Exit, persued by a bear

A spotlight on The Winter's Tale

The Story: (beware of spoilers)

In Sicilia, King Polixenes of Bohemia prepares to return home after visiting his lifelong friend Leontes, the King of Sicilia. Unable to persuade Polixenes to stay longer, Leontes urges his pregnant wife Queen Hermione to try. When she succeeds, Leontes immediately suspects that she and Polixenes are in love, and he becomes violently jealous.

Learning from the nobleman Camillo that Leontes plans to poison him, Polixenes flees home. Leontes jails Hermione despite her protests of innocence. She gives birth to a daughter, Perdita. Hermione's friend Paulina takes the baby girl to Leontes in the hope of softening his heart. But, believing that Polixenes is the baby's father, Leontes angrily orders Paulina's husband Antigonus to take Perdita away and abandon her.

At the trial, a priest proclaims Hermione's innocene. At first, Leontes denies it. Then news comes that Mamillius, the royal couple's son, has died in despair over his mother's treatment. Hermione collapses and is taken away. Leontes begins to recognize his mistakes, but too late, because Paulina returns and announces Hermione's death. Meanwhile, far away in Bohemia, Antigonus abandons Perdita and is killed by a bear. An old shepherd finds the baby and lovingly adopts her.

Sixteen years pass. In the Bohemian countryside, the now-grown shepherdess Perdita is in love with King Polixenes' son, Prince Florizell. The young lovers hide their relationship from the King, who would not approve. Suspicious, Polixenes disguises himself and spies on them at a sheep shearing, where the trickster Autolycus comically sells songs and attempts to cheat the audience. Discovering his son's deception, Polixenes angrily orders punishments for everyone.

The young lovers flee to Sicilia, followed by Polixenes, With Autolycus' help, the old shepherd and his son follow and reveal how they found Perdita and adopted her. The Court realizes that Perdita is Leontes' long-lost heir. At Paulina's home, the statue of Hermione is unveiled and miraculously comes to life.

Comedy or Tragedy:

Well actually, neither. It's a romance. The modern term (not a classification in Shakespeare's time) refers to a hybrid play, with comic and tragic elements. The four such plays commonly grouped as romance are Pericles (1607-1608), Cymbeline (1609-1610), The Winter's Tale (1610-1611), and The Tempest (1611).

*Like a comedy, romance includes a love-intrigue and culminates in a happy ending.
*Like a tragedy, romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals, tyrants, usurpers of thrones); it is darker in tone (more serious) than comedy.

While tragedy emphasizes evil, and comedy minimizes it, romance acknowledges evil -- the reality of human suffering.

Characterists of a romance include:

*an enveloing conflict (war, rebellion, jealousy, treachery, intrigue) that may cover a large timespan (conflict begun a generation before events of play) and is resvoled at end of play
*happy endings to potentially tragic situations (i.e. apparent resurrection, sudden conversions, etc.)
*themes of transgression, expiation and redemption; villain(s) penitent rather than punished at end
*improbable plots, rapid action, surprises, extraordinary occurrences (shipwrecks, disguises, riddles, children/parents lost and found, supernatural events/beings)
*characters of high social class, rural and court settings, extremes of characterization (exalted virtue and deep villainy)
*love of a virtuous hero and heroine, "pure" and "gross" loves often contrasted

More information about romances can be found at http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/romance.html.