The Winter's Tale
Act II, scene 3: Antigonus
swears his loyalty to Leontes, in an attempt to save Leontes' young daughter's
life. From a painting by John
Opie commissioned by the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery for printing and display.
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, 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.
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.
Characters
|
Sicilia
Bohemia
Other
Characters
Shepherds, shepherdesses, servants in Bohemia
|
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,
a chivalric romance revived at court around 1610.
Eric
Ives, the biographer of Anne
Boleyn (1986), 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. 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."
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. 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."
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. However, early in The Winter's Tale, the royal heir,
Mamillius, warns that "a sad tale's best for winter". 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.
Debates
The statue
While
the language Paulina uses in the final scene evokes the sense of a magical
ritual through which Hermione is brought back to life, there are several
passages which suggest a far likelier case – that Paulina hid Hermione at
a remote location to protect her from Leontes' wrath and that the re-animation
of Hermione does not derive from any magic. The Steward announces that the
members of the court have gone to Paulina's dwelling to see the statue; Rogero
offers this exposition: "I thought she had some great matter there in
hand, for she [Paulina] hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the
death of Hermione, visited that removed house" (5.2. 102–105). Further,
Leontes is surprised that the statue is "so much wrinkled", unlike
the Hermione he remembers. Paulina answers his concern by claiming that the
age-progression attests to the "carver's excellence", which makes her
look "as [if] she lived now". Hermione later asserts that her desire
to see her daughter allowed her to endure 16 years of separation: "thou shalt
hear that I, / Knowing by Paulina that the oracle / Gave hope thou wast in
being, have preserved / Myself to see the issue" (5.3.126–129).
However,
the action of 3.2 calls into question the "rational" explanation that
Hermione was spirited away and sequestered for 16 years. Hermione swoons upon
the news of Mamilius' death, and is rushed from the room. Paulina returns after
a short monologue from Leontes, bearing the news of Hermione's death. After
some discussion, Leontes demands to be led toward the bodies of his wife and
son: "Prithee, bring me / To the dead bodies of my queen and son: / One
grave shall be for both: upon them shall / The causes of their death appear,
unto / Our shame perpetual" (3.2). Paulina seems convinced of Hermione's
death, and Leontes' order to visit both bodies and see them interred is never
called into question by later events in the play.
The seacoast of Bohemia
Shakespeare's
fellow playwright Ben Jonson
ridiculed the presence in the play of a seacoast and a desert in Bohemia, since
the Kingdom of Bohemia
(which roughly corresponds to the modern-day Czech
Republic) had neither a coast (being
landlocked) nor a desert. Shakespeare followed his source (Robert Greene's Pandosto)
in giving Bohemia a coast, though he reversed the location of characters and
events: "The part of Pandosto of Bohemia is taken by Leontes of Sicily,
that of Egistus of Sicily by Polixenes of Bohemia". In support of Greene
and Shakespeare, it has been pointed out that in the 13th century, for a period
of less than about 10 years, under Ottokar II of Bohemia, the territories ruled by the king of Bohemia, although never incorporated into the kingdom of Bohemia,
did stretch to the Adriatic, and, if one takes "Bohemia" to mean all
of the territories ruled by Ottokar II, it is possible to argue that one could
sail from a kingdom of Sicily to the "seacoast of Bohemia". Jonathan Bate
offers the simple explanation that the court of King
James was politically allied with that of
Rudolf
II, and the characters and dramatic
roles of the rulers of Sicily and Bohemia were reversed for reasons of
political sensitivity, and in particular to allow it to be performed at the
wedding of the Princess Elizabeth.
