"It's a Dangerous Business": A Rough Draft

. . .writing a rough draft.  "You step onto the road . . .
[and] there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
Creative Commons "Path to the Tree" from Arbron

I think I have a pretty extensive, thorough outline for my paper, although there are some paragraphs that might become unnecessary and others that I'll need to add in when I finally concretize my thesis.  My introduction needs some work, as right now it is just my thesis.

I have sources and quotes for most of my paragraphs, but beyond my draft I don't have written paragraphs.  I also need to add in to my outline more evidence and more quotes from the primary text, but I'm feeling optimistic about my thesis.

This is the rough draft of the paper below.  I hope that you enjoy it!

The Unrealistic Elements Make It Real: Romance in The Winter's Tale

When asked whether a romance or a tragedy were more true to life, most of the members of my ward that I talked to agreed that life is tragic.  The combination of tragedy and comedy that makes up a romance was less convincing than the idea that life is generally hard and that hardness seems to come from some major faults that individuals possess.  William Shakespeare’s romance The Winter’s Tale is generally written off as unrealistic and eclectic in its mixture of tragedy and comedy.  However, it is because of its romantic elements, Shakespeare’s controversial decision to change the ending of Pandosto, and ekphrastic consciousness about itself as a play, that the play is more true to life than a tragedy like Macbeth.  This unexpected closeness to reality reveals that the characters’ lives do not need to be categorized as either a tragedy or comedy, but that our own lives are actually also a mixture of the two, a romance.   

The elements of romance inherent in the play lend to its initially unrealistic feel.  This is most evident with the statue of Hermione which seems to come to life at the end of the play.  Paulina, Hermione’s friend, explains: “That she is living, / Were it but told you, should be hooted at / Like an old tale; but it appears she lives” (Shakespeare, l.115-117, V, iii).  Paulina’s choice of the word “hooted” to describe others’ reactions to the supposed miracle of Hermione’s reawakening reflects the common reaction to the plot of The Winter’s Tale.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines “hooting” as “call[ing] or shout[ing scornfully or abusively] at or after anyone, which is what critics during and soon after Shakespeare’s day.  Famous critics such as Ben Jonson in the 1600s and Charlotte Lennox later on expressed their dissatisfaction with Shakespeare’s apparently loose touch with reality.  “Such deviations from plausibility,” explains Stanley Wells, a well-known Shakespeare scholar and author of the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, “whether with regard to its geography, its only partly explained sixteen-year concealment of Hermione, or its depiction of Leontes’ unprovoked jealousy” were considered the result of laziness and manipulation, not well-formed art. 

In this same pessimistic view, the play’s mixture of tragedy and comedy comes off as eclectic and indecisive on Shakespeare’s part.  At the end of the third act, Leontes has lost his beloved son, wife, and new-born daughter because of his jealousy.  The protagonist’s main attribute leading to his downfall is a common characteristic of tragedies.  The tragic end that the play should have had is, however, interrupted by the introduction of a shepherd and his son.  The shepherd repeats at the play’s shift from tragedy to comedy, “Heavy matters, heavy matters!” (Shakespeare, l.111, III, iii).  In a repeated phrase, he has summed up the tragedy of the last three acts.  This shift is complete as he exclaims—in preparation for his own good fortune, and for Leontes’ eventual happiness—“‘Tis a lucky day . . . and we’ll do good deeds on ‘t” (Shakespeare, l.137-8, III, iii).  Shakespeare’s decision to end Leontes’ unhappy years with happiness and marriage is characteristic of comedy.  “[T]his calculated mix of genres has made [the play] controversial ever since: Dryden dismissed it in 1672 . . . as ‘grounded on impossibilities, or at least, so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment” (Oxford Companion, Wells).  The tendency to mix genres instead of to label a play as either tragedy or comedy is inherent in romances, which are also known as tragicomedies.     

Common romantic elements highlight the unusual and the supernatural that occur within the play.  This combination of supernatural events and tools in a romance emphasizes the romantic motifs of separation and reunion, motifs common in the everyday experience (Dictionary of Shakespeare, Wells).  Antigonus, Leontes’ trusted advisor who is tasked with getting rid of Hermione’s baby, names the baby Perdita after he is visited by Hermione’s ghost.  The name “Perdita” refers to the baby’s lost state; it is evidence of her separation from her parents, homeland, and her identity as a princess: “‘…and for the babe / Is counted lost forever, Perdita / I prithee call ‘t’” (Shakespeare, l.31-33, III, iii).  Wells argues that Shakespeare’s intertwining of common motifs and romantic elements reveals “artful structure and insolent mastery of complex narrative and characterization” (Companion to Shakespeare).  The tools of romance open up an exploration of those motifs common to everyday life.