Fresh Horses: the Rhetoric of the Oracle in the Winter’s Tale

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Miller, Edmund J.
Copyright Year	2018
Abstract	A troubling scene in The Winter’s Tale is the beginning of Act III. In this scene Cleomenes and Dion change horses on their return from Delphos, where they have been sent to consult the Oracle. In traditional readings of the play, III.i is a pointless excrescence. 1 An irrelevant interruption can be justified as sharpening the suspense a bit, but such a thing hardly seems necessary—or desirable—at this point. Tension is generated at greater length and to better effect at the beginning of the actual judgment scene that follows. In addition, the innocence of Hermione has never been in doubt with the audience, and the arrival of Cleomenes and Dion has already been announced “An hour since”; “Their speed / Hath been beyond accompt” (II.iii). So why must it be in our presence that they stop to change horses? 2
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.30845/ijll.v5n3p14
Volume Number	5
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://ijllnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_3_September_2018/14.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.30845/ijll.v5n3p14
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article