The Winter's Tale
by William Shakespeare
Webpage Designed by Celine Hsiao- Lin Hsu
Introduction
The first recorded performance of The Winter's Tale was on 15 May, 1611 at the Globe. It was probably written earlier that year and may well have been performed at the Blackfriars as well as at the Globe. There are records of other performances during Shakespeare's lifetime, of special interest being a performance at Whitehall in February 1613, as part of the marriage celebrations of Princess Elizabeth, the King's daughter, to Prince Frederick, the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Interestingly, she was to reign for a brief time of Bohemia, and would be known as the Winter Queen.
The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's final plays. During his lifetime, Shakespeare had already written many comedies, histories, and tragedies, following such writers as Christopher Marlowe, George Peele, John Lyly and Robert Greene, whose Pandosto had been borrowed a lot by Shakespeare in his Winter's Tale.
Shakespeare's last plays contained elements of comedy, tragedy, and histories, and he developed them as romances combining sadness and joy, which was the popular style in the Jacobean theater.
Although Shakespeare often presented men and women struggling with their understanding of the divine forces, he did not write religious plays since such plays were forbidden. Although Christianity was the accepted and enforced religion of hid time, the Christian Church had split into Roman Catholic and Protestant. Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth and Kings James, England was Protestant. With such controversy, the government strictly censored religious drama. Shakespeare, however, was strongly influenced by the religious drama of the generations that preceded his. The Winter's tale has often been interpreted as a Christian allegory.
Reference
Devlin, Diana. MacMillan Master Guides, The Winter's tale. London: Macmillan, 1985.
