The Winter’s Tale Advanced Higher

Who was most marble there changed colour (V,ii,96-7) Warm life, As now it coldly stands (V, iii, 35-6)

Romance Heightened reality

Jealousy Leontes’ jealousy is sudden and violent There is no influence other than his own ‘pestered’ thoughts: “Too hot, too hot!...my heart dances but not for joy, not joy” ( ) “paddling palms and pinching fingers” (115) – sexual disgust His wife is “slippery” “I have drunk and seen the spider” ( ) Hermione’s response: “When you shall come to clearer knowledge Gentle my Lord” ( )

Pregnancy Regal breeding Birth is “the play’s central miracle” (C Neely) The word “issue” is used throughout the play meaning children and result, e.g. “something rare Even then will rush to knowledge…And gracious be the issue!” (III,I,20-22) “Thou met’st with things dying, I with things new born” (III, iii, ) “The child was prisoner to the womb…” ( ) Reproduction by three women – Paulina, Hermione, Perdita – repair the damage of two men

Leontes and Polixenes Childhood friends: “Two lads that thought there was no more behind But such a day tomorrow as today, And to be boy eternal” ( ) They are too close and both want to hold on to childhood: “we were as twinned lambs” They see adulthood as tainted by oringinal sin: Hermione says they have “tripp’d since” and “Your queen and I are devils”

Paulina “I do come with words as medicinal as true Honest as either” (2.3.35) Points out the baby’s likeness to L – eye, nose, lip…( ) Leontes uses word “bastard” 8 times “Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel And call me father?” ( )

Act 3 Fresh air contrasts with the claustrophobic court: “The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet, Fertile the isle” ( ) Regrets that the court is no longer “ceremonious, solemn” (3.1.7)

Justice Leontes: “Let us be cleared Of being tyrannous, since we so openly Proceed in justice” Hermione defends herself with dignity: “If powers divine Behold our human actions…” Leontes has angered the gods: “Apollo pardon my great profaneness” Paulina criticises Leontes “Run mad indeed, stark mad” ( ) “Do not repent these things, for they are heavier than all thy woes can stir” ( )

Final scene of Act 3 Acts as a bridge between tragedy and comedy, Sicilia and Bohemia Lord Antigonus has an “awaking” dream of Hermione “in pure white robes” Bear shows savage side of nature Shepherd takes us to another world, talking of ‘country matters’ like hunting and wenching

Time Makes aware that Time brings in “freshest things” but can also “make stale the glistering of this present” ( ) Autolycus – mythical element Sourness of court gives way to sweetness of country

Peer Word used a lot – look and heir “Flora/Peering in April’s front” ( )

Flowers Florizel dresses Perdita up as Flora and she gives flowers to her guests: rosemary, rue, daffodils, violets, ‘pale primroses’…( ) The great debate Perdita calls carnations “Nature’s bastards” Polixenes says cross-breeding is “an Art which does mend Nature” ( ) Elizabethans loved discussing the relationship between Art and Nature The vital point is that the relationship is genrative Irony in the stances they take?

Love “What you do still betters what is done…When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ th’ sea that you might ever do nothing but that – move still, still so, and own no other function” ( )

Polixenes Objects to marriage – “I’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made more homely than thy state” ( )

issue “Care nor for issue The crown will find an heir” ( )

Perdita Beauty Leontes thinks she is a ‘goddess’ There is not great proof of her identity – love must have trust The Gentlemen discuss the meeting of the two kings in a scene of speech without drama This prepares us for the scene of dram without speech

Last Scene Art - “Your gallery have we passed through” Leontes addresses the statue indirectly, “Oh, thus she stood” then directly “There’s magic in thy majesty” His gaze seems to bring her to life bit by bit: “And that those veins Did verily bear blood…The very life seems warm upon her lip…The fixture of her eye” ( )

Paulina In charge: “music awake her: strike” (5.3.98) L: “If this me magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating” (109-11) P is Shakespeare on stage: “If you can behold it I’ll make the statue move” (87-8)