“Boy eternal”: aging, games, and masculinity in "The Winter's Tale"

This essay draws on a range of early modern writings on games and male development to examine aging men's nostalgia for boyhood play in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. In contrast to the psychoanalytic critical tradition, which presumes masculinity to be produced in conflict with women and/or femininity, I demonstrate masculinity to be a function not only of gender, but of age. The Winter's Tale explores the consequences of the early modern conception of boyhood as lying on a continuum with manhood, a conception reinforced by early modern views of the role of games in male development. I suggest that Leontes and Polixenes turn to games to affirm their connection to boyhood but that the drama problematizes this strategy by depicting these characters as collapsing boyhood and manhood, with pathological results. Whereas Leontes ultimately progresses toward normative early modern manhood—using recreation to recommit to his marriage and accept old age—Polixenes regresses, remaining fixated on youth and boyhood games. In this way The Winter's Tale questions as it produces a linear narrative of male development, folding back on itself to portray the cyclical nature of the aging process.