For next week: scene 3.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
A Winter's Tale, Act 4, Scenes 1 and 2
Scene 1: spoken entirely by Time. Are you annoyed? Or convinced? What do you think of the rhymes? Scene 2: Camillo plans to ditch Polixenes until he finds out he can wear a disguise and spy on teenage Florizel. Is the idea of spying on your kid funny or creepy or just stage mechanics? And does Leontes' past behavior to his family seem to be influencing Polixenes' present behavior?
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6 comments:
Well, I like the monologue by Time. I find this a much better way of dealing with the 16 year lapse than holding up a sign or having a character turn a large "hour glass" 16 times. Right now, the death of Antigonus has started to weigh heavy on my heart. He reluctantly carried out Leontes' order, so this is not a penalty for such a dastardly act. And I feel sad for Paulina.
Polixenes is acting on his own. Perdita is a comely low born lass as long as she isn't the love interest of his son. This is a case of "Not in my family" and probably quite common for a royal family then and now. Indeed, this opinion is held by many families about the choices their children make for friends, mates or partners.
I never really thought of time as a person, but there is always surprises. Why can't Polixenes think of something unoriginal. It's very plain.
Do you mean "Why can't P think of something original"? That is a good question.
Paul, I'm wondering if you have an opinion about Polixenes wanting to spy on his son Florizel.
I find Time okay, though I'm not as convinced of Ruth that the speech is much better than a sign. As a historian, the concept that I wondered about came in this line "Impute it not a crime . . . since it is in my pow'r to o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour to plant and o'erwhelm custom." Do this just mean that over the year law and customs change? I.e things change. If so, then I'm going to wonder what has changed in the 16 years; not just in the characters but in the society around them. I get the sense from the next scene that Polixenes' rule has brought wealth to his people (the shepherd for one, but also all of Camillo's efforts). But why, just because he's the "good guy"?
I tend not to like in Shakespeare plays when characters decide to dress up as somebody other than themselves, so I suspect I'll be irritated with the next scene. Why spy? Why not just inquire? So much of this play's plot seems to move on people assuming things that could have just been talked about. But we all know how pervasive that problem is in many situations.
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