The Winter’s Tale Second lecture

Hermione’s trial She points out that her testimony can scarcely be credited since she is accused of falsehood. It’s simply “he said”/”she said” – can it be a real trial? “My life stands in the level of your dreams.” And her faith is in “powers divine” that she insists view and judge human affairs. (ll. 27ff). And in the oracle of Apollo. Apollo’s judgment! And immediately another “judgment.” And another! Leontes vows his change of mind and repentance – he makes it all very simple – and confesses his plot with Camillo. But this is a tragedy – and Paulina pronounces the effect: “I say she’s dead; I’ll swear it.” And Leontes cannot expect repentance: “Do not repent these things... Nothing but despair. A thousand knees/ Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,/ Upon a barren mountain, and still winter/ In storm perpetual, could not move the gods/ To look that way thou wert.” Some sins cannot be forgiven. But the play is only half over.

The “hinge” of the play: “Now bless thyself! Thou met’st with things dying, I with things new-born” Act III, scene 3, seems strangely broken in two in terms of mood and tone. The first half, in a storm, has Antigonus describing his dream of the dead Hermione and his belief that the baby belongs in Bohemia. Though he pities the baby, he believes Leontes’ account of Hermione’s adultery. He gives the baby the name the ghost of Hermione specified, Perdita, and abandons her. For which he’s immediately punished – “Exit pursued by a bear.” Then the tone immediately changes: the old Shepherd grumbles about “youth.” “I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest.” (The secret wish of all parents of teenagers?!) “Whoa, ho, hoa!” answered by “Hilloa, loa!” Serious stuff, right? And now the play gets positively giddy: the “Clown’s” description of the shipwreck, the bear dining on the gentleman. “‘Tis a lucky day, boy...” (Unless you’re Antigonus)

“Time, the Chorus” Personifies the very principle of romance, which requires the passing of time. “Remember well, I mentioned a son o’ th’ king’s” (Well no, but Polixenes mentioned him about 16 years ago.) And of course something must happen between Florizel and Perdita. And the scene between Polixenes and Camillo gives us more backstory. And it turns out princes are just as rotten as ordinary youths, disappearing, paying no attention to “princely exercises,” probably chasing some girl.

Autolycus A singer, a shapeshifter, an actor, a thief, a pickpocket, a satirist, a small businessman. In short, a comic stand-in for the playwright? What title would we give the little play he engages the clown in? He’ll later play a part in the larger play. Doing a good deed – against his will. And kick-starting the plot – we have to get everybody back to Sicily.

The pastoral world– art and nature Shakespeare and pastoral Here the most fully realized version. Florizel’s over-the-top mythologizing of it at opening of the scene. The two have changed places: she’s “queen of the feast” and he’s dressed as a shepherd. But she’s on edge about the whole thing. Her welcome to the disguised Polixenes and Camillo: rosemary and rue “Flowers of winter”? We don’t have autumn flowers, “nature’s bastards.” Perdita: “I have heard it said/ There is an art which in their piedness shares/ With great creating nature.” Countered by Polixenes: nature makes the art: “This is an art/ Which does mend nature – change it rather – but/ The art itself is nature.” But she’ll still not set one slip of them: she’ll stay with a purer nature – and analogizes it frankly to her own “breeding” with Florizel. Does this give us hope that Polixenes can accept her? Her wish for early spring flowers “to strew” Florizel. “Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,/ But quick and in mine arms.” And his poetry back to her. All interrupted by dancing, the entry of Autolycus, bawdy joking by Mopsa and Dorcas, discussion about ballads, more singing, another dance (of Satyrs),

The pastoral cut short Why exactly does Polixenes break up the two lovers? A conventional idea that young aristocrats shouldn’t marry peasants? Wouldn’t his argument about the gillyvors suggest otherwise? And though he says it’s time to part them, he seems to encourage Florizel’s wooing at ll. 344ff. In response to F’s vows, his response: “Fairly offered.” But “Have you a father?” “Methinks a father/ Is at the nuptial of his son a guest/ That best becomes the table. And the fury between generations that characterizes comedy, but also fuels tragedy (think King Lear).