Florizel the Gentleman: Shakespeare's Class-Consciousness in The Winter's Tale

Florizel the Gentleman: Shakespeare's Class-Consciousness in The Winter's Tale

Shakespeare made few changes for The Winter's Tale from its source Robert Greene's Pandosto: In Greene's novel, Dorastus is a most reluctant suitor for Fawnia, chiding himself constantly for being so attracted to a shepherd's daughter, while Florizel has absolutely no reservations about loving Perdita who is believed to be a shepherd's daughter. Florizel intuits about Perdita that she is actually gentle. The intuitive knowledge belongs to many of Shakespeare's gentle characters, such as Orlando, Arviragus and Guiderius The base-borns in Shakespeare's plays do not have the characteristic of the gentle. This paper insists that Shakespeare's concern of Florize)'s intuition comes from the notion of order which was a very significant part of Elizabethan thought.