"A Winter's Tale"
by D.H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence was an English writer and poet who focused extensively on modernity and industrialization, and the consequences thereof. While D.H. Lawrence tackles many different themes and ideas in his works, his focus on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale through his own adaptation remains a very significant aspect of his career. Published in 1916, "A Winter's Tale" draws out the significance of time and weather created in the original play, and leads up to the narrator trying to understand the motives of the female figure described in the poem.
In Shakespeare's original play, one way in which time is portrayed as noteworthy is through the seasons. We learn the reasoning behind the title of the play when Mamillius tells his mother that "A sad tale's best for winter" (2.1.26). This establishes the importance of the seasons in this work, as well as the mirroring of the sad, cold weather and the tragedy that ensues at the onset of the play. Near the end, when the happy reunion is just around the corner, Autolycus sings about the coming of "daffodils" and "the sweet o'the year" (4.3.1,3).
Similar to the beginning of the play, the coming springtime and warm weather foreshadows the "sweet" ending which is coming. D. H. Lawrence's version plays on these same ideas from the very start. He writes, "Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow, / And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge" (1-2). As opposed to a gap in time spanning sixteen years, Lawrence focuses on time that moves quickly. "Yesterday" there was barely any "scattered snow," and "now," one can "hardly" see the grass beneath the snow. This sudden seasonal change highlights Shakespeare's use of time in The Winter's Tale, but it also inverts it. In this version, time is short rather than long. This is significant primarily because time, while of the utmost importance in the original version, is not the main focus here. The sudden falling of snow is meant to draw attention to the "deep footprints" left after the female figure has gone "towards the pines" (3, 4). Thus, the female figure here plays a larger role than time does.
However, there is a question of interpretation within this poem on who exactly this female character is. Based on the original play, it is fair to say that both Perdita and Hermione are represented in this iteration. Each of these characters are sent away at the onset of the play, and each return by the end. Consequently, the "deep footprints" in the snow could be representative of both women. Moreover, this female is "waiting...impatient and cold" (7). Once more, time is used to emphasize characteristics or behaviors of the female. Not only is she "waiting" in the snow, but she is "impatient and cold" while she waits. Putting the phrase "impatient and cold" at the end of the line only works to strengthen this emphasis. Despite the masterful phrasing here, there is nothing to indicate whether this female character is that of Hermione or Perdita. Yet, part of the beauty of this work is that the reader is not meant to see the difference at this point in the poem. With the adaptation written in this manner, Lawrence highlights the bond between a mother and her daughter. At the end of Shakespeare's original, when Hermione finally speaks, it is only to her daughter, and not her husband. When Paulina informs her that "Perdita is found," she says, "Tell me, mine own, / Where hast thou been preserved?" (5.3.121,124,125). Both this rendition and the original underscore the connection between the two women, and this connection is given an even higher importance in this poem by having one female character stand for both.
Just as the end of Shakespeare's original gives Hermione the lead in the glorious and exciting ending, so does this adaptation, though in a slightly different way. This poem is not meant to capture the entire play, but simply bits and pieces instead. One bit that Lawrence is concerned with is Hermione and her motives, and this becomes clear in the last stanza. Here, we can finally see a small separation between Hermione and Perdita. Lawrence writes, "Why does she come so promptly, when she must know / That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell" (9-10). The concept of the "inevitable farewell" most likely refers to Hermione's imprisonment, which comes early in The Winter's Tale, so it becomes apparent at the end of the poem that Lawrence does not intend to encapsulate the entire work, but to instead capture just a fleeting moment of it (also represented by the sudden change in weather from the first two lines). We can assume that this part refers solely to Hermione and not both women because the female character "come[s] so promptly," despite knowing what is to come-the "farewell," or the imprisonment. There is a direct correlation here between this moment and the grace with which Hermione handles herself in Shakespeare's original. She states, "This action I now go on / Is better for my grace. -Adieu, my lord" (2.1.123-24). Her calm demeanor and focus on "grace," as demonstrated in the original, are reflected in Lawrence's version with the "prompt[ness]" of the female characters return. Despite knowing what is coming, she faces it with grace and dignity.