The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0477 Friday, 4 September 2009
[1] From: Jim Carroll <
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Date: Tuesday, 01 Sep 2009 21:01:15 -0400
Subj: Re: The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[2] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Wednesday, 2 Sep 2009 13:02:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0469 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Carroll <
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Date: Tuesday, 01 Sep 2009 21:01:15 -0400
Subject: Re: The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Bringing the wife back to life is at least as old as Euripides'
"Alcestis", but I suppose you could consider much of the classical
literature as a kind of "heterosexual male fantasy" if you choose to
interpret things that way:
"Then the son of Peleus forthwith ordained in the sight of the Danaans
other prizes for a third contest, even for toilsome wrestling: for him
that should win, a great tripod to stand upon the fire, that the
Achaeans prized amongst them at the worth of twelve oxen; and for him
that should be worsted he set in the midst a woman of manifold skill in
handiwork, and they prized her at the worth of four oxen." Homer Iliad
23.700
Shakespeare in many ways appeared to be both a borrower of classical
dramatic techniques (the play-within-a-play of "Hamlet" is reminiscent
of the bard in Homer's "Odyssey", who sings of the battle of Troy and
Achilles, and brings tears to Odysseus' eyes, just as Hamlet stirs the
king), and an extender of them, much as Euripides brought more realism
and variety to the Greek theatre. Shakespeare, in "Titus Andronicus",
especially in the first act, bends the classical use of violence to his
own imaginative ends, and in his sonnet sequence and "A Lover's
Complaint" he mocks the simple-minded literalness of his Elizabethan
predecessors in those forms. The additional relevance of "Alcestis" to
"The Winter's Tale" is that neither is really a "heterosexual male
fantasy", but the purity of the wives in both is there to highlight the
vanity of the husbands.
Jim Carroll
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Wednesday, 2 Sep 2009 13:02:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0469 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0469 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Alan Dessen asks:
>to whom does Paulina address "It is requir'd / You do awake
>your faith"? To Leontes alone? To all onstage? To the playgoer
>(or reader or critic of the last twenty years)?
Answer: All of the above.
Bruce Young notes:
>Even Hermione's return isn't a resurrection in the fullest and most
literal
>sense. The New Testament reminds us that the doctrine of resurrection
>was considered "foolishness" by the Greeks
Verily I say unto you, Bruce Young, that this doctrine was also deemed,
in Paul's words, a "stumblingblock [Gk: skandalon]" for adherents of the
Old Law (I COR I:23), as in PAUL-ina's "Yea, scandalous to the world"
(II.3.121).
Most current critics strangely discount Christian allegory as a dominant
presence in this play. Bryant's HIPPOLYTA'S VIEW (61) is a notable
exception. He argues said allegory structures the play overall, tracing
Christian theo-history from the ante legem Eden days, when lambs
frolicked in innocence, through the Old Law era (sub lege) of
prepenitent sinful Leontes with its doctrine of ill doing and attendant
legal punishments, to the final age of Grace (sub gratia) and
reconciliation. Bryant sees in Hermione's revivification a "lesser
incarnation" of Jesus, and in the closing marriage a union between the
Christian church (Perdita) and the Gentiles (Florizel and family). That
final conversion encompasses those former Old Law adherents like
Leontes, now awakened after sixteen years (sixteen centuries?) to a new
faith in Grace and forgiveness. (The omnipresent numerology in this play
is itself intriguing, perhaps a parody on such speculation.)
What I find striking for this winter's tale is the total absence of
miracle, technically defined as a clear interruption or violation of
what we construe as Nature's order. While Shakespeare allows for a
guiding supernal Hand to arrange the play's improbable coincidences, the
events themselves are strictly natural or, in Dr Young's words,
"strictly human." (http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/wintale.htm).
I also see the death of young Mamilius, like that of Romeo and Juliet,
as redemptive in initiating the movement toward Leontes' repentance and
toward the final reconciliation of the royal families in the marriage of
their young. This being a Romance, the couple are wedded in life rather
than in death.
Verily yours,
Joe Egert
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