In
1891, Edmund O. von Lippmann pointed out that "Bohemia" was also a
rare name for Apulia
in southern Italy. More influential was Thomas
Hanmer's 1744 argument that Bohemia is a
printed error for Bithynia,
an ancient nation in Asia Minor;[18] this theory was adopted in Charles
Kean's influential 19th-century
production of the play, which featured a resplendent Bithynian court. At the
time of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily, however, Bithynia was long extinct and
its territories were controlled by the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, the
play alludes to Hellenistic antiquity (e.g. the Oracle of Delphos, the names of
the kings), so that the "Kingdom of Sicily" may refer to Greek
Sicily, not to the Kingdom of Sicily of later medieval times.
The
pastoral genre
is not known for precise verisimilitude, and, like the assortment of mixed
references to ancient religion and contemporary religious figures and customs,
this possible inaccuracy may have been included to underscore the play's fantastical
and chimeric quality. As Andrew
Gurr puts it, Bohemia may have been
given a seacoast "to flout geographical realism, and to underline the
unreality of place in the play".
A
theory explaining the existence of the seacoast in Bohemia offered by C.
H. Herford is suggested in Shakespeare's
chosen title of the play. A winter's tale is something associated with parents
telling children stories of legends around a fireside: by using this title, it
implies to the audience that these details should not be taken too seriously.
In
the novel Prince Otto
by Robert Louis Stevenson reference is made to the land of Seaboard Bohemia in the
context of an obvious parody of Shakespeare's apparent liberties with geography
in the play.
The Isle of Delphos
Likewise,
Shakespeare's apparent mistake of placing the Oracle
of Delphi on a small island has been used as
evidence of Shakespeare's limited education. However, Shakespeare again copied
this locale directly from "Pandosto". Moreover, the erudite Robert
Greene was not in error, as the Isle of Delphos does not refer to Delphi, but
to the Cycladic island of Delos, the mythical birthplace of Apollo, which from the 15th to
the late 17th century in England was known as "Delphos". Greene's
source for an Apollonian oracle on this island likely was the Aeneid, in which Virgil wrote that Priam consulted the Oracle of Delos before the outbreak of the
Trojan War and that Aeneas
after escaping from Troy consulted the same Delian oracle regarding his future.
The Bear
The
play contains one of the most famous Shakespearean stage directions: Exit,
pursued by a bear, presaging the offstage death of Antigonus. It is not
known whether Shakespeare used a real bear from the London bear-pits,
or an actor in bear costume. The Lord Admiral's Men, the rival playing company
to the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the 1590s, are reported to have possessed
"j beares skyne" among their stage properties in a surviving
inventory dated March 1598. Perhaps a similar prop was later used by
Shakespeare's company.
The
Royal Shakespeare Company, in one production of this play, used a large sheet
of silk which moved and created shapes to symbolise both the bear and the gale
in which Antigonus is travelling.
Dildos
One
comic moment in the play deals with a servant not realising that poetry
featuring references to dildos
is vulgar, presumably from not knowing what the word means. This play and Ben
Jonson's play The Alchemist
(1610) are typically cited as the first usage of the word in publication. The
Alchemist was printed first, but the debate about the date of the play's
composition makes it unclear which was the first scripted use of the word,
which is much older.
Performance history
The
earliest recorded performance of the play was recorded by Simon
Forman, the Elizabethan "figure
caster" or astrologer, who noted in his journal on 11 May 1611 that he saw
The Winter's Tale at the Globe
playhouse. The play was then performed in
front of King James at Court on 5 November 1611. The play was also acted at Whitehall during the festivities preceding Princess Elizabeth's marriage to Frederick V, Elector Palatine, on 14 February 1613. Later Court performances occurred on
7 April 1618, 18 January 1623, and 16 January 1634.
The
Winter's Tale was not revived during the Restoration,
unlike many other Shakespearean plays. It was performed in 1741 at Goodman's Fields Theatre and in 1742 at Covent
Garden. Adaptations, titled The
Sheep-Shearing and Florizal and Perdita, were acted at Covent Garden
in 1754 and at Drury Lane in 1756.
