SOURCE: "Finding What Has Been 'Lost': Representations of Infanticide and The Winter's Tale" in Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England, 1550-1700, Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 121-70.

In the following essay, Dolan examines early modern legal discourses and literary representations regarding infanticide, and asserts that despite its connection to other literary works in which child disposal by fathers is euphemized, The Winter's Tale is seldom acknowledged as such a story due to "the process of canon-formation. "

In The Winter's Tale, Perdita's name identifies her as "she who has been lost." The process by which she is "lost" is neither accidental, nor mysterious; she is "lost" through her father's violent, purposeful action. After her father, Leontes, referring to her only as "the bastard" or "it," threatens to dash out her "bastard brains with these [his] proper hands," and unsuccessfully attempts to persuade various members of his court to...