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Introduction

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped amongst the comedies,^[1] some modern editors have relabeled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W. Lawrence,^[2] consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending.

Nevertheless, the play has been popular, and enjoyed productions in various forms and adaptations by some of the leading theatre practitioners in Shakespearean performance history, beginning with David Garrick in his adaptation called Florizel and Perdita (first performed in 1754 and published in 1756, and again in the nineteenth century, when the third "pastoral" act was widely popular). In the second half of the twentieth century The Winter's Tale in its entirety, and drawn largely from the First Folio text, was often performed, with varying degrees of success.

The play contains one of the most famous Shakespearean stage directions: Exit, pursued by a bear, presaging the offstage death of Antigonus. It is not known whether Shakespeare used a real bear from the London bear-pits,^[3] or an actor in bear costume. The Royal Shakespeare Company, in one production of this play, used a large sheet of silk which moved and created shapes, to symbolise both the bear and the gale in which Antigonus is travelling.