One
of the best remembered modern productions was staged by Peter
Brook in London in 1951 and starred John
Gielgud as Leontes. Other notable stagings
featured John Philip Kemble
in 1811, Samuel Phelps
in 1845, and Charles Kean
in an 1856 production that was famous for its elaborate sets and costumes. Johnston Forbes-Robertson played Leontes memorably in 1887, and Herbert Beerbohm Tree took on the role in 1906. The longest-running Broadway
production starred Henry Daniell
and Jessie Royce Landis
and ran for 39 performances in 1946. In 1980, David Jones,
a former Associate Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company chose to launch his new theatre company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) with The Winter's Tale starring Brian Murray
supported by Jones' new company at BAM. In 1983, the Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted a production based on the First
Folio text at The Shakespeare Center in Manhattan. In 1993 Adrian
Noble won a Globe Award for Best Director
for his Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation, which then was successfully brought to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1994.
In
2009, four separate productions were staged:
- Sam Mendes inaugurated his transatlantic "Bridge Project" directing The Winter's Tale with a cast featuring Simon Russell Beale (Leontes), Rebecca Hall (Hermione), Ethan Hawke (Autolycus), Sinéad Cusack (Paulina), and Morven Christie (Perdita).
- The Royal Shakespeare Company
- Theatre Delicatessen also staged productions of The Winter's Tale in 2009. The play is in the repertory of the Stratford Festival of Canada and was seen at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Central Park, in 2010.
- The Hudson Shakespeare Company of New Jersey presented a production as part of their annual Shakespeare in the Parks series. The action was set in central Europe during the early 1900s era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but with a decidedly diverse cast. African American actors Tony White played Leontes, Deirdre Ann Johnson played Hermione, and Monica Jones in a dual role of Mamillius and Perdita. Also, rounding out the diverse cast was Angela Liao as Paulina.
In
2013 the RSC staged a new production directed by Lucy Bailey,
starring Jo Stone-Fewings
as Leontes and Tara Fitzgerald
as Hermione. This production premiered on January 24 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on 24 January 2013.
In
2015, the Kenneth Branagh Production company staged the play at the Garrick
Theatre, with simultaneous broadcast to cinemas. The production featured Kenneth
Branagh as Leontes, Judi
Dench as Paulina, and Miranda
Raison as Hermione.
Also
in 2015, Cheek by Jowl
staged the play, directed by Declan
Donnellan and designed by Nick
Ormerod. The production toured to France,
Spain, the US and Russia among others. In a partnership with the BBC and
Riverside Studios the production was livestreamed all around the world.
In
2018 Theatre for a New Audience staged the play Off-Broadway, directed by Arin Arbus with Kelley Curran as Hermione and Anatol Yusef as King
Leontes.
Adaptations
There
have been two film versions, a 1910 silent film and a 1967 version starring Laurence
Harvey as Leontes.
An
"orthodox" BBC production was televised in 1981. It was produced by Jonathan
Miller, directed by Jane Howell and starred Robert
Stephens as Polixenes and Jeremy
Kemp as Leontes.
In
2014 choreographer Christopher Wheeldon created a full-length ballet, with music by Joby
Talbot, based on the play for the Royal
Ballet at the Royal
Opera House in London.
In
2015, author Jeanette Winterson
published the book The Gap of Time, a modern adaptation of The
Winter's Tale.
In
2016, author E. K. Johnston published the book Exit, Pursued by a Bear,
a modern adaption of The Winter's Tale.
On
1 May 2016, BBC Radio 3's
Drama on 3 broadcast a production directed by David Hunter, with Danny
Sapani as Leontes, Eve Best
as Hermione, Shaun Dooley
as Polixenes, Karl Johnson
as Camillo, Susan Jameson
as Paulina, Paul Copley
as the Shepherd and Faye Castelow as Perdita. This production will be
re-broadcast on 6 May 2018.
An
opera by Ryan
Wigglesworth, based on the play, was premiered
at the English National Opera on February 27, 2017.
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