When Leontes and the others gather in the final scene o...
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In the following essay, Wolf examines parallels between the leading female characters in Shakespeare's drama The Winter's Tale and the Greek goddesses Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate.
It...
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In the following essay, Bryant notes the indebtedness of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale to the classical European and English pastoral traditions and argues that with this subtl...
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In the following essay, Ronk investigates the psychological transformation of Leontes from a state of intense jealousy to one of penitence in The Winter's Tale.
In the middle of The Winter�...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1964, Tayler analyzes the underlying structure of The Winter's Tale and identifies the relationship between nature and art as a central concern.
...
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In the following essay, McDonald focuses on the distinct linguistic form employed in The Winter's Tale, stating that its more complex style is connected with the intricate plot.
The Winter�...
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In the following essay, McCandless posits that Leontes's persecution of Hermione represents his attempt to cast away his source of sexual shame.
Early in Shakespeare's The Winter'...
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In the following essay, Kaplan and Eggert examine The Winter's Tale's relation to questions of female sexuality and authority during Queen Elizabeth's reign.
The legal history of ...
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In the essay that follows, Enterline examines Shakespeare's interpretation of Ovidian and Petrarchan rhetoric as a means of discussing the role of power and the female voice in The Winter...
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In the essay below, Morse examines The Winter’s Tale in order to reveal the shortcomings of New Historical criticism, and finds the ideology of the New Historicist conception to be “simp...
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In the essay below, Henke examines the relationship between Battista Guarini's tragicomic theory and Shakespeare's drama, particularly focusing on The Winter's Tale.
Genre concept...
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In the following essay, Lamb analyzes the role of women's folk tales and their influence in The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and The Tempest.
As Macbeth stares in terror at Banquo's gh...
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In the essay below, Crider contends that the “mythic” and “theatrical” readings of Hermione are not mutually exclusive—that Hermione can be read as being both ȁ...
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In the following essay, Bieman discusses The Winter's Tale's composition date and textual issues, provides an overview of its plot, language, themes, and characters, and argues that the ...
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In the following essay, Cutts focuses on the issue of Leontes's jealousy, contending that the “boy eternal” complex from which Leontes suffers explains the apparently sudden onset...
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In the following essay, Sanders examines the issue of Leontes's jealousy, citing several conditions that may be said to cause his reaction to Hermione's successful coaxing of Polixenes t...
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In the following review, Isherwood assesses the Public Theatre's version of The Winter's Tale directed by Brian Kulick, arguing that the production is not successful in handling the shif...
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In the following review, Wolf offers a mixed appraisal of the Royal National Theater's modern dress production of The Winter's Tale directed by Nicholas Hytner. Wolf praises the successf...
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In the following essay, Nichols contends that the genres of comedy and tragedy are not equally balanced in The Winter's Tale; rather, comedy is victorious, particularly in the play’s imp...
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In the following essay, Laroque asserts that possible correlations exist between The Winter's Tale and the cycles of the year associated with pagan, Christian, and folk traditions.
In tradition...
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In the following essay, Lim studies the way in which elements of The Winter's Tale, particularly the animation of Hermione's statue at the play's end, represent the conflict betwe...
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In the following essay, Bryant places The Winter's Tale within the English pastoral tradition, and examines Shakespeare's transformation of the stereotypical elements of the pastoral sty...
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In the following essay, Van Elk views The Winter's Tale as an example of the “complicated, reciprocal relationship between gender and class” in the Jacobean period.
What happens w...
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In the following essay, Joughin argues that a finer understanding of the role of aesthetics in Shakespeare's plays will serve to increase our understanding of his work in general, and The Winte...
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In the following essay, Hartwig proposes that in The Winter's Tale Shakespeare used a miraculous resolution to create a sense of dislocation and wonder in his audience, using Leontes's p...
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In the following essay, Trienens focuses on the inception of Leontes's jealousy and contends that the character is beset with feelings of distrust from the very beginning of the play.
Much of t...
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In the following essay, Abrams examines the source of Leontes's jealousy, noting that “[under the spell of jealousy, Leontes is changed. His good angel, reason, abandons him, and the tem...
