Griselda’s Afterlife, or the Relationship between Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Chaucer’s The Clerk’s Tale and the Tale of Magic

Andrzej Wicher

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.11.21

Authors

Andrzej Wicher University of Lodz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8568-2087

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.21

Keywords:

Chaucer, Shakespeare, patient Griselda, tales of magic, women’s social position

Abstract

Some influence of Chaucer’s The Clerk’s Tale, also known as the story of the patient Griselda, on Shakespeare, and particularly on The Winter’s Tale, has long been recognized. It seems, however, that the matter deserves further attention because the echoes of The Clerk’s Tale seem scattered among a number of Shakespeare’s plays, especially the later ones. The experimental nature of this phenomenon consists in the fact that Griselda-like characters do not strike the reader, especially perhaps the Renaissance reader, as good protagonists of a tragedy, or even a problem comedy. The Aristotelian conception of the tragic hero does not seem to fit Griselda because there is no “tragic fault” in her: she is completely innocent. It was thus a bold decision on the part of Shakespeare to use this archetype as a corner stone of at least some of his plays.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Andrzej Wicher, University of Lodz

Andrzej Wicher is Professor in the Institute of English Studies at the University of Lodz where he lectures on the history of English literature and literary theory. His academic interests include medieval and Renaissance studies, and modern fantasy literature. He published three monographs, including Archaeology of Sublime: Studies in Late Medieval English Writings (1995), Shakespeare’s Parting Wondertales: A Study in the Elements of the Tale of Magic in William Shakespeare’s Late Plays (2003) and Selected Medieval and Religious Themes in the Works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (2013). In 1997, he also published a volume of Polish translations of Middle English literary works including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl. Andrzej Wicher took part in many international conferences and various exchange programmes as a visiting lecturer at some British universities. He is also a member of the International Shakespeare Association, PASE (Polish Association for the Study of English) and the Scholarly Society in Łódź.

References

Aarne, Antti, and Stith Thompson. The Types of the Folk-Tale. A Classification and Bibliography. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1928.

Benson, Larry D., editor. The Riverside Chaucer. Oxford UP, 1989.

Bevington, David, editor. William Shakespeare, The Late Romances: “Pericles,” “Cymbeline,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “The Tempest.” Bantam, 1988.

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Riverhead, 1998.

Cate, W. A. “The Problem of the Origin of the Griselda Story.” Studies in Philology, vol. XXIX, 1932, pp. 389–405.

Cooper, Helen. Introduction. Medieval Shakespeare. Pasts and Presents, edited by Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper and Peter Holland, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139060905.002 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139060905.002

De Pisan, Christine. The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or the Book of the Three Virtues. Translated by Sarah Lawson. Penguin, 1985.

Girard, René. A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare. Oxford UP, 1991.

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths, Volumes 1 and 2. Penguin, 1990.

Gray, Douglas. Simple Forms. Essays on Medieval English Popular Literature. Oxford UP, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198706090.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198706090.001.0001

Griffith, D. D. The Origin of the Griselda Story. U of Washington P, 1931.

Lüthi, Max. Das europäische Volksmärchen. Form und Wesen. [The European Folktale. Form and Nature.] Francke Verlag, 1985.

McCarthy, Grace Annelyse. “The Evolution of the Patient Woman: Examining Patient Griselda as a Source for William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.” 2015. U of Alaska Fairbanks, MA thesis.

Salzman, Paul, editor. An Anthology of Elizabethan Prose Fiction. Oxford UP, 1987.

Sledd, James. “The Clerk’s Tale: The Monsters and the Critics.” Chaucer Criticism, Volume 1, edited by Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor, U of Notre Dame P, 1982, pp. 160–74.

Stokes, Francis Griffin. Who’s Who in Shakespeare. Bracken, 1924.

The Brothers Grimm. The Complete Fairy Tales. Wordsworth Editions, 1998.

Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. U of California P, 1977.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. HarperCollins, 1997.