CHARACTER STUDIES
1. PAULINA; LEONTES; HERMIONE
Note Paulina's likeness to Emilia in "Othello." Jealousy in Shakespeare: Resemblances in Leontes to Posthumus ("Cymbeline") and to Othello. "The jealousy of Leontes," says Dowden, "is not a detailed dramatic study like the love and jealousy of Othello. It is a gross madness, which mounts to the brain and turns his whole nature into unreasoning passion." Is Hermione more highly developed than others of Shakespeare's suspected wives,—Desdemona, Imogen? Likeness or superiority to Alkestis, Compare with Queen Katharine in 'Henry VIII.' Is she hard, having made her husband do penance for sixteen years? "Deep and even quick feeling never renders Hermione incapable of an admirable justice," writes Dowden, "nor deprives her of a true sense of pity for him who so gravely wrongs both her and himself."
2. THE YOUNG LOVERS
Notice the high and pure character of their love as shown in the facts that Florizel did not find it fitting to buy pedler's "knacks" for Perdita,—a trait not in Greene. Her independent and uncringing nature as shown in another little touch of Shakespeare (see IV. iv. 492-497). Compare these two lovers with Ferdinand and Miranda in "The Tempest."
3. THE ORIGINALITY OF SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOLYCUS
For suggestions see Poet-lore, April, 1891. ('Notes and News.') Compare the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn with the Autolycus and Sisyphos of mythology, also the folk-lore tales of the master-thief (Cox). To discuss the probable originality with Shakespeare of a conception which is one of the universal inheritances of the Aryan race is futile; the type existed, and Shakespeare's part was to make an individual of the type.
QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION
Is Leontes' jealousy too gross and unfounded to be likely?
Is Hermione, not hard, but slow to be satisfied, because her love is noble?