ABSTRACT
In the penultimate scene of The Winter's Tale Shakespeare denies his audience the chance to witness the wondrous reunion between Perdita and Leontes in order to highlight the wonder of Hermione's resurrection in the final scene. Shakespeare scholars have long been both baffled and intrigued by this reference to Giulio Romano. Shakespeare's third gentleman seems less interested in the particular artist than in the fact that the work itself is a marvel of verisimilitude. On one level Shakespeare is using the statue to confirm the capacity of art to produce wonder through verisimilitude and on another he has placed an actual human being on the pedestal in order to engineer an astounding metamorphosis. The conclusion of The Winter's Tale is marvelous in its own right, but it is also worth considering closely because it serves as a window into early modern literary theories regarding wonder.
