SOURCE: Hunt, Maurice. “‘Bearing Hence’ Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 44, no. 2 (spring 2004): 333-46.

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 sexual domination.

Hitherto unexplored wordplay in the early acts of The Winter's Tale involving forms of the word “bear” deepens our understanding of the importance for the play's design of a bear's notorious onstage pursuit and reported devouring of Antigonus. On the one hand, the wordplay confirms in a new way previous commentators' assertions that the bear symbolizes Leontes' savage authority over Antigonus and the king's responsibility for the courtier's death. On the other, it suggests that Camillo's transporting Polixenes out of Leontes' court and Florizel's carrying Perdita away from her country home amount to redemptive “bearing[s] hence” that invite comparison with the fatal...