"The Winters Tale" by Shakespeare

Analyze the structural arrangements of themes and/or scenes in one or more plays.
The play that I shall be discussing in this essay is The Winter's Tale. If we are to look at the genre that the play falls under then this may lead us to understand the structural arrangements. The play appears to be split into two 'parts', the first taking place in Sicilia and the second in Bohemia. The play falls under the genre of romance, which in Shakespeare time referred to a play that was both comic and tragic. In the same way as The Winter's Tale is considered so is Troilus and Cressida, it was included in the Folio under the section of tragedy, whilst in the preface to the 1609 quarto it was referred to as 'witty as the best comedy in Terence or Plautus'. One reason for this mixing of genre has been explained as a way of mitigating the forms overwhelming effects, hence the comic scenes are used to enhance the tragic. …