A Scene from William Shakespeare's 'A Winter's Tale'

The Winter's Tale

William Shakespearec. 1610
Influence16th pct
Popularity16th pct
Shakespeare

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  • are reading all of shakespeare

Skip this if you…

  • haven't already read the classic shakespeare plays
  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated

The Groblé Take

High quality hidden identity Shakespeare. Very ending was a little insane but still fun.

Connections

The lineage through The Winter's Tale

Built Onwhat came beforeThe Winter's TaleMetamorphoses

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid. The Winter's Tale built on it. - The statue that comes to life at the end is Ovid's Pygmalion, lifted from Book 10 of the *Metamorphoses* - Leontes's wonder at the statue speaks Ovid's language of stone turning to flesh — "What fine chisel / Could ever yet cut breath?" - Read Ovid first and the play's logic opens up: Perdita-as-Proserpina, the dead made living, transformation as the engine of the whole final act
See the full map
Gallery

Depicted in Art

Hermione attended by her ladies, Mamillius at her knee, the moment before Leontes bursts in with the accusation of adultery.

William Hamilton, 1790

Pastoral grouping outside the shepherd's cottage at the sheep-shearing festival — Perdita as flower-decked country queen, Florizel beside her.

William Hamilton, 1793

A grouping of figures in flowing Regency-classical drapery — likely the trial of Hermione or the statue scene, in Stothard's characteristic soft-edged style.

Thomas Stothard, 1800

A young woman with long red-gold curls bound by ribbons, white jasmine blossoms at her temple, in a white muslin bodice — a tightly cropped portrait-as-character study.

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, 1866

The old Shepherd and his son discover the infant Perdita abandoned on the Bohemian shore beside the gold and tokens that mark her noble birth.

Henry Thomson, 1827

The sheep-shearing festival outside the shepherd's cottage: Perdita in finery in the foreground, Florizel gazing at her from the doorway, Autolycus hawking wares behind.

Augustus Leopold Egg, 1845

Leontes confronts Antigonus and his lords as the infant Perdita is brought before him; the king orders the child cast out.

John Opie, 1793

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick

Folger Shakespeare Library

2005

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise google, without breaking the scene to do it.

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Notable Quotes

Exit, pursued by a bear.

Stage direction, The Winter's Tale
All 15 quotes, with sources →
Adaptations

Screen & Stage

Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)

AcclaimPraised by 4 notable voices
  • Ethan Hawke, actor & filmmaker, b. 1970: "It works like the Beatles' White Album. … I really think Shakespeare was in a tier all by himself."
  • William Hazlitt, English Romantic critic, 1778–1830: "The Winter's Tale is one of the best-acting of our author's plays."
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English Romantic poet and critic, 1772–1834: Read Leontes's jealousy as a vice of the mind — psychological penetration rivalling Othello, not mere plot device.
  • Harold Bloom, American literary critic, 1930–2019: Perdita is the play's marvel — in the sheep-shearing scene she prophesies the naturalism of Keats.

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