• Nothing Wicked This Way ComesShakespeare's Subversion of Archetypal Witches in The Winter's Tale
• Jessica Ann Holt (bio)

In the fall of 1485, the Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer began the trial of Helena Scheuberin, a woman of Innsbruck and an accused witch. Her trial did not go as planned. The Inquisitor insisted on focusing not on Scheuberin's links to malevolent acts, heresy, or the practicing of magic but, rather, on her sexual history. Local authorities quickly put an end to the trial and dismissed the charges, leaving Kramer humiliated. Following this incident, Kramer, along with Jacob Sprenger, began writing their seminal work on witchcraft, the Malleus Maleficarum, first published in 1487. Kramer and Sprenger's work links the practice of witchcraftalmost exclusively to women and what they view as disordered female sexuality.¹ The claims of the Malleus circulated widely. By the mid-1500s, witchcraftwas linked explicitly to worship of and sexual congress with Satan, acts almost always perpetrated by women due to women's inherently weak and sexually voracious natures. Years later, these views were echoed in the beliefs, writings, and actions of King James I. By the time King James of Scotland ascended the English throne in 1603, his obsession with witchcraftwas well established. Under James's reign, witchcraftpersecutions increased and the punishments became far more stringent than they were under the reign of Elizabeth I.² Though it is not the first, nor the most overt, depiction of witchcraftfound in Shakespeare's writings, The Winter's Tale, written in 1610, is nonetheless influenced by the witch hysteria of his time.³ Shakespeare creates three female protagonists—Paulina, Perdita, and Hermione—and then links each to characteristics considered common to witchcraft. Shakespeare created these female [End Page 126] characters in the midst of King James's fascination with witchcraftand his intractable opinions on the reality and malevolence of witches. I argue that the characters in The Winter's Tale might be understood as an author's attempt to capitalize on public fascination with witchcraft. Whether Shakespeare intended it or not, I suggest, these characters also rebuke King James's intense animosity toward women in general and female witches specifically.⁴ Though this is certainly not the first study to explore the link between The Winter's Tale and witchcraft, by approaching The Winter's Tale with a more comprehensive understanding of the links between each major female character and witchcraft, modern readers with both academic and artistic intentions are able to explore a broader range of potential meanings and themes.

Women's inferior status and the belief that women were more susceptible to the lures of witchcraftare found in the writings of King James. According to historian Tracey Borman, the number of witchcraftcases in England increased significantly as a result of King James's influence.⁵ James states in his Daemonologie, first published in 1597, "The reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer than man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Devill, as was over well proved to be true, by the Serpents deceiving of Eva at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sexe sensine [since then]."⁶ Though it can be argued that overall King James approached the subject of witchcraftfrom a more humanistic perspective than that found in the Malleus, his writings make it clear that he had both an unshakable belief in witchcraftand that women, through their assumed inherent weakness and inferiority, were the most likely agents thereof.⁷

Both the Malleus Maleficarum and the writings of King James are rife with links between women and witchcraft. In general, Elizabethan views on witchcraftwere deeply misogynistic in nature. Satan's employment of witchcraftto achieve his evil aims was considered especially effective because of the following threefold effect: damning the soul of the witch, potentially impregnating the witch to create new followers, and creating an environment of unease, suspicion, and disharmony in society.⁸ As witchcraftcame to be more closely linked to Satanic practices, it "became a gender-linked offense; women, the witchhunting manuals repeated, were morally weaker than men and therefore were more likely to succumb to satanic temptation."⁹ The...

• 莎士比亚在《冬天的故事》中颠覆了女巫的原型
• 杰西卡·安·霍尔特 (bio)

1485 年秋天，审判官海因里希·克莱默开始审判因斯布鲁克妇女和被指控的女巫海伦娜·舍伯林。她的审判没有按计划进行。审判官坚持不关注舍伯林与恶行、异端或魔法实践的联系，而是关注她的性历史。地方当局迅速结束了审判并驳回了指控，让克莱默感到羞辱。事件发生后，克莱默和雅各布·斯普林格开始撰写他们关于巫术的开创性著作，即Malleus Maleficarum，于 1487 年首次出版。克莱默和斯普林格的作品将巫术实践几乎完全与女性联系起来，以及他们认为女性性欲的紊乱。¹锤子的主张广为流传。到 1500 年代中期，巫术与对撒旦的崇拜和性交明确联系在一起，由于女性天生软弱和性贪婪的天性，几乎总是由女性犯下的行为。多年后，这些观点在詹姆斯一世国王的信仰、著作和行动中得到了回应。到 1603 年苏格兰国王詹姆斯登上英国王位时，他对巫术的痴迷已经确立。在詹姆斯的统治下，对巫术的迫害增加了，惩罚变得比在伊丽莎白一世统治下更加严厉。²虽然这不是莎士比亚1610年的著作《冬天的故事》中对巫术的第一次，也不是最公开的描述，仍然受到他那个时代的女巫歇斯底里的影响。³莎士比亚创造了三位女性主角——宝琳娜、佩尔蒂塔和赫敏——然后将每个人都与被认为是巫术的共同特征联系起来。莎士比亚在詹姆士国王对巫术的迷恋以及他对女巫的现实和恶毒的顽固观点中创造了这些女性[End Page 126]角色。我认为《冬天的故事》中的人物可能被理解为作者试图利用公众对巫术的迷恋。我认为，无论莎士比亚有意与否，这些角色也谴责詹姆斯国王对一般女性和特别是女巫的强烈敌意。⁴虽然这肯定不是第一个探索“冬天”之间联系的研究和巫术，通过更全面地理解每个主要女性角色与巫术之间的联系来接近《冬天的故事》，具有学术和艺术意图的现代读者能够探索更广泛的潜在意义和主题。

在詹姆斯国王的著作中发现了女性的低劣地位和女性更容易受到巫术诱惑的信念。根据历史学家特蕾西·博尔曼（Tracey Borman）的说法，由于詹姆斯国王的影响，英格兰的巫术案件数量显着增加。⁵詹姆斯在其1597年首次出版的《恶魔学》中说：“原因很简单，因为性比人类更脆弱，所以更容易陷入魔鬼的这些粗俗的圈套中，正如过去所证明的那样是的，一开始就被蛇欺骗了伊娃，这使他在性方面变得更家常[从那时起]。” ⁶尽管可以说詹姆斯国王总体上从比马勒乌斯更具人文主义的角度来处理巫术的主题，但他的著作清楚地表明，他对巫术有着不可动摇的信念，并且女性由于她们固有的软弱和自卑，是最有可能的代理人。⁷

Malleus Maleficarum和詹姆士国王的著作都充斥着女性与巫术之间的联系。总的来说，伊丽莎白时代对巫术的看法本质上是极度厌恶女性的。撒旦使用巫术来达到他的邪恶目的被认为特别有效，因为它具有以下三重效果：诅咒女巫的灵魂，潜在地使女巫怀孕以创造新的追随者，以及在社会中创造不安、猜疑和不和谐的环境。⁸随着巫术与撒旦行为的联系越来越紧密，它“变成了一种与性别相关的犯罪行为；女性，正如猎巫手册所重复的那样，在道德上比男性弱，因此更容易屈服于撒旦的诱惑。” ⁹ ...