Well, That was an Exciting Endeavor! aka An Annotated Bibliography

Working Thesis Statement: Unlike tragedies, the romantic and ekphrastic elements of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale unexpectedly lend a trueness-of-life to the play, suggesting that the supernatural elements of the play are what makes the play realistic.  



1. Social Graph:

• Tanner--a member of my ward and a very willing conversationalist.  Tanner believes life is more like a tragedy, but he's got good points about it and was thoughtful in his response to my question on the ward facebook page.
• Mom--an English major and is willing to listen to me.  She would definitely help me probe out my "so what," which I'm still working on.
• Skylar--my roommate and good friend.  I explained the assignment for our paper walking home one night and she let me bounce some ideas off of her and gave me some great ones.  
• Matt-a Communications major and my boyfriend.  He's watched some of the Shakespeare plays with me this semester, including King Lear, and might have some things to say about tragedy.
• Ross--my former high school Calculus teacher and a good family friend.  He's really well-read and loves helping students with things in all majors.  I'm definitely going to try to talk to him.  

2. New Media:

Winter's Tale
CC: Holly Ford Brown

• Through Mallory's New Media section, I found this blog with a post called "Shakespeare and Winter Imagery" on No Sweat Shakespeare.  The blogger explains and gives examples from the texts that Shakespeare's plays and sonnets usually associate with negative events, which I think is appropriate for The Winter's Tale and reminds me of its tragic aspects. 
• This review is of an adaptation of The Winter's Tale which Asma on the goodreads Shakespeare fan group suggested looking into.  It gives some historical context to the play and introduces the Shakespeare Exploded! festival, a new way to experience Shakespeare in Harvard Square.  There is also a review of The Donkey Show, which is an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I would link to it, but it actually seems a little intense. :)
• The Royal Shakespeare Company did a version of The Winter's Tale that might give me more insight into the final scene of Hermione's statue coming alive and another interpretation of it.  Candy, a Shakespeare Fan goodreads group member, suggested it.  

3. Social Networks:

• I found a group on goodreads called "Shakespeare Fans" that Kara is using too.  At one point, the group read The Winter's Tale together, so I read through some of the thread and found a contributor whose posts were informative and interesting.  I messaged Martin, the contributor, my tentative thesis.  He hasn't responded yet, but hopefully he will!  Through this thread, I saw the suggestion to watch the RSC version of The Winter's Tale.  A reader named Asma mentioned that she felt the two kings were required to give up reason at the end of the play in order to have faith, while I believe the play promotes reason and trueness-to-life.
•  Through @mccarter on Twitter, I found an interview with director Rebecca Taichman about The Winter's Tale.  She focuses on the idea of transformation in the play: "how the human spirit can be transformed by jealousy, by love, by forgiveness."
• On academia.edu, I found a faculty member named Erin Sullivan who wrote a paper on "Anti-Bardolatry Through the Ages: Or, Why Voltaire, Tolstoy, Shaw, and Wittgenstein Didn't Like Shakespeare," which I think will be really interesting to read.  You should check it out, as it seems pretty applicable to a lot of papers!   

Not this Hermione statue!
CC: from Pop Culture Geek

4. Traditional scholarly sources:   

• Wells, Stanley. "Romance." A Dictionary of Shakespeare.  Wells gives a description of romances as well as historical background for a romance.  This is helpful as I focus on the elements of romance that make it true to life.
• Young, Bruce. "Teaching the Unrealistic Realism of The Winter's Tale." I found this article by a professor I had for a C.S. Lewis class last semester.  It was so fun because I really enjoyed his class and prompted me to e-mail him about getting together to talk about the elements of romance in the play.  Brother Young presents the idea that while certain elements (the setting, the plot) of the play are unrealistic, the characters and issues they deal with are familiar to us.  This is the argument I'd like to expand on in my essay.
• Meek, Richard. "Ekphrasis in The Rape of Lucrece and The Winter's Tale." This article discusses Hermione's statue coming to life as a metaphor for ecphrasis, when someone describes an artistic work within a work so we can imagine it.  This added another element to my thesis, as Hermione's statue, and in the play, comes to life for us.  I enjoyed the article so much that I found Dr. Meek's contact information and am going to try to get in contact with him when I have a firmer idea of my "so what?" and how my paper will resolve this idea of realism in romance.