The Winter's Tale

By William Shakespeare

The Winter’s Tale doesn’t have a summary as such, so I’ll just review and summarize here. This is the story of two kings, friends until one king accuses the other of cheating with his wife. Chaos ensues, the accused king escapes, the queen goes on trial and dies from grief. The King is devastated by his wife’s death. The worst part is she was pregnant and delivered a baby before she died, and the king wanted the baby abandoned because he thought it was his friend’s child. After the death of the queen it is shown that the queen was faithful and the king’s paranoia has destroyed his family, and possibly his kingdom. The rest of the play is about how things work out for the best and how love wins out and sacrifice is rewarded. I’d like to see it one day. While it has similar themes as some of his other plays, it has a maturity and depth to it that some of the others don’t display, and also a lot more hope than his other tragedies.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5