ABSTRACT
The recurrence of the word “affection” at key points in The Winter’s Tale suggests that the theme of affect is in fact focal in Shakespeare’s tragicomedy. Its various uses of the term shed light on the relation of masculinity to emotion in the early modern period. This word first occurs when Camillo declares that the boyhood “affection” between Leontes and Polixenes “cannot choose but branch now,” an allusion not only to their friendship but also to their future, physical separation and psychic alienation (I.i.22-4). Camillo’s benign prediction takes on tragic implications when the word recurs during Leontes’ monologue “Affection! thy intention stabs the centre” in which Leontes reacts passionately to the imaginary notion that Hermione is guilty of adultery with Polixenes. Like Leontes, enraged Polixenes sullies the word sixteen years later in Bohemia when he denounces his “sceptre’s heir” Florizel for “affect[ing] a sheep-hook,” a phrase referring to the shepherdess Perdita whom Leontes exiled from Sicilia when she was an infant (IV.iv.420-21). Yet Florizel uses the term “affection” in a pure, innocent context when he opposes the will of Polixenes by exclaiming that he is “heir to [his] affection” for her (IV.iv.421). His comment is a radical one, for it substitutes “affection” between a man and woman for the more usual patrilineal basis of masculine identity. Florizel’s feelings for and commitment to his future wife, Perdita, take precedence over his duty to his father and potentially redefine the existing social and gender hierarchies.
