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Description:

The Winter's Tale is like the Disney movie of Shakespeare plays—if you ignore all the murders, mauling, and love-children, anyway.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

The Winter’s Tale, a la Shmoop. Shakespeare sure likes to mix things up. Take

00:09

his play, The Winter’s Tale.

00:11

It’s set in faraway lands with castles, lovers and magic. Sounds like a romance fit

00:17

for Disney, right?

00:19

Wrong, because then our playwright literally tries to kill babies.

00:24

It begs the question, is this a happy romance or a dark tragedy? Or did Shakespeare visit

00:28

the apothecary one too many times? Let’s study the facts.

00:31

Kings and queen in a beautiful castle. Romance!

00:35

King tries to murder best friend and throws very pregnant wife in the slammer because

00:40

he thinks they’re having a love-child. Tragedy. A princess is born. Romance!

00:46

Actually… Have you tried to give birth in a jail cell without an epidural? We’re going

00:51

to say tragedy. Then, like a bad episode of Maury, the king

00:54

won’t admit he’s the baby daddy.

00:56

And he orders the baby killed.

00:59

And the kid prince dies from despair over his mom.

01:03

But maybe it’s a good thing he dies? Who wants a fragile mama’s boy to be the future

01:07

king?

01:08

Wait, no, not a good thing. Because the queen drops dead. Bummer.

01:12

Although… the King’s servant doesn’t actually kill the baby, and instead leaves

01:19

her in a faraway land to be raised by a funny shepherd and his clown-friend. Romance!

01:25

Then the servant gets eaten by a bear.

01:27

That’s right. Eaten. On stage. By a live bear. Tragedy.

01:36

Time passes, and the pretty princess wins the sheep sheering festival’s beauty pageant.

01:40

She’s even dating a prince. Sigh.

01:43

Not so fast. The prince’s father… the king’s ex-best friend, awkward… thinks

01:49

she’s just a country bumpkin and threatens to disfigure her. Double awkward.

01:54

Back at the castle, the king is sad. It’s hard murdering your entire family.

01:59

But sure enough, the Shepherd and clown-man come with documents and prove the princess

02:03

is alive. And so, a perfectly logical ending occurs

02:07

where…

02:07

The king is reunited with his best bud.

02:10

The princess and prince are allowed to get married.

02:13

Everyone visits a statue of the dead queen.

02:16

Which then comes alive!

02:18

And they all live happily ever after. Perhaps we’ll never know Shakespeare’s

02:22

intentions.

02:23

But at least it all ends up right as rain in the end.

02:26

Except for the king’s servant and son, who are still very much dead.

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