ABSTRACT
The Winter’s Tale, I argue, is strangled by a culture that encounters nature as fallen beyond redemption, and melancholically looks upon innocence as an irretrievable loss enforced by intimate relationships with women and the natural world. Because innocence is lost, genuine language can no longer flourish. The play stages the gradual rebirth of language beyond the deadly consequences of mistrust and beyond a death-bound culture of hostility towards the potencies of the material universe. By slowly reweaving the connection between word and gift, the play celebrates the performative, creative and ultimately redeeming dimensions of language.
