About this audiobook
King Leontes of Sicilia becomes convinced that his wife Hermione has betrayed him with his friend Polixenes. His jealousy turns an intimate suspicion into a public crisis, placing trust, family relationships and royal authority under strain. Other people must respond to a certainty that appears to owe more to fear than to evidence.
William Shakespeare gives the play a changing dramatic character, moving between the pressures of a court and a different social world in Bohemia. Time becomes an active presence in the story, altering the conditions under which people can meet and understand one another. Comedy and pastoral invention stand beside the consequences of suffering.
The play explores jealousy, responsibility and the possibilities of recognition after a long separation. Its unusual combination of severity and wonder asks what can be repaired, what must be remembered and how hope can remain meaningful when it cannot simply erase the effects of the past.
