Stone and speech in The Winter's Tale: Patronage, oral transmission, and ecology

This article nuances the familiar binary of art and nature in The Winter's Tale by considering contemporary trends in manufacturing and art patronage that complicated both fields: trends that rendered nature a site for the circulation of cheap commodities, and incentivised wealthy patrons to signal their purchasing power by commissioning pieces so realistic that they seemed to merge with the natural sphere. Building on scholarship on oral culture and ecocriticism, this article suggests that Hermione's ‘awakening’ speech might be read as an extension of the movement towards hyperrealism, redeeming orality from contemporary prejudices and presenting it, instead, as an aesthetic artefact of its own.