Thought Train to Pusan

Approaching the end of the semester (and with it, my class that purely studies Shakespeare), I do say that this will likely be my last Shakespeare review for quite some time. Was it fun? Well, it was hit and miss, but for this last reading, we hit a bit of a higher note than some of the other plays I’ve reviewed thus far. The Winter’s Tale is categorized as one of Shakespeare’s Romance plays, and, like Problem plays, it doesn’t really fall into a distinct classification as a straight tragedy, drama, or history. What is typical of the Romances, however, is their use of other-(worldliness and sometimes magical elements) to produce an effect. And unlike the other hard-to-categorize Problem plays, this work wasn’t really that much of a problem for me. In fact, I found it to be a lot more effortless in it’s unraveling than some of the previous Elizabethan works I have read. Predictable? Yes, it is ridiculously predictable, and I found myself saying, “because of course!” a n...