From the shakeitshakespeare team, (Shermeeta Kaur, Nazirah, Nurul Aini Hanani, Nadzirah Hakim)
xoxo
From the shakeitshakespeare team, (Shermeeta Kaur, Nazirah, Nurul Aini Hanani, Nadzirah Hakim)
xoxo
So, are you done reading the play Winter's Tale.
Are you sure??
If you are confident of your reading then take this quiz. I dare you.
Let's see how high you can score...muahahahha (evil laugh)
Go to this link http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz9421117520.html
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Initial Situation
Things are hunky dory at the Sicilian court.
Leontes (King of Sicily) and his wife (Hermione) have been busy entertaining Leontes's childhood friend Polixenes (King of Bohemia) for nine months, which has been a total blast. Things get even better when Hermione (at her husband’s request) convinces Polixenes to stay in Sicily even longer. Let the good times roll!Conflict
Leontes becomes crazy jealous.
Out of the blue, Leontes suspects that Hermione is hooking up with Polixenes and carrying the Bohemian King’s love child. He plots to have Polixenes poisoned.Complication
Polixenes flees to Bohemia, leaving Hermione to take the brunt of Leontes’s wrath.
When Leontes learns that Polixenes has left town, he throws his wife in prison, where she gives birth to Leontes’s child (baby Perdita) before standing trial for adultery and treason.Climax
Mammilius dies, Perdita is abandoned, and we’re told Hermione is dead too.
Leontes orders someone to make the little “bastard” disappear somewhere in Bohemia and tries Hermione for adultery. Meanwhile, Leontes’s young son, Mammilius, dies and we’re told that Hermione has died of a broken heart.Suspense
Sixteen years later, Perdita turns out to be alive and well.
Perdita’s all grown up (she’s been raised as shepherd’s daughter) and in love with Prince Florizel, but his father objects to the marriage so the young couple travels to Sicily.Denouement
Families and friends reunite in Sicily and Hermione lives!
Polixenes chases Perdita and Florizel to Sicily. After Perdita’s true identity is discovered, Leontes and Polixenes make up and both families are happy. Paulina invites everyone to her house and promises to show them a lifelike statue of the late Hermione. Everyone is all “Wow, this statue looks totally real” and then, suddenly, miracle of all miracles, the statue steps down from its pedestal and gives Leontes a big hug. Turns out that Hermione is alive.Conclusion
Hermione and Leontes reunite, Perdita will marry Florizel, and Paulina gets engaged.
After Leontes reunites with his family (all except Mammilius, who remains dead), he feels bad that Paulina doesn’t have a husband (he was eaten by a bear). So, there’s only one thing left to do: announce that Paulina and Camillo should get hitched. Things are just swell.source:http://www.shmoop.com/winters-tale/classic-plot-analysis.html
Twinned Lambs
Polixenes’s description of his childhood friendship with Leontes is probably the most famous example of imagery in The Winter’s Tale. According to Polixenes, when they played together as innocent young boys, they were like “twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ the sun,” which is a very sweet way to describe the innocence and joy of a carefree childhood friendship between two boys. It also implies that Polixenes and Leontes were so close that they were practically identical (“twinn’d”). By the way, this is also a simile, which compares one thing directly to another. As in, the boys were like lambs.
So, you’re probably thinking, “Aww, what a sweet way for Polixenes to talk about his best childhood bud.” Well, we might want to rethink this because Polixenes’s lovely description of the nearly identical boys gives way to something darker:
We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,
And bleat the one at the other: what we changed
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
That any did.
Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd
Hereditary ours. (1.2.10)
What’s interesting is that Polixenes claims that he and Leontes would not even have been “guilty” of original sin if they had remained young and innocent. Note: The doctrine of “ill doing” (a.k.a. “original sin”) is the idea that all human beings are born tainted because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, according to the Bible’s book of Genesis. In other words, Polixenes suggests that he and Leontes would have remained totally innocent if they hadn’t grown up to become interested in sex (“stronger blood” means “sexual passion”) and girls (like Hermione and Polixenes’s wife). This implies that sexual relationships with women mark the end of childhood and are probably the reason why Polixenes and Leontes aren’t as close as they once were.
So, you’re probably thinking, “Aww, what a sweet way for Polixenes to talk about his best childhood bud.” Well, we might want to rethink this because Polixenes’s lovely description of the nearly identical boys gives way to something darker:
We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,
And bleat the one at the other: what we changed
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
That any did.
Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd
Hereditary ours. (1.2.10)
What’s interesting is that Polixenes claims that he and Leontes would not even have been “guilty” of original sin if they had remained young and innocent. Note: The doctrine of “ill doing” (a.k.a. “original sin”) is the idea that all human beings are born tainted because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, according to the Bible’s book of Genesis. In other words, Polixenes suggests that he and Leontes would have remained totally innocent if they hadn’t grown up to become interested in sex (“stronger blood” means “sexual passion”) and girls (like Hermione and Polixenes’s wife). This implies that sexual relationships with women mark the end of childhood and are probably the reason why Polixenes and Leontes aren’t as close as they once were.
The Bear
If you’re like us, you were probably completely blown away when that bear ran out and chased Antigonus across the stage before devouring the poor guy (3.3). Yep, that’s pretty random alright, and to tell you the truth, we’re not quite sure what to make of it (except to say that Shakespeare obviously has a sense of humor). So, let’s think about this for a minute by reviewing some popular interpretations of the incident:
Option 1: Lots of people think that Antigonus gets mauled by a bear because he’s just done a really horrible thing – dumped off baby Perdita in the middle of nowhere. It certainly seems reasonable to assume that Antigonus suffers from bad karma. On the one hand, however, we could also point out that Leontes has got some pretty bad karma too but he’s never mauled by a wild animal.
Option 2: Leontes’s bad behavior brings us to our second option. According to some critics, the bear is a symbol of Leontes’s wrath, which means that Antigonus isn’t so much a villain as a victim. He’s bullied into ditching Perdita by Leontes and the bear mauling is just another version of Antigonus being attacked by a ferocious figure.
Option 3: Alternatively, some literary critics have pointed out that the whole bear mauling incident seems to echo fertility rites myths. As literary critic Jean E. Howard tells us in her introduction to the Norton edition of the play (2008), these kinds of fertility rites usually involve some poor old guy being sacrificed in order to usher in the spring season (think “out with the old and in with the new”) and bring about some sort of sexual fulfillment.
Option 4: The bear mauling isn’t symbolic of anything. It’s just Shakespeare’s way of having fun and making reference to a popular sixteenth- and seventeenth-century blood sport (bear baiting – when bears are chained up and set upon by a pack of dogs). Bear baiting took place in the same neighborhood as Shakespeare’s plays and there are references to it all over his work.
Option 1: Lots of people think that Antigonus gets mauled by a bear because he’s just done a really horrible thing – dumped off baby Perdita in the middle of nowhere. It certainly seems reasonable to assume that Antigonus suffers from bad karma. On the one hand, however, we could also point out that Leontes has got some pretty bad karma too but he’s never mauled by a wild animal.
Option 2: Leontes’s bad behavior brings us to our second option. According to some critics, the bear is a symbol of Leontes’s wrath, which means that Antigonus isn’t so much a villain as a victim. He’s bullied into ditching Perdita by Leontes and the bear mauling is just another version of Antigonus being attacked by a ferocious figure.
Option 3: Alternatively, some literary critics have pointed out that the whole bear mauling incident seems to echo fertility rites myths. As literary critic Jean E. Howard tells us in her introduction to the Norton edition of the play (2008), these kinds of fertility rites usually involve some poor old guy being sacrificed in order to usher in the spring season (think “out with the old and in with the new”) and bring about some sort of sexual fulfillment.
Option 4: The bear mauling isn’t symbolic of anything. It’s just Shakespeare’s way of having fun and making reference to a popular sixteenth- and seventeenth-century blood sport (bear baiting – when bears are chained up and set upon by a pack of dogs). Bear baiting took place in the same neighborhood as Shakespeare’s plays and there are references to it all over his work.
The Seasons
Winter
The first half of The Winter’s Tale is set in King Leontes’s Sicilian court during the cold winter months. the evidence is when Mammilius tells his mother “A sad tale's best for winter” (2.1.7) after she asks him for a story. The frigid season seems completely appropriate in a court where Leontes’s cold-hearted behavior destroys his family and brings about the worst kind of suffering imaginable.
Spring/Summer
In the second half of the play (which occurs sixteen years later), the Sicilian winter gives way to the Bohemian countryside during the spring or summer. The spring and summer seasons, as we know, are frequently associated with life and renewal and life. Fittingly, Bohemia is a festive world that’s full of youthful spirit and possibility. This is where we meet the lovely young Perdita, who resembles Flora, goddess of flowers. Bohemia is also where Florizel’s and Perdita’s young love blossoms and just about anything seems possible, especially during the colorful sheep-shearing festival.
