《冬天的故事》一如劇名所暗示，是適合在漫長冬夜圍爐聆聽。故事情節像是不合理的浪漫小說或童話故事，有時空的移轉、季節的交替，以及摧毀後的復原。
《全劇明顯畫分為兩大段，前半段敘述隆冬時節的西西里宮廷內，國王雷提斯認定王后荷麥妮與波利茲有染，國王妒火中燒，造成了（看似）無可挽回的罪惡與悲傷。
《後半段的故事發生於十六年之後，在春暖時光的波希米亞鄉間，雷提斯遺棄的女兒蓓兒初長成，在因緣際會下，和波利茲的獨子弗羅瑞共譜戀曲。蓓兒出身低微，故波利茲反對兩人結婚，兩人決定和忠臣卡密羅遠赴西西里。後來在雷提斯的宮裡，蓓兒真正的身分於焉揭曉，王后荷麥妮也奇蹟似復活，一家人最終和樂團圓。
This is the first edition of "The Winter's Tale" to be developed by and for the RSC, the world's leading Shakespeare theatre company and it includes unique material to help the reader understand and enjoy Shakespeare on the stage as well as on the page. It is illustrated with photographs of classic and unusual performances. It contains outstanding on-page notes which explain words and phrases unfamiliar to a modern audience, including the slang, political references and bawdy humour often ignored or censored in competing editions. The book includes scene-by-scene summary, offering an easily understandable way into the play; contains a completely new introduction by Jonathan Bate, exploring the text and critical debates around it; a summary of the play's performance history at the RSC and elsewhere; and interviews with important Shakespearean directors Dominic Cooke, Adrian Noble and Barbara Gaines discussing key productions at the RSC.This fresh new edition of one of Shakespeare's last plays, developed with the RSC, presents an easy-to-read overview of the play's performance history, including interviews with directors Dominic Cooke, Adrian Noble and Barbara Gaines, and provides concise scene-by scene analyses and textual notes offering innovative new insights into the text.
About the Author
JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.
