Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Das Wintermärchen
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love Shakespeare's strange romances, tragedy mixed with comedy, and stories of jealousy and forgiveness. For anyone drawn to young lovers, fearless truth-telling, and the hope of repairing a broken family.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, written around 1610 or 1611 and first printed in the First Folio of 1623. It is one of his late plays, often called a romance, a form that mixes tragedy with comedy and ends in the hope of repair. Shakespeare took the outline from a prose tale by Robert Greene called Pandosto, but he changed it in important ways.
The play falls into two halves. The first is a swift, harsh tragedy set at the court of Sicilia, where a king is seized by a jealousy that nobody can explain or stop. The second moves to the green country of Bohemia, sixteen years later, with songs, a sheep-shearing feast, a thief, and young lovers. You get a story about what rage destroys, what time does, and what patience might still mend. Let us begin where the trouble begins, in a palace on a warm summer day.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A king's jealousy comes from nowhereFree
- 2The innocent queen is put on trial
- 3A baby is left on a stormy coast
- 4Perdita grows up among the shepherds
- 5What the play says about jealousy, time, and mercy
- 6A play in two halves, with a bear and a ghost of song
Punkt 1 von 6
A king's jealousy comes from nowhere
The play opens in Sicilia. King Leontes has been host for nine months to his boyhood friend Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. Polixenes now wants to go home to his own kingdom and his own son. Leontes cannot persuade him to stay, so he asks his wife, Hermione, who is heavily pregnant, to try.
Hermione is warm and witty, and she wins the argument at once. Polixenes agrees to remain a little longer. Something snaps in Leontes as he watches them. He sees friendliness and reads it as betrayal, and within a few lines he is certain that his wife and his friend are lovers.
Shakespeare gives the audience no real cause for this belief. There is no letter, no rumor, no villain whispering in the king's ear, as there is in his play Othello. The jealousy grows inside Leontes alone, and it feeds on itself. He even doubts that the child in Hermione's womb is his own, and he watches his young son Mamillius with suspicion.
Leontes orders his loyal lord Camillo to poison Polixenes. Camillo is horrified, but he pretends to agree, then warns Polixenes instead. The two men slip out of Sicilia by night, and Camillo enters the service of the Bohemian king. This flight only convinces Leontes that he was right. His court now watches a ruler cut himself off from reason, and the one person who might have calmed him has gone.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Who’s who
- Leontes
- The King of Sicilia becomes unjustly suspicious of his wife Hermione and his boyhood friend Polixenes.
- Hermione
- Leontes' warm and intelligent queen must defend her innocence against her husband's bewildering accusations.
- Polixenes
- The King of Bohemia is Leontes' boyhood friend and a visiting guest at his court.
- Paulina
- Hermione's fiercely loyal lady challenges Leontes and speaks truths that others fear to tell him.
- Perdita
- The daughter of Leontes and Hermione grows up among Bohemian shepherds and is loved by Florizel.
- Florizel
- Polixenes' son, the Prince of Bohemia, loves Perdita despite the apparent difference in their stations.
- Camillo
- An honest Sicilian lord, Camillo serves Leontes but resists his unjust demands concerning Polixenes.
- Autolycus
- A singing rogue and peddler, Autolycus tricks and steals from the country people of Bohemia.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 27,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 50 min
- Listening time3 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Das Wintermärchen
What is The Winter's Tale about?
It is about a king who wrongly believes his wife has betrayed him with his friend. His jealousy destroys his family, and the second half of the play follows his lost daughter and the hope of forgiveness.
Is The Winter's Tale a comedy or a tragedy?
It is usually called a romance. The first half is tragic, with jealousy and loss, while the second half is pastoral and comic, moving toward reconciliation. Some editors place it among the comedies.
What does exit, pursued by a bear mean?
It is a stage direction in Act 3, Scene 3, where the lord Antigonus leaves the stage as a bear chases him. It marks the play's sharp turn from tragedy to comedy.
When was The Winter's Tale written and is it based on a true story?
Shakespeare wrote it around 1610 or 1611. It is not a true story. It is based on Robert Greene's prose romance Pandosto, published in 1588, though Shakespeare changed much of the plot.
Is The Winter's Tale hard to read?
The story itself is simple and clear. A king's jealousy breaks his family, and sixteen years later young lovers in Bohemia help to mend it. The play's two halves, with their songs and country feasts, give the story a shape that is easy to follow.