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| magic from Creative Commons: OUCHcharley |
- Do the romantic elements of The Winter's Tale in fact make it more applicable to life than a tragedy?
- How does the supernatural element of a romance make it more true-to-life?
- What role does fate play in a romance?
These are passages about supernatural elements:
- "There's magic in thy majesty, which has / My evils conjured to remembrance..." -Leontes, after seeing Hermione's statue (V, iii, l.39-40)
- "It is required / You do awake your faith; then, all stand still." -Paulina, before Hermione's statue comes alive
- "...Affrighted much, / I did in time collect myself, and thought / This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys; / Yet for this once, yea superstitiously, / I will be squared [ordered] by this." (III, iii, l.27-40) -Antigonus recounting an interaction with Hermione's ghost
Do the characters think magic happening is a usual thing?
I think a main argument against romance being real-to-life is the idea of magic or supernatural occurrences that happen within. But, in the above quotes, it's easy to see that these characters do not think magic is a regular thing. Antigonus is surprised and admits that he feels superstitious because he believes Hermione's ghost's prophecy. Paulina explains that faith is needed to see the miracle of Hermione's statue moving. These characters react like people in real life when strange things happen to them.
This is what I'm thinking now:
After posting about posting on my ward facebook page, I got some enthusiastic responses in favor of talking about life as a tragedy or romance. We had a discussion with some friends who joined in about romance vs. tragedy. The general consensus seemed to be that tragedy is more true to life.
The discussion reminded me again that I'm going to need to deepen my argument and not just focus on that question, although it has been a good spring board. I think looking at fate within a romance, and what fate or supernatural elements add to the romance genre, will do that.
What do you guys think?
What is my argument missing at the moment?
I think I would agree that tragedy is more real to life because that's the way life seems structured. We see true love happen once in life, miracles rarely, and tragedy more often (or at least that's how I see it: when you're as fatalistic as I am you see life more as a series of tragedies without reversal).
ReplyDeleteAs for magic, well, it wouldn't be magic without the element of surprise or wonder. I wouldn't be an aspiring fantasy author if I didn't want to come up with moments like that and share them with people, and neither would Shakespeare have written The Winter's Tale if he did not think wonder was important, in spite of tragedy. In fact you could say the Winter's Tale is about the conflict between the reality of tragedy and the wonder of redemption.
Time!! Your ideas definitely overlap with mine! When I was talking to actors about The Winter's Tale they told me that the strange passage of time helped to make the whole play feel more magical. Even if you read Shakespeare's romantic sonnets there's many references and descriptions of time.
ReplyDeleteAnother supernatural element you could look into is the involvement of the gods. A Winter's Tale is filled with references to the Greek gods, most notably Jove. Try using Shakespeare Searched and looking up different Greek gods!
Thanks for your comments! Mikaela, I love the idea of time as a supernatural element, and Liz, thanks for your perspective on life and tragedy.
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