Shakespeare the Bodger: Ingenuity, Imitation and the Arts of the Winter’s Tale

Drawing inspiration from Robert Greene’s deathbed attack on Shakespeare as an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, The Bodger (Elizabethan variant of botcher, mender, patcher) argues that Shakespeare’s dramas are compositions of shreds and patches pieced together by a mind of extraordinary synthetic acuity. Such patches include passages of dialogue that, as described in the sixteenth century, lead objects before our eyes by means of ekphrasis. The book offers substantial art-historical research into the only visual artist named by Shakespeare, Giulio Romano–who performs an important role in The Winter’s Tale as the alleged sculptor of a statue of the dead Queen. Giulio, heir to Raphael’s workshop, is known primarily as a painter and architect. My research has revealed that he was also a designer of sculpture. Applying historical and theoretical materials to close readings of several plays, I focus on the most critical issues of The Winter’s Tale–King Leontes’ sudden fit of jealousy; Shakespeare’s introduction of a surrogate playwright in the personification of Time, who refashions the play from tragedy to comedy, assisted by a behind-the-scenes female ghost writer; and the Queen’s statue amazingly coming to life through an interactive declaration of faith.