The Winter's Tale: Notes (1)

*The Tempest*	*The Winter's Tale*	*Measure for Measure*
Tightly controlled The neoclassical unities Prospero's magic keeps a tight rein on all action Caliban and Ariel invite a schematic and allegorical interpretation	Informal A range of time, place, and mood Paulina stage-manages, but her magic (?) is not absolute Autolycus as an uncontrolled anarchic force (c.f. Caliban)	Semi-formal? Place limited to Vienna; days pass The Duke manipulates and stage-manages, but does not see or anticipate all Lucio, Pompey, and the under-class are anarchic, semi-Morality figures

Hermione: [to Mamillius] Come, sir, now
I am for you again; pray you sit by us,
And tell's a tale.
Mamillius: Merry or sad shall't be?
Hermione: As merry as you will.
Mamillius: A sad tale's best for winter; I have one
Of sprites and goblins.
An oracle, a bear, Time, a lost princess, and a living statue
Ben Jonson spoke slightingly of "Tales, tempests and such like drolleries" (Induction to Bartholomew Fair).
Simon Forman: An Elizabethan view

The Question of Leontes' Jealousy
- Compare with Othello
- Is it a dramatic "given" or are there some clues as to the beginning of the jealousy?
- Leontes watches Hermione and Polixenes together (1.2) [video]
- "Paddling palms and pinching fingers"? (1.2.115)
A masculine split vision of women? "Too hot, too hot" (1.2.108) [video]

The precipitous flight of Polixenes (see 1.2.445 ff)
The rather craven obedience of the lords of Leontes' court. Compare their silence to the fiery speech by Paulina, 2.3.32-9 [video]
Images of fire (2.3.96; 114)
Paulina as shrew? (Leontes: "A mankind witch. . . Dame Partlet"--2.3.67, 75). Compare to earlier "shrews" in the course, and see Michael Friedman's comments
The trial scene: Hermione not "prone to weeping" (2.1.108)