The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

PRIMARY SOURCE: The Winter's Tale (prod. 1609-1611, pub. 1623)
Context

• Publication: First produced in 1609. Published in collections: 1623 and 1632. Categorized with "comedies" in the Folio; same as The Tempest. EEBO link.
• Scholarship: Scholars are interested in the early romantic sensibilities of this play: the disruption of Aristotelian unity, the importance of magical intervention, and the plot of coincidences. Scholars are also interested in Shakespeare's modifications of Roland Greene's Pandosto, namely the addition of Paulina and the redemption of Leontes. Consequently, scholars have viewed Winter's Tale as a Christocentric play, newly structured around death, penitence, and resurrection. The passage from Winter to spring roughly matches the Lenten period, though the diptych may also signify a naturalist passage between seasons and ages. Mamilla is also of interest, as Shakespeare augmented his role and named him after the mammary--a sign of the kingdom contingent upon the mother's sustenance.
• Why I'm reading it: The Canon, formalism, the pastoral, statues, ballads.

Content

• Form: Mixed verse. Five acts.
• Genre: Romance, tragicomedy, comedy (Folio attribution). 
• Conceit: Polixenes (King of Bohemia) visits his boyhood friend, Leontes (King of Sicilia). When Polixenes tries to leave, Leontes sends his wife, Hermione to persuade him to stay. Unlike his normal response, Bohemia yields to Hermione. Leontes concludes that Polixenes has cuckholded him. Leontes doubts the legitimacy of his son, Mamillus, and orders the counselor Camillo to poison Polixenes  Camillo resists, but agrees to poison Polixenes on the condition that Leontes should trust and reconcile with Hermione. Polixenes asks Camillo about Leontes s change in spirit, and Camillo reveals the plot. Together, they flee for Bohemia. Leontes learns that they have fled and suspects more than ever that Polixenes is the father of Hermione's current pregnancy. Against his servants' protests, Leontes publicly accuses Hermione and orders her to be imprisoned. In prison, Hermione births Paulina. She takes Paulina to the Leontes, but Leontes orders Antigonus to abandon the baby on the shore. Leontes orders a messengers to the Oracle at Delphi to confirm Hermione's guilt, but they return with a scroll stating that Hermione is innocent, Leontes is a tyrant, and that he will live without an heir until that which is lost is found. Leontes ignores that and rails against Hermione. Suddenly, a servant tells him that Mamillus died overnight of anxiety for Hermione. Hermione swoons and dies in her chambers. Leontes realizes that the oracle was right, and vows penance.
  Antigonus takes Paulina to the shore, but lays a bag of gold with her, alongside instructions to call the baby Perdita (from his dream). Antigonus is killed by a bear, and his ship and crew are wrecked by a storm. A shepherd sees all of this, and finds Perdita.
  Time itself appears and explains the passage of 16 years. While the grown shepherdess Perdita allures Prince Florizel, heir to Bohemia, Leontes grieves alone in the palace. Polixenes and Camillo follow Florizel to a sheep-shearing festival, all in disguise. Polixenes recognizes the noble bearing of Perdita when she dances with Florizel, but forbids Florizel's marriage. Florizel plans to elope with Perdita. Camillo advises them to go to Sicilia as a goodwill ambassador from Bohemia, and so supplies them with letters of introduction. Camillo wants Polixenes to pursue them into Sicilia, so Camillo can retutrn home. The shepherd-father tells Polixenes how he found Perdita, but he is captured by Autolycus and taken away to Sicilia.
  Florizel and Perdita arrive in Sicilia, pursued by Polixenes and Camillo. The shepherd hears of Leontes' lost daughter, and describes Perdita's origin. Leontes is reunited with Perdita/Paulina, and Polixenes blesses her marriage to Florizel. Still, Leontes mourns Hermione.
  Paulina visits a statue of Hermione in Leontes' memorial chapel. All gather to view the statue, hear soft music, and marvel at the statue. The statue is in fact Hermione, who lived in the wilderness awaiting news of Paulina. The family is united, as are the friends. All celebrate the marriage of Florizel and Perdita.
• Other notes: Autolycus' ballad-selling is an interesting moment of economic ambiguity. The character is a masterless man, but he bases the authority of his ballads on the testimony of judges. Also, the shepherds buy these "true" tunes on the strength of the signed testimonies of other common people. The ballad market is represented as a self-sustaining system of myths, maintained by a con man's textual claim to authority.
  The statue scene is more fascinating. This seems like Renaissance move to secularize the power of the Resurrection, rather than represent it, because Hermione is (a) a transgressive female in Christ's role, and (b) not otherwise endowed with any sanctified qualities of Christ.
• Mneumonic: Pol(ixenes) Her(mione) Le(ontes) Mam(illus) Cam(illo) Ant(igonus) Pau(lina) Per(dita) Flo(rizel) Aut(olycus)
• Politicians and hermits, leaders and mamillists come anticipating polity, perish flourishing autonymy.

(NB: written with notes.)
Atchity, Kenneth John. "The Winter’S Tale." Masterplots, Fourth Edition(2010): 1-4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Feb. 2013.

Shakespeare, William, Stephen J. Greenblatt, and Andrew Gurr. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Print.