Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Witchcraft And Wonder In The Winter's Tale, Kirby Farrell

kirby farrell

The Winter’s Tale is constructed to generate an experience of wonder as Hermione’s statue comes to life. Audiences are meant to share what Leontes calls “The pleasure of that madness” (5.3.73). This revelatory madness is magical undoing: it dissolves the paranoid paroxysm at the outset of the play that crystallizes ideas about witchcraft, even as Hermione's play death and "resurrection" purge her of associations with witches.