SOURCE: “Nature and Art in Renaissance Literature: Shakespeare’s The Winter's Tale,” in The Winter’s Tale: Critical Essays, edited by Maurice Hunt, Garland Publishing, 1995, pp. 119-38.

In the following essay, originally published in 1964, Tayler analyzes the underlying structure of The Winter's Tale and identifies the relationship between nature and art as a central concern.

The Winter's Tale, like Book VI of The Faerie Queene, exhibits a specialized use of the traditional materials of pastoral in conjunction with an explicit interest in the philosophical problem of Nature versus Art. Discussion must involve, at least initially and briefly, some reference to Shakespeare's earlier work and then to Cymbeline and The Tempest, both from his last period; for these later works, in particular, share many of the same intellectual concerns as well as the romance form. The last plays suffered a period of criticism in which, like Spenser's Legend of...