The Winter's Tale
The
Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare
originally published in the First
Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped
among the comedies,[1]
many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy
ending.[2]
The
play has been intermittently popular, revived in productions in various forms
and adaptations by some of the leading theatre practitioners in Shakespearean performance history, beginning after a long interval with David
Garrick in his adaptation Florizel and
Perdita (first performed in 1753 and published in 1756). The Winter's
Tale was revived again in the 19th century, when the fourth "pastoral" act was widely popular. In the second half of the
20th century, The Winter's Tale in its entirety, and drawn largely from the
First
Folio text, was often performed, with
varying degrees of success.
Following
a brief setup scene the play begins with the appearance of two childhood
friends: Leontes, King of Sicilia,
and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. Polixenes is visiting the kingdom of Sicilia, and is
enjoying catching up with his old friend. However, after nine months, Polixenes
yearns to return to his own kingdom to tend to affairs and see his son. Leontes
desperately attempts to get Polixenes to stay longer, but is unsuccessful.
Leontes then decides to send his wife, Queen Hermione, to try to convince
Polixenes. Hermione agrees and with three short speeches is successful. Leontes
is puzzled as to how Hermione convinced Polixenes so easily, and so he begins
to suspect that his pregnant wife has been having an affair with Polixenes and
that the child is Polixenes'. Leontes orders Camillo, a Sicilian Lord, to
poison Polixenes. Camillo instead warns Polixenes and they both flee to
Bohemia.
Furious
at their escape, Leontes now publicly accuses his wife of infidelity, and
declares that the child she is bearing must be illegitimate. He throws her in
prison, over the protests of his nobles, and sends two of his lords, Cleomenes
and Dion, to the Oracle at Delphos for what he is sure will be confirmation of
his suspicions. Meanwhile, the queen gives birth to a girl, and her loyal
friend Paulina takes the baby to the king, in the hopes that the sight of the
child will soften his heart. He grows angrier, however, and orders Paulina's
husband, Lord Antigonus, to take the child and abandon it in a desolate place.
Cleomenes and Dion return from Delphos with word from the Oracle and find
Hermione publicly and humiliatingly put on trial before the king. She asserts
her innocence, and asks for the word of the Oracle to be read before the court.
The Oracle states categorically that Hermione and Polixenes are innocent,
Camillo is an honest man, and that Leontes will have no heir until his lost
daughter is found. Leontes shuns the news, refusing to believe it as the truth.
As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes' son, Mamillius, has died of
a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. At this,
Hermione falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently
reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband. Leontes
vows to spend the rest of his days atoning for the loss of his son, his
abandoned daughter, and his queen.
Antigonus,
meanwhile, abandons the baby on the coast of Bohemia, reporting that Hermione
appeared to him in a dream and bade him name the girl Perdita. He leaves a
fardel (a bundle) by the baby containing gold and other trinkets which suggest
that the baby is of noble blood. A violent storm suddenly appears, wrecking the
ship on which Antigonus arrived. He wishes to take pity on the child, but is
chased away in one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions: "Exit,
pursued by a bear." Perdita is rescued by a shepherd and his son, also
known as "Clown".
"Time"
enters and announces the passage of sixteen years. Camillo, now in the
service of Polixenes, begs the Bohemian king to allow him to return to Sicilia.
Polixenes refuses and reports to Camillo that his son, Prince Florizel, has
fallen in love with a lowly shepherd girl: Perdita. He suggests to Camillo
that, to take his mind off thoughts of home, they disguise themselves and
attend the sheep-shearing feast where Florizel and Perdita will be betrothed.
At the feast, hosted by the Old Shepherd who has prospered thanks to the gold
in the fardel, the pedlar Autolycus picks the pocket of the Young Shepherd and,
in various guises, entertains the guests with bawdy songs and the trinkets he
sells. Disguised, Polixenes and Camillo watch as Florizel (under the guise of a
shepherd named Doricles) and Perdita are betrothed. Then, tearing off the
disguise, Polixenes angrily intervenes, threatening the Old Shepherd and
Perdita with torture and death and ordering his son never to see the shepherd's
daughter again. With the aid of Camillo, however, who longs to see his native
land again, Florizel and Perdita take ship for Sicilia, using the clothes of
Autolycus as a disguise. They are joined in their voyage by the Old Shepherd
and his son who are directed there by Autolycus.
