Sunday, December 14, 2008
A winter's tale and subversion
Does anyone wonder how Shakespeare was able to get away with such a (what I think) is politically subversive play at the time? This was, if I remember correctly from lecture, a time when James I was asserting his divine right to rule more strictly than any monarch had before him in decades. And yet here, in this play, Shakespeare is obviously asserting that it is impossible for kings to know the will of God, as he showed through Leontes' rejection of the oracle from Apollo. He’s also asserting that it is entirely possible for Kings to go mad for no reason and make terrible mistakes. Any thoughts on how he was able to get away with this?
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He got away with it because by the time he wrote "A Winter's Tale", he was already a pretty well established playwright and probably pretty respected. I actually might take on this question for the final which asks for the differences in Shakespeare's plays while Elizabeth I was in power and when James was in power, because the ones under James are more critical of politics and notably question power. Maybe Bill Shakespeare was just a pen name and they couldn't find the real guy to arrest him for slander. Your guess is as good as mine.
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