When Florizel and Perdita travel to Sicily in Act 5, the “cold” Sicilian landscape is dramatically altered. Leontes says, “Welcome hither, / As is the spring to the earth […] The blessed gods / Purge all infection from the air / Whilst you / Do climate here” (5.1.13-15). Leontes, whose been suffering a winter-like existence in Sicily for sixteen long years, suggests that Florizel’s presence is like the arrival of spring after a long, cold, harsh winter. What’s more, Florizel and Perdita’s youthful presence seems to have a healing effect on the king and his ailing court, which never really recovered from the deaths of Hermione and Mammilius and the loss of baby Perdita. So, we might say that Florizel and Perdita bring with them the spirit of spring/summer and inject the play with love, warmth, and the spirit of forgiveness.
When Florizel and Perdita travel to Sicily in Act 5, the “cold” Sicilian landscape is dramatically altered. Leontes says, “Welcome hither, / As is the spring to the earth […] The blessed gods / Purge all infection from the air / Whilst you / Do climate here” (5.1.13-15). Leontes, whose been suffering a winter-like existence in Sicily for sixteen long years, suggests that Florizel’s presence is like the arrival of spring after a long, cold, harsh winter. What’s more, Florizel and Perdita’s youthful presence seems to have a healing effect on the king and his ailing court, which never really recovered from the deaths of Hermione and Mammilius and the loss of baby Perdita. So, we might say that Florizel and Perdita bring with them the spirit of spring/summer and inject the play with love, warmth, and the spirit of forgiveness.
Time
At the beginning of Act 4, Time, a winged figure with an hourglass, appears on stage. Time is an allegory. (An allegory is a kind of extended metaphor that’s weaved throughout a poem or play in which objects, persons, and actions stand for another meaning. In this case, Time stands for, well, time.) Because Time announces that the play has fast-forwarded sixteen years into the future and tells us that the setting has changed from Sicily to Bohemia, where Perdita has grown up, Time is also acting the part of a Chorus (kind of like a narrator).
During his speech, Time apologizes to the audience for all of this: “Impute it not a crime / To me or my swift passage, that I slide / O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried / Of that wide gap” (4.1.1). Translation: “Don’t be mad that the play has skipped ahead sixteen years.” Why is Time apologizing? Well, flash forwards and major setting changes were a big no-no on the English stage in Shakespeare’s day because they disregarded the “classical unities” (of time, place, and action), a set of literary rules that said all plays should have the following features: 1) the action should take place within a 24 hour time span; 2) the action should take place in one geographical place/setting; 3) the play should have one main plot and no sub-plots. The Winter’s Tale pretty clearly breaks all of these rules (as did many other Shakespeare plays).
During his speech, Time apologizes to the audience for all of this: “Impute it not a crime / To me or my swift passage, that I slide / O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried / Of that wide gap” (4.1.1). Translation: “Don’t be mad that the play has skipped ahead sixteen years.” Why is Time apologizing? Well, flash forwards and major setting changes were a big no-no on the English stage in Shakespeare’s day because they disregarded the “classical unities” (of time, place, and action), a set of literary rules that said all plays should have the following features: 1) the action should take place within a 24 hour time span; 2) the action should take place in one geographical place/setting; 3) the play should have one main plot and no sub-plots. The Winter’s Tale pretty clearly breaks all of these rules (as did many other Shakespeare plays).
Hermione’s Statue
The statue of Hermione is one of the most controversial issues in the play. By the time Paulina invites everyone to see Hermione’s life-like statue in the play’s final act, Hermione has been presumed dead for the past sixteen years. This is why everyone is so shocked to see that an artist has created such a realistic and stunning statue. (The artists even seem to have taken into account how Hermione would have aged over the years.) Everyone is even more shocked and amazed when Paulina calls for some dramatic music and says “Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more” (5.3.11) and Hermione steps down from the pedestal and gives Leontes a hug. Clearly, this is a pretty dramatic and moving scene, for the characters and the audience.
The problem is this: it’s not entirely clear if Hermione is somehow brought back from the dead, or if she’s been alive the whole time. Some critics argue that Hermione is magically and miraculously resurrected when her long lost daughter (Perdita) returns to her. Others argue that Paulina just hid Hermione away for sixteen years so that 1) Leontes wouldn’t hurt her and 2) she could teach Leontes a lesson. There’s enough evidence in the play to argue either way. So, what do you think? Is this magic, or is it just Paulina’s parlor trick?