In
Sicilia, Leontes is still in mourning. Cleomenes and Dion plead with him to end
his time of repentance because the kingdom needs an heir. Paulina, however,
convinces the king to remain unmarried forever since no woman can match the
greatness of his lost Hermione. Florizel and Perdita arrive, and they are
greeted effusively by Leontes. Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission
from his father, but his cover is blown when Polixenes and Camillo, too, arrive
in Sicilia. The meeting and reconciliation of the kings and princes is reported
by gentlemen of the Sicilian court: how the Old Shepherd raised Perdita, how
Antigonus met his end, how Leontes was overjoyed at being reunited with his
daughter, and how he begged Polixenes for forgiveness. The Old Shepherd and
Young Shepherd, now made gentlemen by the kings, meet Autolycus, who asks them
for their forgiveness for his roguery. Leontes, Polixenes, Camillo, Florizel
and Perdita then go to Paulina's house in the country, where a statue of
Hermione has been recently finished. The sight of his wife's form makes Leontes
distraught, but then, to everyone's amazement, the statue shows signs of
vitality; it is Hermione, restored to life. As the play ends, Perdita and
Florizel are engaged, and the whole company celebrates the miracle. Despite
this happy ending typical of Shakespeare's comedies and romances, the
impression of the unjust death of young prince Mamillius lingers to the end,
being an element of unredeemed tragedy, in addition to the years wasted in
separation.
Sources
The
main plot of The Winter's Tale is taken from Robert Greene's pastoral
romance Pandosto,
published in 1588. Shakespeare's changes to the plot are uncharacteristically
slight, especially in light of the romance's undramatic nature, and
Shakespeare's fidelity to it gives The Winter's Tale its most
distinctive feature: the sixteen-year gap between the third and fourth acts.
There
are minor changes in names, places, and minor plot details, but the largest changes
lie in the survival and reconciliation of Hermione and Leontes (Greene's
Pandosto) at the end of the play. The character equivalent to Hermione in Pandosto
dies after being accused of adultery, while Leontes' equivalent looks back upon
his deeds (including an incestuous fondness for his daughter) and slays
himself. The survival of Hermione, while presumably intended to create the last
scene's coup de théâtre
involving the statue, creates a distinctive thematic divergence from Pandosto.
Greene follows the usual ethos
of Hellenistic romance, in which the return of a lost prince or princess
restores order and provides a sense of humour and closure that evokes Providence's control. Shakespeare, by contrast, sets in the foreground
the restoration of the older, indeed aged, generation, in the reunion of
Leontes and Hermione. Leontes not only lives, but seems to insist on the happy
ending of the play.
It
has been suggested that the use of a pastoral romance from the 1590s indicates
that at the end of his career, Shakespeare felt a renewed interest in the
dramatic contexts of his youth. Minor influences also suggest such an interest.
As in Pericles, he uses a chorus to advance the action in the manner of the naive dramatic
tradition; the use of a bear in the scene on the Bohemian seashore is almost
certainly indebted to Mucedorus,[3] a chivalric romance revived at court around 1610.
Eric
Ives, the biographer of Anne
Boleyn (1986),[4] believes that the play is really a parallel of the fall of
the queen, who was beheaded on false charges of adultery on the orders of her husband Henry VIII
in 1536. There are numerous parallels between the two stories – including
the fact that one of Henry's closest friends, Sir Henry Norreys,
was beheaded as one of Anne's supposed lovers and he refused to confess in
order to save his life, claiming that everyone knew the Queen was innocent. If
this theory is followed then Perdita becomes a dramatic presentation of Anne's only daughter,
Queen Elizabeth I.
Date and text
The
play was not published until the First
Folio of 1623. In spite of tentative
early datings (see below), most critics believe the play is one of
Shakespeare's later works, possibly written in 1610 or 1611.[5] A 1611 date is suggested by an apparent connection with Ben
Jonson's Masque of Oberon, performed at Court 1 January 1611, in which appears a dance
of ten or twelve satyrs; The Winter's Tale includes a dance of twelve
men costumed as satyrs, and the servant announcing their entry says "one
three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc'd before the King."
(IV.iv.337–338). Arden
Shakespeare editor J.H.P. Pafford
found that "the language, style, and spirit of the play all point to a
late date. The tangled speech, the packed sentences, speeches which begin and
end in the middle of a line, and the high percentage of light and weak endings
are all marks of Shakespeare's writing at the end of his career. But of more
importance than a verse test is the similarity of the last plays in spirit and
themes."[6]
In
the late 18th century, Edmond Malone suggested that a "book" listed
in the Stationers' Register on 22 May 1594, under the title "a Wynters nightes
pastime", might have been Shakespeare's, though no copy of it is known.[7] In 1933, Dr. Samuel A. Tannenbaum wrote that Malone
subsequently "seems to have assigned it to 1604; later still, to 1613; and
finally he settled on 1610–11. Hunter assigned it to about 1605."[8]
Analysis and criticism
Title of the play
A play called "The Winter's Tale" would
immediately indicate to contemporary audiences that the work would present an
"idle tale", an old wives' tale not intended to be realistic and offering the promise of a
happy ending. The title may have been inspired by George Peele's play The Old Wives' Tale of 1590, in which a
storyteller tells "a merry winter's tale" of a missing daughter.[9][10] However, early in The Winter's Tale, the royal heir,
Mamillius, warns that "a sad tale's best for winter".[11] Indeed, his mother is soon put on trial for treason and
adultery – and his death is announced seconds after she is shown to have
been faithful and Leontes's accusations unfounded.
No comments:
Post a Comment