The first three acts of The Winter’s Tale contain the tragedy of the play. The final two acts, based on the principles of comedy, resolve the tragedy. King Leontes accuses his faithful wife Herimone and best friend King Polixenes of adultery. He flees to save his life and she is put on public trial. She stands firm in her defense; the king will hear none of it. Even a message from the oracle claiming her innocence does not set with the king: the oracle is wrong in the mind of the demented royal. Their son Mamillius has taken ill over his mother’s plight, and with the denial of the oracles decree, dies. His death represents the loss of grace. It is Leontes versus the truth, and he and his family and his kingdom will lose and suffer. Once the imagination becomes corrupt, man is capable of anything. Shakespeare is showing us in the short span of these first three acts what will take centuries for the world to reap as the consequences of denying the Roman Catholic Church. But this is a play of hope, and the final two acts resolve the damage done in the fist three.
The last four plays of Shakespeare’s career are his romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale.) In these plays he sums up all he has learned about life and his craft. They are filled with religious notions that his Catholic audience will recognize. He is sending them a message of hope. These plays too are a unique blend of comedy and tragedy. All drama is based in conflict. The conflict in comedy deals with individual desires verses the social norm. In the end a comprise is made and all parties are satisfied. The conflict in tragedy is an individual who challenges the metaphysical and gets crushed in the process. Wisdom is the fruit of this suffering. In the romantic plays there are no gigantic characters like Macbeth or Othello; rather the plot drives the play. There are no external forces to tempt the main character to do wrong; they just do it. The natural and supernatural (fantasy) is woven throughout to help move the plot along. In The Winter’s Tale the king without reason accuses his best friend and faithful wife of infidelity. He decides what is real and what is not: the very principle of Protestantism.
Conversion is a two-step process: restore the humanity in the person to help them reconnect to the world, then connect them to God. Restore man to man, then man to God. The reason for this is because humanism excluded man from God, and the modern world removed man from nature. Man has to be restored to his nature for him to understand the nature of God. The study of the plays of Shakespeare is an excellent means to accomplish this. Have students memorize large sections of his work. They will carry this for their entire life. Hi characters are fully human, full of vice and virtue. They struggle with this and teach us to see our own struggles. His plays follow the mysteries of the Rosary. His comedies are the Joyful Mysteries (Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Night’s Dream) and are full of joy and wonder. He tragedies are the Sorrowful Mysteries (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth) and track his dark days and struggles of doubt and even despair. His last plays reflect the Glorious Mysteries (Winter’s Tale, The Tempest) and show resolution in his life; they come at the very end of his career, and include visions of heaven and eternity.
Concluding Part Two of his commentary on Macbeth, Dr. White continues his discussion of the poetic meter of the play’s most famous passage: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” He describes it as a perfect example of meaning and sound coming together in a literary work and attributes it to Shakespeare’s genius; and makes reference to the same device being used in other of the poet’s plays such as Hamlet and Anthony and Cleopatra. An amazing exhibition, White says, coming from a writer with only an eighth-grade education.
In this first part of his second session on Macbeth, Dr. White discusses the legends and myths that have surrounded the play throughout the theater world. To many, Macbeth was not just a Scottish tragedy but a curse. White admits to not teaching this play as often as the other Shakespeare tragedies because of it darkness and association with evil. Then he segues into the “poetry” of the play and a detailed explanation of the meter of its most famous passage.
Dr. White continues his first session on Macbeth with a discussion of how the characters are seemingly living in the future as the action of the play unfolds. Interspersing his commentary with well-practiced readings, Dr. White explores man’s role as the preserver of moral order, and how that role is blurred as it is surrendered to Lady Macbeth. Then he proceeds to dissect the actions and motivations of the play’s characters.
