The Winter's Tale
Hey! I finished my second Shakespeare play! A famous tragedy about jealousy and how it can ruin friendship and marriage when it makes you blind to what matters.
"I am sure 'tis safer to/ Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born"
If I'm allowed to say already, out of the three Shakespeare plays I've read this is the simplest and easier at one to understand. It might be because Mum forcefully suggested writing a scene summary for each scene but it actually helped. It might be because I was going to the theatre to see it and I wanted/needed to understand it.
"Slaves of chance"
Once again there aren't as many deaths as King Lear but it is about affairs and love but it is also a tragedy.
On Friday 5th August I also went to see it as a production at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival which was amazing but also gave me a deadline to read it (I've never rushed myself so much!) Can I just say that it was amazing. It was open theatre and they used all the garden as the set and I'm really looking forward to next year!
"What a fool honesty is"
King Leontes fears that his Queen Hermione is having an affair with Polixeness (weird name) which is why he sends her to prison. They have a daughter but Leontes wants nothing to do with her so sends her to be burnt. The lord sent on this mission disobeys Leontes and leaves her in a village where a shepherd finds her.
Something that I loved was the fact that Shakespeare used a character to represent time. 18 years pass in the play and he explains what has happened and how it is now. I have no idea why but I loved that.
Although I read the same script as they performed it was interesting to see the different interpretation directly after I'd read it and it wasn't interwoven with others' interpretations. For example I thought the silence of Leontes in the play showed him to be defiant and ignorant whereas the play showed him to be mentally insane like King Lear.
***************************SPOILER ALERT**********************************
What confused me was the ending. It confused me when I was reading and watching it. Does Hermione die and then is she brought back to life? Or does she never actually die? I thought it was a bit unrealistic Paulina bringing a dead Hermione back to life? But then again as the audience we're only told she "dies" but did she? I don't know. I think it has been an ongoing debate throughout the history of literature. I don't know...
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