WINTER'S TALE, The. 'The Winter's by William Shakespeare, w:,s probably composed, and certainly performed, in 1611; is first known to have been published in the First Folio of 1623; and by all evidence belongs, with 'Cymbeline' and 'The Tempest,' to Shakespeare's latest work. In closely packed and elliptical language, and in verse which tends to break down into prose under the strain of its matter, each play of this group exhibits various and contrasting, even incongruous, materials, loosely linked together to produce from an unhappy and unpromising beginning a romantically happy close. From storm and shipwreck and exile, from slander upon women's virtue, from tyrannical usurpation, lust, and rage, from foul-mouthed charges and unmotived and almost pathological jealousies and con spiracies, from the death or exposure of children, such 'dramatic romances' move on through idyllic e,tscenes and lucky voyages to the happy of lovers, the reconcilia tion of enemie the restoration of children and of throe These closing works of Shakespeare w re perhaps the outcome of a golden sunset mood — the mood which Dowden named 'On the Heights°- but they are more likely to have been affected by externals— the vogue of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramatic romances in particular, and more generally by the prevalent Alexandrianism of con temporary taste, which preferred a staccato suc cession of fortuitous events, contrasted, sur prising, picturesque and idyllic, to any closely knit dramatic structure or well-marked con nection of action with motive, of scene with scene and of cause with effect.
Satisfying this taste there was present in Elizabethan literature a new ingredient, the Greek prose romances, which the Renaissance had made accessible in editions and transla tions — the (...Ethiopica' of Heliodorus, the 'Clitophon and Leueippe' of Achilles Tatius, and the 'Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus. Mat ter from one or more of them had been used by Sir Philip Sidney in his 'Arcadia' and by Robert Greene in several prose tales. From one of these — 'Pandosto; The Triumph of Time' (1588, 1607, 1609; often afterward reprinted as Worastus and Fawnia'), Shakespeare in turn took nearly the whole plot of 'The Winter's Tale.' 'Pandosto' is certainly compounded of many simples; and nearly all come from one or another of the Greek romances. Heliodorus gives a hint for Greene's jealous king, and sup plies outright his trial-scene, oracle, exposure of child with tokens, finding of child, and restoration of child to a father who, not know ing her, is about to condemn her to death; Achilles Tatius gives the imprisonment and brutal wooing of a maiden by a would-be lover; Longus gi% es rich details of the exposed child's rearing among the shepherds. 'Pandosto' is a recliauffi, of Greek fiction. with all its di“.rsity, loose motivation and fortuitousness.
Most of the foregoing material, taken by Greene from the Greek romances, is in 'The Winter's Tale.' The matters which Shakes roe.trc ha. discarded arc all among those winch adds d — the Queen's death, the King's wooing of his own daughter, the King's suicide. Shakespeare Herm:one to be restored as a statue c, mr to hie: and his Leontes does not woo Perdita or kill himself. Such changes bring the play still nearer to the Greek ro mance type; other changes, again, substitute genuine motive and causation for the mere coincidences with which Greene was content: while still others make it probable that for pastoral material Shakespeare went behind Greene directly to a Greek romance, viz_ Angel Day's English version (1587) of 'Daphnis and Chloe.' The Greek romances thus, both
mediately and immediately, are important 'sources' of 'The Winter's Tale.' In fact, this play stands as the typical representative of the Greek romance tradition in English drama.
The uramatic structure of 'The Winter's Tale' is what might be expected of such a tra dition. Leontes' jealousy, for example, is not only without justification, but — unlike Othel lo's — without plausible motive or cause Again, between Act III and Act IV the play breaks in two: in time there is a lapse of 16 years; in place a shift from Sicilia to Bo hemia; in action a complete transference of interest to the affairs of the younger genera tion. And again at the end the scene shifts back to Sicilia; Perdita's 'recognition' and her betrothal to Florizel occur off-stage and are only reported; while the chief interest is finally shifted back attain to the restoration of Hermione. Sir Phihp Sidney's 'Defence of Poesy' gave by anticipation an amusing cen sure of the type; and even the most liberal of modern dramaturgists — one who is not in the least under the spell of rules or 'unities'— is severe upon these shifts. It is as if Shake speare had set out to exemplify to the full not only 'romantic' content but 'romantic' struc ture.
Yet 'The Winter's Tale' is charming — charming just so far as it is not aof anything, but is mere Shakespeare. Prog7, as usual, Shakespeare has transmuted his tradition and has added fresh delights. His pastoral is an idyll of the world's springtime — its pure gold foiled just enough by Autolycus's r6guerY; nothing in all the great gallery of Shakes pearean character surpasses in finish and reality Autolycus or the loyal Paulin; nothing in the tragedies is grander than the grand emotional play of the statue scene. What we remember of 'The Winter's Tale' is Perdita's daffodils and Autolyais' patter, Paulina's plain speaking. and above all. Hermione, every inch a queen. moving like some celestial luminary through all her noble phases, from ascendency. Past crooked eclipses, back into the main of light_ 'The Winter's Tale' was performed in 1611, in 1612-13, 1624 and 1634; but when revived in 1741, 'it was announced as not having been played for nearly 100 years.' Morgan's version of it, performed in 1754. was superseded in 1756 by Garrick's ('Florizel and Perdita' ), which continued to be performed as late as 17%. Kemble revived the original at Drury Lane in 1802, to Mrs Siddons's Hermione; and Charles Keene gale it in 1856 as a Greek play. Among celebrated Hermiones have been Helen Faucit (1847) Mary Anderson (1887), who played the double role of Hermione and Perdita; and Ellen Terry ( I90t)).
For the less familiar views offered above consult Thorndike. Ashley H., 'The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare' (New York 1901); Baker, George Pierce, 'The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist' I New York 1907); Wolff, Samuel Lee, 'The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction' t New York 1912) ; Matthews, Brander, 'Shake spere as a Playwright' (New York 1913).