The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0469 Monday, 31 August 2009
[1] From: Martin Mueller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 13:51:35 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[2] From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 12:59:13 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[3] From: Anna Kamaralli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 29 Aug 2009 01:34:27 +0000 (GMT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[4] From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 16:20:35 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[5] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 30 Aug 2009 14:39:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Mueller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 13:51:35 -0500
Subject: 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
I have always thought of the ending of the _Winter's Tale_ as an
extravagant experiment that makes up for the equally extravagant
experiment in _King Lear_. In the latter play, Shakespeare went against
all the authorities of his sources and killed off Cordelia. In the
former, he brought Hermione back to Life, against the explicit authority
of Greene's _Pandosto_, his major source for the play.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 12:59:13 -0600
Subject: 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Resurrection, the "miraculous restoration of life": yes, a universal
longing. But aren't cynicism and hard-nosed "rationalism" in fact ways
of dealing with the nagging worry that our deepest longings are only
fantasies?
I think Shakespeare is playing with that when he has Paulina say:
Is't not the tenor of his oracle,
That King Leontes shall not have an heir
Till his lost child be found? which that it shall,
Is all as monstrous to our human reason
As my Antigonus to break his grave
And come again to me.
Of course, within a few minutes, Perdita returns -- but Antigonus
doesn't. 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; even the
apostles themselves called the women's first report of Jesus'
resurrection "idle tales" (Luke 24:11) -- a phrase I suspect Shakespeare
had in mind in the play's references to "old tales."
The play thus allows us the possibility of taking a dismissive attitude.
Still, in part with a happy ending that seems unlikely but that
surprises us into belief, the play suggests that just because something
is "monstrous to our human reason" doesn't mean it is impossible.
Bruce Young
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anna Kamaralli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 29 Aug 2009 01:34:27 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
David has identified my favourite theatrical moment to use as a lens
through which to examine our attitudes to a few perrenials (endings,
happiness/sorrow, parent/child relationships, husband/wife
relationships, regret, forgiveness, death, hope).
There has been a trend in performance in recent years for the closing
scene to be melancholic in tone, and there has been an accompanying
tendency to increase the role or presence of Mamillius (Hytner in 2001
and Donnellan in 1999, for example, as well as the Hall production Lynn
describes). I think this is simply a manifestation of our current
enamouredness with ambiguity, ambivalence, and the dark side of the
human journey. We think it's cooler these days to not be too hopeful, or
too obviously into happy endings.
I don't think Adrian's assessment precludes a moving scene in the
theatre, but I have an objection that lies elsewhere. Calling it a "male
heterosexual fantasy", even as a criticism, makes the scene all about
Leontes (as does Harold Bloom in his odious _Invention of the Human_, as
did Hall's production, as did Declan Donnellan in his Russian
production), when there are other people present who are just as
important. It seems a perversion of the exquisite centering of that most
rare thing, a mother-daughter relationship in Shakespeare, to speak of
the scene as if it is there to serve Leontes, or to stage it thus.
Remember, Hermione's only words are to her daughter, expressly stating
that it was in the hope of seeing Perdita that she "preserved myself",
and including an injunction for her to speak with her own voice. I came
to similar conclusions to Lynn about Hall's production, though for
slightly different reasons: I hated seeing Perdita obliterated from the
concluding image. This play shows men trying and failing to silence
women or control their voices. In this last scene Shakespeare not only
shows their goal to be futile, he shows the men in question growing to
the point where it is no longer what they want. The men are offered the
perfect woman, the silent, pedestal-enthroned object of worship, and
they actively reject this as an option, making clear their preference
for a real woman who moves and is warm -- and who speaks. "Let her speak
too." It seems to me the only way to do this theatrical justice is to
ensure that in the final moments the men and women share the stage together.
Regards,
Anna Kamaralli
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 Aug 2009 16:20:35 -0400
Subject: 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0463 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
One question has not emerged in this discussion: 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)?
And why the verb "awake"?
Alan Dessen
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 30 Aug 2009 14:39:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0459 The Ending of the Winter's Tale
Lynn Brenner writes:
>The Winter's Tale is a play about redemption. (As Paulina
>says, "First, you must have faith.")
Is Shakespeare here making a theological point, after Marlowe, that Paul
was a juggler, and his Saviour's resurrection a sham?
Curious,
Joe Egert
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