Siring the Grandchild in The Winter’s Tale and The Fawn

Abstract

Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1610–11) and John Marston’s The Fawn (1604–06) explore the father-son agon as intensified by the prospect of a next generation. Having begotten heirs, fathers find that this act of self-copying will be undermined if these heirs marry badly or not at all. Shakespeare and Marston stage paternal efforts to control children’s sexual maturation and thereby to “sire” grandchildren. The Winter’s Tale , however, also stages a way for fathers and sons to accept the passing of time and to alleviate their rivalry: by seeing in the succession of generations the succession of selves comprising their own story.

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