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In the following essay, Sanders contends that Hermione rescues The Winter's Tale from a descent into utter failure, noting that it is her presence that lends grace to the play despite Shakespea...
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In the following review, Isherwood acknowledges the difficulty faced by Barry Edelstein in directing a modern-day production of The Winter's Tale, but notes that the performance suffered not fr...
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In the following excerpted review, McNulty reviews the Classic Stage Company's 2003 production of The Winter's Tale, claiming that while Barry Edelstein's modernistic staging of t...
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In the following essay, Viswanathan theorizes that in his later plays, particularly The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare was extremely experimental with his theatrical techniques, mixing “self...
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In the following essay, Platt examines the philosophical opposition of rationality and wonder in The Winter's Tale.
The Winter's Tale provides us with the purest example of a Shakespear...
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In the following excerpt, Kitch examines Shakespeare's representation of the print industry as a metaphor for paternity and illegitimacy in The Winter's Tale. According to Kitch, this th...
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In the following review, Flanders presents a mixed review of Nicholas Hytner's 2001 production of The Winter's Tale at London's National Theatre. While Hytner's vision of a...
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In the following review, Macaulay derides Matthew Warchus's 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter's Tale for its unnecessary length and for the English actors' d...
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In the following essay, Richards maintains that a principal motivating factor in Leontes's paranoid jealousy is his anxiety about social status. The critic examines a number of Renaissance cour...
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In the following essay, Rosenfield maintains that The Winter's Tale exploits prevailing Jacobean cultural and ideological attitudes that associated feminine sexuality, maternity, and outspokenn...
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In the following essay, Hunt examines Shakespeare's use of the term “bear” in The Winter's Tale, associating it with such themes as tyranny, suffering, redemption, and sexu...
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In the following essay, Estok petitions for the academic recognition of a new critical theory called ecocriticism, or the study of how the environment has been perceived and represented in literary te...
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In the following essay, Sokol maintains that Autolycus's roguery lends crucial support to the “reparative structure” of The Winter's Tale. According to Sokol, Shakespeare d...
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In the following essay, Curtright challenges the critical position that Leontes displays characteristics of a tragic hero, arguing instead that Shakespeare envisioned him as a melodramatic villain who...
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In the following essay, Alfar discusses Leontes as the embodiment of the tyranny of masculinist absolute rule and the commoditization of women. By challenging Leontes's patrilineal sovereignty,...
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In the following review, Canby praises Ingmar Bergman's 1995 staging of The Winter's Tale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, for its lucid artistic vision that succeeded with mi...
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In the following review, Brustein provides a favorable notice of Ingmar Bergman's 1995 Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, production of The Winter's Tale.
Ingmar Bergman's produ...
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In the following review, Jays asserts that Gregory 1999 Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company rendering of The Winter's Tale was a “supremely intelligent production, lucid in every de...
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In the following excerpt, Clapp admires Nicholas Hytner's 2001 modern-dress staging of The Winter's Tale at London's National Theatre. According to the critic, Hytner's con...
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In the following essay, Frye examines the dramatic contrast found in The Winter's Tale, focusing on the differences between the human arts—music, poetry, and magic—and the power o...
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In the following essay, Fowler discusses the allegorical relations in The Winter's Tale, maintaining that the pastoral scenes symbolically reveal Leontes ' transition from sin to repenta...
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In the essay below, Hieatt examines "the adherence of mortals to a standard of ideal behaviour" as the shaping principle which forms a coherent basis of the play's structural segm...
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In this essay, Lenz divides the play into three distinct sections, associating each with a certain genre and outlining the steps of the "prepared surprise" as a structural unit.
Romance,...
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In the essay below, Uphaus discusses the role of language in establishing the integration of tragic and comic perception in The Winter's Tale.
There are some striking affinities between tragedy...
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In the following essay, Garner analyzes The Winter's Tale in terms of two temporal aspects—the change and consequences of time, and the moment unaffected by it—and extends his dis...
