The Winter's Tale touches on issues which are as relevant to modern audiences as they were to those of Shakespeare's time. The first issue, the relation ship between art and nature, serves as an introduction to a more serious issue, that of the relationship between people who perceive themselves to be of different social classes. The terms of that relationship between art and nature are laid out in the debate between Perdita and Polixenes at the sheep-shear ing festival held at the home of the old shepherd. Perdita, who is acting as the hostess of that festival, greets Polixenes and Camillo and gives them flowers. She mentions that the "streak'd gillyvors / (Which some call Nature's bastards)" (IV.iv.82- 83) are more appropriate to the season than the flowers she gives them, but she does not plant.....
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