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| John Lucas’ account of the play considers
the significance of Shakespeare’s decision to break with
the expectations of the Jacobean stage, of his treatment of
sexual jealousy, of the contrasting (and complementary) worlds
of court and country, and of the ways in which women successfully
oppose male power. He also relates the play to a number of others
in the canon in order to identify what is uniquely wonderful
about The Winter’s Tale. |
| The Winter’s Tale is a play in which Shakespeare chooses
to flout the laws of dramatic probability. Not only are its
two halves separated by a gap of 16 years, a man is eaten by
a bear, a baby is miraculously saved from death by drowning,
a statue no less miraculously comes to life. It is also a play
which seems destined for a tragic outcome and yet which ends
in reconciliation, in love restored, in a king’s mad jealousy
healed. Perhaps most importantly, in The Winter’s Tale
women become the active agents of good rather than the passive
sufferers to which conventional role they seem condemned at
the play’s outset. |
| John Lucas is Professor Emeritus of the Universities
of Loughborough and Nottingham Trent. The author of numerous
works of a critical and scholarly nature, he has also published
seven collections of poetry. |
| You may also be interested in: |
| Student
Guide to Shakespeare's The Tempest |
| Student
Guide to Shakespeare's Othello |