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Here, Gourlay traces Shakespeare's use of female metaphors in the play to explore elements of Leontes' own nature, and asserts that he opposes dark masculinity with the qualities of love...
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In the excerpt below, Watson discusses the physical and spiritual reunification of the natural and artificial worlds of The Winter's Tale; including Perdita's rejection of the dead world...
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In this excerpt, Young discusses the significance of the parental blessing in The Winter's Tale—both the offering and the denial—and its function in conveying grace.
The parental ...
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In the following essay, Girard interprets the jealousy of Leontes in terms of "mimetic desire, " suggesting that the motive for Leontes ' jealous behavior is based on his belief t...
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In the essay below, Wright argues that the contro versy surrounding the beginning of Leontes' jealousy overshadows Shakespeare's own dramatic emphasis of the collapse of Leontes' ...
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In the following essay, Ronk compares Leontes to Othello, and demonstrates that the function of elapsed time in The Winter's Tale allows a psychological shift in Leontes which does not occur in...
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In this essay, Bevington relates The Winter's Tale to Shakespeare's late romances in an effort to highlight its tragic elements, particularly Leontes' jealousy.
The Winter'...
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In the following essay, Bishop provides an overview of The Winter's Tale, focusing on the characterization, the sources of Leontes' paranoia, and the mythological and narrative patterns ...
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In this excerpt, Orgel explores the importance of Bohemia to Shakespeare's development of pastoral elements, as well as the play's treatment of the relationship between nature and art.
P...
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In the essay that follows, originally presented at the Shakespeare Association of America in 1991, Mowat explores act four, scene three of The Winter's Tale—where Autolycus is introduced...
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In the following essay, Nevo contends that, while the traditional dramatic unities are flouted in The Winter's Tale, fantasy shapes the drama's two interrelated plots around a pair of dr...
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In the essay that follows, Stockholder considers the sexual conflict of The Winter's Tale to be resolved by dream-visions.
In Macbeth Shakespeare expressed the psychic and sexual dynamic of a m...
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In the following excerpt, Garber examines the importance of time in The Winter's Tale, especially with regard to dreams and the metamorphoses concomitant with seasonal changes.
The Winter...
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In the essay that follows, Garner considers the dramatic tension of The Winter's Tale as a conflict between the present and time, as a place of innocence versus a realm of regret and longing.
L...
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In the following essay, Dolan examines early modern legal discourses and literary representations regarding infanticide, and asserts that despite its connection to other literary works in which child ...
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R. W. Desai, University of Delhi
The opening scenes of The Winter's Tale bring together royalty from three different regions in Europe: Leontes, king of Sicily, which is in the extreme south,...
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Lynn Enterline, Yale University
Between Leontes's opening imperative, "Tongue-tied our queen? Speak you" (1.2.28), and the final act, where Hermione as living statue returns to ...
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It has been said that in "The Winter's Tale" Shakespeare dramatises the contemporary struggle between masculine and feminine power. In light of this comment, examine the presentation of the relationsh...
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The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is one of jealousy, betrayal and redemption. While this story involves many characters and opens questions of the flaws in human nature and the power of forgivene...
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As Leontes makes his first appearance in Shakespeare's `The Winter's Tales', the reader is confronted by an aggressively insecure character. His conversation with the more relaxed Polixenes is illust...
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"The Winters Tale" is recognized as one of Shakespeare's late plays. After Shakespeare's death, his plays were classified into three sections: tragedies, comedies and histories. "The Winters Tale" is ...
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"The Winters Tale is not so much about the triumph of time but the triumph of women"
Examine Shakespeare's presentation of the female characters in the play and assess the significance of the play fo...
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The Winter's Tale was written in 1611, after Queen Elizabeth was on the throne for 44 years. Queen Elizabeth was an extremely powerful ruler, and was dubbed "the Virgin Queen", which highlighted her ...
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Teaching The Winter's Tale
All teaching products sold separately.
The Winter's Tale Lesson Plans contain 128 pages of teaching material, including:
The Winter's Tale
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Critical Essay by Cynthia Marshall
Shakespeare "The Winters Tale" masculine and femine powers and struggle
