The Winter’s Tale (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: William Shakespeare
- First Published: 1623
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Tragicomedy
- Time of Work: Legendary past
- 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
Places Discussed
*Sicily. Island off the southern tip of the Italian peninsula in which the play opens, with Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, visiting his old friend Leontes, the king of Sicily. In Shakespeare’s time, Sicily had a reputation for crimes of jealousy and revenge that Shakespeare used in this play by having Leontes turn against Polixenes when he suspects that his friend is having an affair with his wife. Leontes’ Sicilian heritage—and the play’s insightful analyses of a jealousy so intense that it is mad—puts in context his irrational behavior in rejecting...
[The entire page is 603 words long]
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