The Thumbnail Book Reviews

by John Q McDonald --- 28 February 2007

The Winter's Tale

by William Shakespeare

It has been said that Shakespeare, as fabulously talented as he was, he was still more or less the writer of the soap operas of his day. The plots of many of his plays have the same preposterous and lurid appeal of modern television drama. The difference, of course, is the hypnotic and beautiful poetic language with which he wrote his plays. The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays. It has an uneven quality that makes it an uneven experience for the reader. And yet it has both a tragic and comic brilliance. We meet the kings of Sicilia and Bohemia, the two of them the closest of friends in the opening scene. But Leontes, king of Sicilia, has an almost perverse turn of jealousy, suspecting his true blue and beautiful wife Hermione of a dalliance with his friend Polixenes, king of Bohemia. What transpires in the first half of the play is a cascade of injustice the king inflicts upon his friend and family. His slip into the clutches of the green-eyed monster is precipitous and violent. His thirst for revenge is grim. Death follows on the heels of jealousy. And, yet, at the incongruous appearance of a bear on stage (perhaps, it has been said, because there were bear-baiting arenas near Shakespeare's Globe theater), there is almost a comic turn of events. Many years later, Leontes may even experience and almost miraculous redemption at the hands of what few friends he has remaining. It is a strange roller coaster of a play, a tragedy with a happy ending.

[Mail John][To List]

Also by Shakespeare: [The Tempest] [Richard III]