Paulina’s Inspiration for Radical Change in The Winter’s Tale

Abstract

In the same way that Boethius is a prisoner of his mind more so than the cell that confines him in his De consolation philosophiae (c. 524), Hermione in The Winter’s Tale (c. 1609–11) is a mind restricted within a body when she chooses to adopt the guise of a statue. The following article situates Hermione’s response to her husband’s tyrannical treatment within feminist criticism of the play and new research published on its sources in order to argue that Paulina embodies a version of Boethius’s Lady Philosophy. The idea of the body as a prison is a major trope underpinning Hermione’s miraculous revivification, but she is not the only prisoner released by Paulina’s ministrations. Leontes’s recalcitrant jealousy and its aftermaths are also mental afflictions from which he needs to be released. Ultimately, Paulina’s embodiment of an insubstantial personification allows her to issue a challenge to the authority of a man in a way that makes her an inspiring feminist, and an icon for life-affirming, regenerative friendship between women.