HISTORICAL NOTICE OF THE WINTER'S TALE. The story of this play is taken from Robert Greene's Pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia, which was published in 1588. Shakspeare has, however, changed the names of the characters, and added the parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus from his own invention. The Winter's Tale was not entered on the Stationers' books, or printed till 1623, while we learn from Vertue's manuscripts, that it was acted at court in 1613. Malone attributes the composition to the year 1611; but Lord Orford assigns to it a much earlier date, and conjectures that it was written during the life-time of Elizabeth, and that it was intended as an indirect apology for Anne Boleyn; in which light it might be considered as a sequel to King Henry VIII. Much censure has been cast on our author by Dryden and Pope for his disregard of the classical unities, which are no where so daringly violated as in this production, where we meet with a young woman becoming a bride, who, but a few minutes before had been deposited on the sea-shore, a new-born infant. Schlegel has observed of this drama, that its title is happily adapted to its subject, being one of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long winter evening, which are even attractive and intelligible to childhood, and which, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of character and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination.' 'This play,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is, with all its absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is naturally conceived and strongly represented.' |