Winter’s Tale, The, is a five-act play by the English dramatist William Shakespeare. It is often classed among his comedies but is really a romance. Shakespeare wrote it in 1610 or 1611, and it was staged at the Globe Theatre in London in 1611. Like Henry VIII and The Tempest, it was also included among the plays staged as part of the celebrations for the marriage in 1613 of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, to Prince Frederick, the Elector Palatine. The Winter’s Tale was published in 1623.
Shakespeare partly based this play on Pandosto (1588), a prose romance by the English author Robert Greene. It is set in Sicilia and Bohemia and covers a period of about 16 years. Leontes, king of Sicilia, receives a visit from his boyhood friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia. He soon suspects, without cause, that Polixenes is making love to his wife, Hermione. Leontes becomes uncontrollably jealous and tries to poison Polixenes, who escapes back to Bohemia. Leontes then has Hermione imprisoned and orders that their newborn daughter, Perdita, be abandoned in some isolated place. Later, Leontes realizes that he has no cause for jealousy. But his conduct has cost him his friends and family, including his wife, who has fallen into a deathlike faint. A grief-stricken Leontes is told that she is dead.
Meanwhile, an old shepherd has saved Perdita. She grows into a lovely young woman and wins the love of Florizel, prince of Bohemia, the son of Polixenes. Polixenes angrily disapproves of their romance, and the couple flee to Leontes’s court for protection. There, Leontes discovers that Perdita is his daughter. The king’s happiness is complete when he is also reunited with his wife, whom he thought was dead. She had actually been living in seclusion while hoping for the return of Perdita. After the reunion with his wife and daughter, Leontes welcomes Florizel to his court and becomes reconciled to Polixenes.
The Winter’s Tale concerns exile, women suffering from male jealousy, and the reuniting of loved ones. The play takes a potentially tragic situation and uses it to stress rebuilding and reconciliation, rather than destruction. The characters in this drama, made wiser by their sad experiences, happily face the future. The trickery of the rogue Autolycus, famously described as “a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,” enlivens the later scenes of the play, which are further enhanced by his songs “When daffodils begin to peer” and “Jog on, jog on, the footpath way.”
