Shakespeare in Brief: The Winter’s Tale
The Winter’s Tale belongs to a set of later Shakespearean plays known today as romances. These dramas are full of spectacle and set pieces and occasionally partake of supernatural beings to drive their plots. The Winter’s Tale is both tragic and comic, but ultimately it transcends these genres by embracing fairytale themes of separation, reconciliation, and love. Here’s the story.
The Proverbial Storm—Leontes’s Jealous Obsession
Leontes, the King of Sicilia, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, are longtime friends who have known each other since childhood. Polixenes has been visiting Leontes for nine months and decides its time to head home. Leontes wants him to stay longer, but when he can’t convince him to stay, he asks his wife Hermione to charm Polixenes into staying. When she is successful, Leontes becomes suspicious. But when he airs these suspicions to his counselor Camillo, he gets a chilly response. Camillo rightfully defends his mistress’s honor. Still, Leontes is undeterred.
Obviously deluded, he jumps to conclusions by suspecting his wife of acting immorally. Polixenes notices that his host is no longer cordial. Leontes becomes so consumed with jealousy that he orders Camillo to murder his guest with poison. Camillo refuses to carry out the king’s bidding. Instead, he tells Polixenes about the danger he is in, so he can escape Leontes’s wrath. Accompanied by Camillo, Polixenes gets the heck out of Dodge.
Separation—Perdita Is Banished and Hermione Goes on Trial
When the king learns that Camillo and Polixenes have escaped, he flies into a rage. Further convinced of Hermione’s guilt, he formally accuses her of committing adultery and treason and has her arrested. When Hermione announces that she is going to have a baby, Leontes refuses to believe the child is his own. In spite of his wife’s protests, Leontes throws his wife in prison. No amount of talk by Antigonus and the other lords will convince Leontes that he is wrong. Instead, the king sends a messenger to Apollo’s shrine to receive an oracle about how he should act from this point on.
Paulina, Hermione’s lady in waiting, decides to visit her mistress in prison. She isn’t allowed to see her, but she does learn from Emilia, her attendant, that Hermione has given birth to a healthy baby girl. Paulina decides to take the baby to show Leontes, hoping that he’ll see that the baby belongs to him. Her plan goes awry, however. When Leontes sees the child, his first notion is to have it burned. Antigonus begs Leontes to spare the child, so the king commands Antigonus to remove the child from the court, take it to a faraway location, and abandon it to the elements.
Leontes’s couriers travel back to Sicilia from Delphi, the site of Apollo’s shrine. Meanwhile, Hermione goes on trial for treason, accused of committing adultery and conspiring with Polixenes to do away with Leontes. In a long speech, Hermione attempts to defend herself, her behavior, and the solid reputation of her royal Russian family.
After she speaks, an officer enters with two lords and proceeds to read the oracle. It assures the innocence of Hermione and Polixenes and pronounces Leontes a “jealous tyrant!”
The Price of Obsession
Sadly, hearing the news from a divine oracle isn’t enough for Leontes. In spite of the proclamation, he insists his wife is guilty. For his stubbornness, it appears that Leontes has gone too far and the gods may be punishing him! Leontes soon learns that his son Mamillius has died of grief over the news that his mother was found guilty. Leontes now believes that his son’s death is a supernatural warning that the oracle was indeed true. Even worse, Paulina tells the king that Hermione is dead. (She’s lying, of course, just to punish him, but now he thinks he’s destroyed his entire family.) Leontes has no choice but to repent.
A Foundling in Bohemia—Perdita’s Awakening
Prompted by a vision from Hermione, Antigonus leaves the baby in Bohemia, the kingdom of Polixenes. He names her Perdita. On the way home, Antigonus is shipwrecked, marooned, chased by a bear, and eaten! Back in Bohemia, a shepherd discovers the baby and rescues her.
At the beginning of Act four, Time delivers a Chorus, informing us that 16 years have passed since Perdita was abandoned.
In the play’s second half, Shakespeare develops scenes of sheep-shearing and feasts characteristic of rural life in Bohemia. Perdita has blossomed into a young shepherdess who is being wooed by Florizel, Polixenes’ son. In disguise, Polixenes visits the house of a shepherd where his son Florizel pays frequent visits. At the sheep-shearing feast, the disguised king discovers that his son is in love with Perdita and he forbids him to see her. The king actually threatens to have Perdita killed if Florizel doesn’t stop seeing her. Florizel refuses to obey, and the young couple soon flee from Bohemia on a ship, joined by the shepherd and his son.
Reunion and Rebirth
Back in Sicilia, Paulina has urged Leontes not to remarry. The news gets around that Perdita, the king’s long-lost daughter has arrived in Sicilia. Leontes and his court receive her and Florizel warmly. When Polixenes arrives in Sicilia, Leontes decides to talk to him for Perdita and Florizel’s sake. Later, both kings accompany Perdita, Florizel, and Paulina to look at a statue of the dead Hermione. Leontes continues to grieve for his dead wife. What happens next is one of Shakespeare’s most uncanny stage tricks. Declaring that Apollo’s oracle has been fulfilled, Paulina orders Hermione to descend from her pedestal. Suddenly, to the court’s disbelieving eyes, Hermione comes back to life! Leontes is overcome with happiness. As you’d expect, the queen is awed upon seeing that her daughter is alive. In the end, Paulina is urged to marry Camillo, Florizel marries Perdita, and Leontes is reunited with Hermione.
Check out our Literature & Philosophy section for more quick guides about Shakespeare’s plays. Happy reading!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Shakespeare’s Plays by Cynthia Greenwood
