The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare

When Shakespeare wrote The Winter’s Tale, he was an older, though not old, man. It was one of what are often called his late plays, and along with The Tempest one of the two great plays he wrote at the end of his career. In these plays, he experimented with new forms of expression and genre. They seem to stretch traditional genres of tragedy or comedy, and develop a more transcendent sense of magic and mystery. At the end of The Winter’s Tale, the female courtier Paulina perhaps speaks for Shakespeare when she says, ‘It is required/You do awake your faith…’. The Winter’s Tale seems to draw on and reflect back on many of his previous tragedies, and indeed comedies, as it fuses comedy and tragedy into a new genre, romance. In this podcast we will discuss the shocking suddenness of Leontes’ jealousy. We spend time on the most famous stage direction not just in Shakespeare but surely in all of world literature. We’ll discuss how Time appears on stage, and with a snap of his fingers moves the action forward 16 years. We’ll try not to get too melancholy as we discuss the young lovers, and the beauty of Florizel’s declaration of love to Perdita, which is not a staple of weddings or Valentines but deserves to be. And we’ll explore the strangest aspect of all in this strange and wonderful play, the statue, and how it comes to life. Indeed, it is required you do awake your faith.