The Winter's Tale

Andrea Sanchez

Ms. Fazel

English 7-8 AP

1 May 2002

The Winter’s Tale

Many of Shakespeare’s plays are ones which begin happy in love and end in tragedy, thus the case in The Winter’s Tale. This tale includes many different elements including the common love, tragedy, and madness, themes which are also found in his previous works, The Tempest and Hamlet. In The Winter's Tale and The Tempest Shakespeare combines a mixture of comic and tragic styles, incorporating elements of both romance and realism which is very different from any of the other plays he’s written before.

Both The Winter's Tale and The Tempest contain a comic style, with the 'bad' characters being punished, and all conflict reaching resolution at the end. In these plays, although all suffering is overcome, peace and harmony is never restored in the way that is usual in comedy. In The Winter's Tale, for example, the reconciliation of Hermione and Leontes does not end joyous and happy, but instead through Leontes’ regretful words of their separation and the time wasted: “Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely each one demand and answer to his part performed in this wide gap of time since first we were dissevered (V.iii.Line188).” Similarly, in The Tempest the final reconciliation of Prospero and Antonio is also not a blissful one. Even in the words of forgiveness which Prospero speaks there is a note of blame, “For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother would infect my mouth, I do forgive thy rankest fault (V.i.Line158).” This shows how basically he is saying he wishes to recon ciliate, yet he is not sorry and feels it was not his fault.

There is a lot tragedy in all three plays: Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. In The Winter’s Tale, the jealous rage of Leontes and his treatment of Hermione and Perdita, along with Hermione's crude death, are examples of tragedy.

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Like in the Winter’s Tale, The Tempest’s plot can be viewed as matching perfectly to what is known as an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, up until the point where Prospero and Miranda are banished on the sea. According to Emile Montegut, Shakespeare “turned only into a comedy a subject which could furnish the most sombre of tragedies.” And tragedy is exactly what Hamlet contained as not only do the “bad” characters die and receive punishment, but those “good” characters are killed also, thus ending in huge tragedy. Throughout the entire play Hamlet and the King go trying to defeat each other and in the end, they both die and no one wins.

Romance is a big part in The Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, and The Tempest. In The Winter’s Tale it may not seem like romance, but Leontes' jealousy is in fact a form of romance. “. . .is whispering nothing?, Is leaning cheek to cheek?, Is meeting noses?, Kissing with inside lip?,” this shows his affection and care. In The Tempest too we are presented with elements of romance, complete with the unrealistic location of a magical island, with characters such as the magical spirit Aerial, and unlikely events such as the survival of Prospero and Miranda in their flimsy vessel against all the odds of the “tempestuous” winds.

Despite this romantic style of presentation, the overall effect of the three plays is not unrealistic. This is because Shakespeare combines a mixture of realism with the romance, so that the reader is able to believe the unbelievable. The three plays are not necessarily comic, but common to most of Shakespeare’s plays, in that they all end in unmerciful tragedy. The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Hamlet are all romantic until the evil of death hits to punish.

Works Cited

Montegut, Emile, 1867, OEuvres Completes de Shakespeare, vol. III. From The Library

of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells

Moulton, 8 vols. (Buffalo, NY: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 538-39.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest.

Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale.