The tale's Tone & Genre.

Take a story's temperature by studying its tone.

Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?

Well, let's see...

Tone: Dark and then Joyous

The first three acts, set in the Sicilian court, are dark and claustrophobic. This is mostly the result of Leontes’s jealousy and tyranny, which pretty much dominates the first half of the play. Of course, this is no big surprise, given that King Leontes throws his wife in prison, plots the death of his best friend, throws his infant daughter away, and basically causes the premature death of his young son.

The play’s tone shifts dramatically as the setting shifts to Bohemia (sixteen years in the future), where the summer sheep-shearing festival is underway and the love between Perdita and Florizel blossoms. The festive mood briefly darkens when Polixenes threatens the young couple’s happiness but the heavy mood begins to lift almost as soon as the Bohemian cast makes its way over to the Sicilian court (where Leontes and his kingdom have been suffering for sixteen years). After the revelation of Perdita’s true identity and the miraculous “resurrection” of Hermione, the atmosphere turns joyous, as family and friends are reunited and the promise of marriage looms in the future.

Genre: Tragi-comedy

The Winter’s Tale is often called a “problem play” because it defies traditional categories of genre. Many Shakespeare critics settle on calling The Winter’s Tale a “tragic-comedy” because the first three acts of the play feel much like a mini tragedy (compare it, for example, to Hamlet or Othello) and the play’s second half resembles a “comedy.”

In the first three acts, Leontes is overcome by wild jealousy (a fatal flaw) and his tyranny causes profound suffering and the destruction of his family, which ultimately threatens to destroy the health of his kingdom. These are the hallmarks of Shakespearean tragedy. Yet, The Winter’s Tale, like Shakespeare’s comedies has a decidedly happy ending – families are reconciled, a marriage is promised, and social order is restored

Romance and Fairy Tale

Many critics also refer to The Winter’s Tale as a “romance” (because it shares features with “medieval romance,”) Shakespeare’s “romance” plays (The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline,) were all written at the end of Big Willie’s career and involve the following features:

• loss and recovery (like Perdita’s reunification with her family),
  
• a wandering journey (think of Perdita’s travels to Bohemia and back to Sicily and Leontes’s journey toward forgiveness)
• elements of magic and the fantastic (Hermione’s miraculous resurrection, for example).
  

If you’re thinking that all of this sounds a lot like a fairy tale, you’re absolutely right – fairy tales, which are notorious for being implausible and fantastical, share a lot in common with “romance” stories.

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