The problem is this: it’s not entirely clear if Hermione is somehow brought back from the dead, or if she’s been alive the whole time. Some critics argue that Hermione is magically and miraculously resurrected when her long lost daughter (Perdita) returns to her. Others argue that Paulina just hid Hermione away for sixteen years so that 1) Leontes wouldn’t hurt her and 2) she could teach Leontes a lesson. There’s enough evidence in the play to argue either way. So, what do you think? Is this magic, or is it just Paulina’s parlor trick?
Hence, I took the liberty to find the map of the two countries to show the readers what Bohemia and Sicily looks like.
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| Bohemia (1) and Austrian Silesia (11) within Austria-Hungary (1867-1918) |
Youth and Age
The first theme is the power of youth to regenerate age. For example, it is the young people, Perdita and Florizel, who effect the reconciliation between the old kings, Leontes and Polixenes. This theme is struck in the very first scene, in which Camillo comments that young Mamilius is such a promising prince that he makes "old hearts fresh." (See also Polixenes' comments, Act 1, scene 2, lines 170-71.) Mamilius of course does not live to fulfill his promise, but Perdita does. There is a sense of human life renewing itself through the cycle of generations.
The first theme is the power of youth to regenerate age. For example, it is the young people, Perdita and Florizel, who effect the reconciliation between the old kings, Leontes and Polixenes. This theme is struck in the very first scene, in which Camillo comments that young Mamilius is such a promising prince that he makes "old hearts fresh." (See also Polixenes' comments, Act 1, scene 2, lines 170-71.) Mamilius of course does not live to fulfill his promise, but Perdita does. There is a sense of human life renewing itself through the cycle of generations.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
The importance of forgiveness and reconciliation is another theme in the last plays of Shakespeare. Hermoine forgives Leontes the wrong he inflicted on her, and they are finally reconciled. Polixenes forgives Leontes. Leontes must also try to forgive himself.
Supernatural Intervention
Supernatural or improbable events often feature in the Shakespearean romances. In The Winter's Tale, the god Apollo intervenes, through the oracle, when Leontes is blind to the truth and bent on injustice. The "resurrection" of Hermoine is also presented as a supernatural event, a miracle. Paulina is anxious to avoid any implication that she is bringing Hermoine back to life by the use of magical arts. Shakespeare's concern is not to produce a trick by magic, but to demonstrate in a symbolic way the power of life to regenerate itself.
Nobility of Woman
Another theme of the romances, prominent in The Winter's Tale, is the nobility, purity and resoluteness of woman. These qualities are embodied in Hermoine, who is not only beyond reproach in her duties as queen, but also endures false accusation and condemnation with great dignity. Paulina is steadfast, loyal and persistent, and Perdita is the embodiment of the innocent regenerative power of nature. In no other play by Shakespeare does he present as many women of such admirable qualities. They stand in contrast to the appalling conduct of Leontes and, in Act 4, of Polixenes, who performs a function similar to that of Leontes in the first two acts. Man's belligerence and even madness is therefore contrasted with woman's quiet strength.
Nature and the Perpetual Renewal of Life
Perhaps the main theme is the triumph of life, as expressed through nature's perpetual powers of renewal. This is the "great creating nature" (Act 4, scene 4, line 89) that is shown in all its variety in the great sheep-shearing scene. The rhythms of nature are reflected in the structure of the play. The first three acts are tragic (decay; winter), the last two comic (rebirth and growth; summer). The two moods meet in the Old Shepherd, as he discovers the babe Perdita at the same time that Clown witnesses the death of Antigonus: "Now bless thyself: thou met'st with things dying, I with things new-born" (Act 3, scene 3, lines 112-13). The structure of the play suggests that human life will be healed by nature and time, just as spring always returns to the earth. What time takes away it will ultimately restore. The miraculous return of Hermoine (no one ever explains where she has been all those years) is simply part of the symbolic message that life has infinite restorative powers. Just as Perdita can be found, so can Hermoine be restored.
source:NovelGuide
Through our reading on literature, we know that imagery is very important and effective in conveying the actions and ideas of the story. When Leontes' jealousy erupts, he employs images of disease and poison. Railing against the immorality of women, he says,
"Physic for't there's none" (Act 1, scene 2, line 200), i.e. it is like a disease for which there is no remedy. Leontes continues in the same speech, "many thousand on's, / Have the disease."
