The Winter’s Tale (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: William Shakespeare
- First Published: 1623
- Type of Work: Drama
- Genres: Drama, Tragicomedy
- Subjects: Prisons, Love or romance, Mistaken or secret identity, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Kings, queens, or royalty, Shipwrecks, Poisons or poisoning, Czechoslovakia or Czechoslovakians
- Locales: Bohemia, Sicilia
One of Shakespeare’s last plays, this work has the wisdom of age. The play’s first half is wintry, with harsh, violent actions bringing about suffering, loss, and death. The second half, sixteen years later, offers a rural springtime festival and culminates in a moving, unsuspected bestowal of grace.
Like Shakespeare’s earlier tragic hero Othello, Leontes becomes insanely jealous of a chaste wife, but Leontes’ jealousy is far more sudden and unsubstantiated, so that Shakespeare can focus on its results: Leontes’ loss of wife, children, and friends. Unlike Othello,...
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