this is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.
The Winter’s Tale IV iv
From a separation arising from homicidal jealousy to a miraculous reconciliation arising from love, in its broad movement from darkness to light, this “sad tale best left for winter” encompasses an extreme tension of opposites and range of emotional experience. It revisits the theme of tragic vulnerability which threads through Shakespeare’s late work. At the centre lies a mystery, personified by the character of Time, who oversees a sixteen-year gap, where the processes that bring forth the transformation, imaged through a statue coming to life, gradually unfold.
This mystery will be considered with reference to the Eleusinian and Mithraic Mysteries, Jung’s Red Book, the alchemical myth of the king, and the emblems from Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens. Art, nature, religious consciousness, and complex emotional life weave together in the process of germination and renewal. Overall, the weekend will explore the symbolic and alchemical themes embedded in the play and their relationship to Jung’s psychology of individuation.