The poison image occurs when he compares himself to a man who has unwittingly drunk a spider that was in a cup. (It was believed that this was poisonous if the person was aware that he had swallowed the spider.) The images of disease and poison are appropriate for Leontes' jealous state of mind.
In the second part of the play, the dominant images change. Caroline Spurgeon comments in her book, Shakespeare's Imagery, that the imagery communicates a sense of "the common flow of life through all things, in nature and man alike the oneness of rhythm, of law of movement, in the human body and human emotions with the great fundamental rhythmical movements of nature herself" (p. 305).
This is most noticeable in Act 4, in which images of nature dominate. It is as if the natural and human worlds come together in harmony, as well as the realm of the gods. This is of course appropriate, since the "disease" of Leontes' jealousy is being overcome by the natural tendency of life to regenerate itself. The nature images are especially apparent in the sheep-shearing scene (Act 4, scene 4), which shows a "green world" that is in marked contrast to the barren world of the first three acts. The images of nature that occur in Perdita's speeches show that she is completely aware of natural rhythms and their correspondence to human life. This can be seen for example in her distribution of flowers that are appropriate to the ages of the recipients (Act 4, scene 4, lines 103-28.)
source:NovelGuide
A play which demonstrates how suspicion and jealousy can clouded one's judgement and how love, loyalty and passion of young lovers will reunite the broken relationship.
King Leontes of Sicilia begs his childhood friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, to extend his visit to Sicilia. Polixenes protests that he has been away from his kingdom for nine months, but after Leontes's pregnant wife, Hermione, pleads with him he relents and agrees to stay a little longer. Leontes, meanwhile, has become possessed with jealousy--convinced that Polixenes and Hermione are lovers, he orders his loyal retainer, Camillo, to poison the Bohemian king. Instead, Camillo warns Polixenes of what is afoot, and the two men flee Sicilia immediately.
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 to the Oracle of Delphi for what he is sure will be confirmation of his suspicions. Meanwhile, the queen gives birth to a girl, and her loyal friend Paulina brings the baby to the king, in the hopes that the sight of the child will soften his heart. He only grows angrier, however, and orders Paulina's husband, Lord Antigonus, to take the child and abandon it in some desolate place. While Antigonus is gone, the answer comes from Delphi--Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and Leontes will have no heir until his lost daughter is found. As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes's son, Mamillius, has died of a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. Hermione, meanwhile, falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband.
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 to the Oracle of Delphi for what he is sure will be confirmation of his suspicions. Meanwhile, the queen gives birth to a girl, and her loyal friend Paulina brings the baby to the king, in the hopes that the sight of the child will soften his heart. He only grows angrier, however, and orders Paulina's husband, Lord Antigonus, to take the child and abandon it in some desolate place. While Antigonus is gone, the answer comes from Delphi--Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and Leontes will have no heir until his lost daughter is found. As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes's son, Mamillius, has died of a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. Hermione, meanwhile, falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband.
Antigonus, meanwhile abandons the baby on the Bohemian coast, reporting that Hermione appeared to him in a dream and bade him name the girl Perdita and leave gold and other tokens on her person. Shortly thereafter, Antigonus is killed by a bear, and Perdita is raised by a kindly Shepherd. Sixteen years pass, and the son of Polixenes, Prince Florizel, falls in love with Perdita. His father and Camillo attend a sheepshearing in disguise and watch as Florizel and Perdita are betrothed--then, tearing off the disguise, Polixenes intervenes and orders 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, after using the clothes of a local rogue, Autolycus, as a disguise. They are joined in their voyage by the Shepherd and his son, a Clown, who are directed there by Autolycus.
In Sicilia, Leontes--still in mourning after all this time--greets the son of his old friend effusively. Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father, but his cover is blown when Polixenes and Camillo, too, arrive in Sicilia. What happens next is told to us by gentlemen of the Sicilian court: the Shepherd tells everyone his story of how Perdita was found, and Leontes realizes that she is his daughter, leading to general rejoicing. The entire company then goes 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 comes to life--it is Hermione, restored to life. As the play ends, Paulina and Camillo are engaged, and the whole company celebrates the miracle.
Unlike Othello, Winter's Tale story has a happy ending and it seems like everyone is united with their own partners.
source: Sparknotes
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