Describe the exposition in Act 1 of The Winter's Tale.

In a literary work such as a play or novel, exposition refers to the part of the plot that is laid out in the early sections and provides the necessary background information about the work’s setting, characters, and situation. In a play, exposition is generally provided through dialogue but may be delivered by a single character in a monologue or aside.

Act 1 of The Winter’s Tale establishes that the setting is the Sicilian court of King Leontes. This act identifies the main characters and some important minor ones and reveals key aspects of their relationships, which include marriage and friendship. The expository part also establishes the primary theme of jealousy and its relationship to loyalty and deception. The concluding scene of the act shows how Lord Camillo is torn between different kinds of loyalty and how the evil consequences of unfounded jealousy can destroy even the oldest friendship.

The expository part of the act begins with a conversation between Lord Archidamus of Bohemia and Lord Camillo of Sicily, which explains the long-term friendship between their respective kings, Polixenes and Leontes. In the next scene, as Polixenes prepares to return home, the conversation between the kings provides background on the events of the nine months that he has been staying with Leontes. Through Polixenes’s subsequent conversation with Leontes’s wife, Hermione, the audience learns more of the deep friendship between the men.

Another key element of the exposition is to contrast the loving relationship between Leontes and Hermione to the men’s friendship; this provides a reason for Leontes’s subsequent jealousy. Leontes is torn because he believes that the two people closest to him have both betrayed him by having an affair. He delivers this information in an aside, in which the character’s thoughts are spoken aloud for the audience’s benefit.

Further information concerns the trusting relationship between Leontes and his loyal follower Camillo. The limits of loyalty are demonstrated when Camillo agrees to kill Polixenes but then informs him of the plot. Through this pair of exchanges, the audience learns that Leontes has come unhinged. Camillo, recognizing his master’s “sickness,” must betray his king in hopes of supporting the well-being of his country. This decision leads him to inform Polixenes of the murder plot and to agree to escort him and his company to safety.

How does Act 1 serve as the exposition in The Winter's Tale?

Act 1 of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, like the first act of all of Shakespeare's plays as well as the first act of most plays ever written, provides much of the exposition of the play.

Exposition is what the audience learns about the setting of the play, the major characters in the play, the nature of the underlying conflict of the play, important events which occurred prior to the play which have an effect on the play, and anything else that the playwright thinks the audience needs to know to be able to follow and understand the action of the play.

Exposition can also be used to reveal characters' motivations for what they do during the play, to present the themes of the play, and to foreshadow events that have yet to occur in the play.

Exposition can take the form of narration, such as that which is made by the Chorus in the prologue of Romeo and Juliet or Henry V, dialogue, narrative dialogue, messengers, letters, or any other forms in which the information can be presented.

In act 1, scene 1 of The Winter's Tale, the exposition is presented by narrative dialogue. The play opens with a conversation between Camillo, Leontes's Lord Chamberlain, and Archidamus, a Bohemian lord. This scene has no dramatic significance in the play. The purpose of the scene is to show the relationship between these two characters, to show their relationship to other characters who will be introduced later in the play, and to provide background information.

In this fairly short scene, Camillo and Archidamus talk about the good relationship of their respective kings, Leontes of Sicilia and Polixenes of Bohemia, and about Mamillius, the young prince of Sicilia.

In act 1, scene 2, the exposition continues, this time with more substantive dialogue.

The two kings, Leontes and Polixenes, appear in this scene, as does the young prince Mamillius, Leontes's pregnant queen, Hermione, and Camillo.

The audience learns more about these characters and their relationships to each other. Shakespeare lays the groundwork for Leontes's jealousy of Polixenes and Hermione with Leontes's asides to the audience.

Leontes's jealousy rises to the point that he asks Camillo to poison Polixenes. Camillo agrees, if unwillingly, simply because he sees no point in arguing with Leontes about it. Leontes exits, believing that his plot to poison Polixenes is going forward.

Polixenes reenters the scene, and Camillo confides in him that Leontes believes that Hermione has been unfaithful to him with Polixenes and that he ordered Camillo to poison Polixenes.

Camillo suggests that Polixenes leave Sicilia as soon as possible and that Camillo go with him, so Camillo can avoid Leontes's threat to have him executed if he fails to poison Polixenes.

With these elements of the exposition of the play firmly established in these two scenes, the play moves forward.