On Divergence And Transformation In The Winter's Tale And The Tempest

As the representatives of Shakespeare's later work,The Winter's Tale and The Tempest seem to be similar in characterization,images and themes.Shakespeare endows characters,images and themes with religious meaning,on the one hand,to represent the divergence between Protestants and Catholics,on the other hand,to transform the divergence.This thesis is divided into three chapters.Chapter one mainly examines the divergence in characters and its transformation in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.The divergence between Protestants and Catholics under the influence of the Reformation is not only represented between characters,but also represented within characters with divided loyalties and identities.As for the transformation of the divergence in characters,Shakespeare characterizes characters with the qualities of the deity to reconstruct harmony with the opposites.Chapter two focuses on examining the divergence in images and its transformation in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.Shakespeare embeds the divergence between Protestants and Catholics into images of human entertainment,natural world and life and death.As for the transformation of the divergence,natural images and artistic images are exploited as a way to transform the divergence.Chapter three interprets the divergence in themes and its transformation in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.Through depicting the oppositions between husbands and wives and the oppositions between fathers and children,Shakespeare represents the influence of religious disputes on the split within families.At last,the divergence is transformed with the reconciliation in families and the marriage of the young lovers.The Winter's Tale and The Tempest not only represent us the divergence between Protestants and Catholics,but also represent us Shakespeare's artistic attainments in dissolving the divergence between Protestants and Catholics.