SOURCE: Hunt, Maurice. “Words and Deeds in All's Well That Ends Well.” Modern Language Quarterly 48, no. 4 (December 1987): 320-38.

In the following essay, Hunt explores the disintegration of the relationship between language and action in All's Well That Ends Well.

Were playgoers to judge from the King of France's recollection of the deceased Count of Rossillion, any question of competition between words and deeds in All's Well That Ends Well would appear settled during Act I. There, the ailing monarch, nostalgic for the past, praises Bertram's father for a remarkable ability:

So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were, His equal had awak'd them, and his honour, Clock to itself, knew the true minute when Exception bid him speak, and at this time His tongue obey'd his hand. 

(I.ii.36-41)¹

By making his tongue obey his hand, Bertram's father never...