Abstract

Petros Dovolis: We’ll Milk Our Ewes and Weep; but We Will not Run Wild: Compliance, Conformity and Domesticated Endurance in The Winter’s Tale  Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Volume 24 No. 1 (2016)   97-114

This paper will explore Shakespeare’s use of images of animal domestication in The Winter’s Tale. The aim will be to illustrate that references to (and discussions about) livestock are inextricably connected with the play’s overall preoccupation with power, royal sovereignty, and the issue of female participation in practices of courtly governance. Shakespeare’s dramatic handling of these images and conversations, I believe, allows us to link a number of important episodes in a fresh way and, thereafter, realize that the rupture between Leontes and Hermione is of a profoundly political nature. The crisis, I argue, begins when the queen of Sicilia urges her husband to reward more ‘softly’ his faithful domesticates. Considering the tension that characterizes the relationship between the King and his long-enduring noble subjects, Hermione’s plea exposes the experience of a ‘tame’ court that is, nevertheless, dissatisfied with Leontes’ rule. My analysis will then will go on to trace how Hermione’s intervention comes back to haunt her. Leontes becomes aware that his status is contingent upon the precarious support of his lords and he seeks to alter the dynamics in his court. To do so he targets the court’s self-appointed mediator, his wife. Thus, I am able to claim that Leontes’ wild behavior during and after the nursery scene (2.1) should be understood as part of an effort to reconnect with his power base. His strategy is to reformulate his court on the basis of a female-unfriendly structure of state governance. My paper concludes with an attempt to evaluate to what extent this ‘leonine’ game of power succeeds.

Keywords

William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Wildness, Conformity, Domestication