I view The Winter’s Tale as an extraordinary example of a classic fairy tale piece. I think Professor Britland somewhat touched on it in the last lecture and how we are expecting something bad to happen (ex: Perdita is a lost daughter who is found in a rural community so something bad and groundbreaking to the play must happen… but… it doesn’t). I feel The Winter’s Tale is split into two plays; the first play ending in Act III, Scene II and the second play starting after that in a setting 16 years later and located in Bohemia. I just finished this play and while I was reading it I was noting all the fairy tale pieces I thought mirrored what defined a fairy tale classic. For example:
- Perdita, a baby what was in essence left exposed to die, and being found by ordinary rural people, is a very Classical theme and provides a link between the two separate “plays” within Winter’s Tale.
- The two “separate plays” are linked by a voyage across the sea, which can symbolize change.
- Bohemia and Siciliy are half-imaginary/half-distant= places for a setting.
- Perdita doesn’t know she is a princess (but we, the audience, does)
- There is an old man who gives advice and gives some sort of “magic aid” to help (Antigonus giving the scroll).
Did anyone else catch on any other fairy tale themes?
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3 comments:
the part of this post i would like to touch on is the part when you, and how we talked in section, about how we assume or are waiting for something bad to happen. It is pretty easy to assume this was done on purpose. The question i would like to ponder is why does Shakespeare do this in many plays, including The Winters Tale. The answer i come up with is its just another great writing style Shakespeare uses to keep the reader intrigued. The play itself has an enormous amount of things happening, and after reading it and looking back, I wondered why i was so into this play that was seemingly just a storyline for the most part. This writing style that Shakespeare uses in this play helps to keep the attention of his audience while telling a story.
I agree with your fairy tale theory, and think it's a great observation! The princess, the oracle, the love story that works out happily in the end, even a statue coming back to life... it's like a classic Disney movie. I personally thought this play was a great relief from the rest of the plays. Was there really only one death (Mammillius) in this play?! It's a huge change from the plays where someone plots to have everyone in their path killed. (Although, I'm sure, at the beginning of the play, Leontes would have been perfectly happy if Polixenes, Camillo, Hermione and Perdita all would have vanished completely-especially Polixenes). However, it didn't work out that way, Hermione came back to life and Perdita was found and taken under Old Shepard's wing, Camillo and Polixenes returned at the end to Sicilia and everyone made up and lived happily ever after. Truly resembling a classic fairy tale.
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