Dr Kat and The Winter's Tale in Context

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Kat first of all I'd like to offer a small apology you may notice that I'm quite throaty and a little bit nasal of course it's winter and I've caught something from somewhere but we must soldier on and as it is the winter season I thought it was particularly fitting that we talked about William Shakespeare's a Winter's Tale not only does it match the time of year but I also know that for some of you it will be part of your a-level curriculum today I'm going to be looking at how this play was shaped in relation to its historical and social context if there is any piece of this text that you would like me to look at in greater depth please do leave it in the comment section down below but for now let's look at a Winter's Tale [Music] [Music] as is so often the case providing an exact date for the production of Winter's Tale is quite problematic we put it at around 1609 to 1611 for it being written we say 1611 at the upper limit because we know that on the 15th of May of that year the astrologer Simon Forman reports that he saw Winter's Tale being performed at the globe similarly later that year it was also performed at Whitehall before James the first in 1613 it made part of these celebrations for James's daughter Elizabeth for her marriage to Frederick the fifth who was suitably the King of Bohemia in his first printed we believe in the First Folio a 1623 do you understand what motivated Shakespeare to write Winter's Tale I think as do many others that we have to look at what inspired it and that would be Robert Greene's Pando Stowe now here is Pando Stowe and alongside it you can see I've put the plot points at the start it seems like Winter's Tale and Pando Stowe are broadly speaking the same text however Pando Stowe is clearly a tragedy whereas Winter's Tale ends in comedy why is Shakespeare reworking Robert Greene's text in this way many critics have pointed to the adversarial relationship that existed between Robert Greene and William Shakespeare Pando Stowe as you can see here was first published in 1588 and reprinted in 1607 so just before we can date winter's tales having been written what perhaps spurred this adversarial relationship and maybe inspired Shakespeare to look for a reason to get back at his now dead adversary with Winter's Tale might be explained by Robert Greene's groats worth of wit which he wrote it's believed on his deathbed in 1592 indeed he died on the 3rd of September 1592 he has the following slightly unflattering things to say about William Shakespeare he refers to him as an upstart crow beautified with our fair is that with his Tigers heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank first as the best of you and being an absolute Johannes factotum is in his own conceit the only shake scene in a country for green then William Shakespeare is essentially wearing the costume of a playwright he is somehow fraudulent in what he does and in that phrase a Johannes factotum we might know it better as a jack-of-all-trades the part that comes after that sentence is of course a master of none so for green he spends his dying hours or days or weeks spewing vitriol about his competition in order to understand that Shakespeare is using this reproduction and recreation and reworking almost as a mocking device I think we have to understand better what is meant by Winter's Tale now Mamillius talks about this in act 2 scene 1 when he says a sad tales best for winter 1 full of sprites and goblins winters tales are childish they are tales for children and told by children they are deceptive and potentially arguably lower value with Shakespeare reworking Pando Stowe and arguably adding to it and remove the tragic elements and turn them into comedy he is essentially calling out his adversary as having written something childlike and immature something that he as a superior author can do better of course it is virtually impossible for us to ascertain and state with any certainty what William Shakespeare's true psychological motivations were in taking Pando Stowe and creating a Winter's Tale I think it's incredibly plausible that he was attempting to stick one in the eye of his now dead adversary Robert Greene what is clear and evident by looking at Winter's Tale is that William Shakespeare has crafted a play of multiplicity and deception the characters themselves both use and are victims of their own deception and the deception of others the peddler autologous and the disguises and deceptions that he uses to swindle money out of people is a prime comedic moment throughout the play similarly Leon T's ability to deceive himself about his wife Hermione's own deceptive adultery moves the tragedy of the first half another plot point is moved because the shepherd chooses to be deceptive about where Perdita has come from what her true origins are which allows the plot to move on in the way it does and finally in Hermione statue coming back to life and removing itself from its dais we are deceived ourselves the audience questions where this deception is supposed to have happened has Hermione never really been dead or are we being deceived by magic and trickery however perhaps the key moment of multiplicity or deception for the audience is in try to determine what Winter's Tale actually is at its start it seems to be a tragedy it follows all of these formulaic criteria that would make it such a genre and yet there is that central axis or pivot point around which the play rotates and shifts and becomes a comedy the audience is left questioning what they have seen and why we have this split genre in a play some have argued that the play is inherently broken others say that this is an intention that Shakespeare is attempting to play with genre in these later plays I'm interested to know what you think do let me know about these genre questions how do you feel when reading or seeing this play has it felt disjointed to you have you seen productions where it's worked have you seen productions where it's failed and let me know what you think the key characteristics were in those successes and failures but of course if we are going to talk about this pivot or access point around which the genre shifts in Winter's Tale we have to talk about what is arguably the most famous stage direction not just in Winter's Tale not just in the works of Shakespeare but I would say in the entirety of English drama in all of that which they've been put on the stage I would say that the most famous stage Direction comes in act 3 scene 3 of Winter's Tale and it reads exit pursued by a bear it is the subject of memes and posters it is perhaps a reason why directors are so keen to stage Winter's Tale even people who aren't familiar with Shakespeare know that stage direction when productions of winter tail are reviewed nobody avoids talking about how that moment was staged now I can't think of another stage direction in any other play that receives so many column inches of reviewing I wonder why that is why we have become so fascinated by this peculiar quirk of stage direction if you have seen a Winter's Tale how did you see this exit pursued by a bear scene being staged I've seen people in bear suits I've seen shadow puppets I've seen something slightly more abstract perhaps with a sheet falling down I've heard it as sound effects or lighting effects it is one of those things that I think inspires the production but then also becomes its greatest challenge because every audience member I believe knows that stage direction is coming they're all waiting for it and I think it's virtually impossible to find a way to please them all but in the early 1600s how might Shakespeare have staged this our best guess is that perhaps it was either a person in a bear suit or perhaps using one of the many tame bears that were in London at the time perhaps Antigonus leads a real bear across the stage on some sort of leash but why does Shakespeare put it in there clearly he wishes to stage this split genre comedy tragedy why does he use a bear to do it and what is the effect of it obviously it marks a complete departure from the tragic elements of the first part of the play and perhaps it better prepares an audience for them to move into the comedy that will come later it is inherently perhaps ridiculous and maybe also or inspiring to see a bear walk across the stage either a man in a bear suit or a real bear on a string perhaps it's designed to shop an Oren audience and to almost cleanse their theatrical palate what do you think why do you think that Shakespeare uses this stage direction to act the pivot point for a Winter's Tale let me know in the comment section down below also as I said if you have any particular parts of Winter's Tale the text that you'd like me to look at please leave that in the comment section down below also if you aren't studying Winter's Tale for your GCSE or a level and there's another play that you'd like me to do a context dive on or a text section dive on do put that down below as well or come and find me over on social media and you can tell me there I hope you enjoyed this video and found it interesting if you did please let me know by clicking the like button please also subscribe to my channel and click the bell icon next to subscribe button so you know when I'm next uploading I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and I do look forward to seeing you all in my next video take care and bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: Reading the Past

Views: 3,107

Rating: 4.9557195 out of 5

Keywords: Education, Literature, Culture, History, Renaissance, Early Modern, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Robert Greene, Exit Pursued By A Bear, Jacobean Drama, Globe Theatre

Id: Bu04VTclEck

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 21 2018