The Winter’s Tale
So here’s the numerical breakdown…
- 2977 total lines; longer than the average (play: 2768; romance: 2658)
- Act Four, Scene Four is the longest of its kind in the Canon (836 lines).
- None of its scenes are the shortest of their kinds in the Canon.
- Act One: 508 lines; shorter than average (play: 582; romance: 572)
- Act Two: 471 lines; shorter than average (play: 567, romance: 493)
- Act Three: 395 lines; much shorter than average (play: 576, romance: 451)
- Act Four: 1046 lines; much longer than average (play: 560, romance: 610), and the longest in the Canon
- Act Five: 557 lines; longer than average (play: 484, romance: 533)
- 789 lines of prose (26.5% of total lines, which is slightly more than the average (26.32%), but much more than the average romance (19.74%); compare with The Comedy of Errors: 13.31%, Titus Andronicus: 1.39%, The Taming of the Shrew: 20.82%, 1HenryVI: 0.37%, 2HenryVI: 16.64%, 3HenryVI: 0.14%, Richard III: 2.89%, Love’s Labor’s Lost: 35.08%, The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 26.81%, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: 19.75%, Romeo and Juliet: 14.18%, King John: 0.0%, The Merchant of Venice: 21.79%, Richard II: 0%, 1HenryIV: 44.7%, 2HenryIV: 50.36%, HenryV: 40.89%, Merry Wives: 88.20%, As You Like It: 56.12%, Much Ado: 77.78%, Caesar: 7.47%, Twelfth: 64.44%, Hamlet: 27.33%, Troilus: 32.30%, All’s Well: 48.20%, Measure: 41.40%, Othello: 19.96%, King Lear: 26.28%, Macbeth: 8.19%, Antony and Cleopatra: 10.92%, Timon: 25.56%, Pericles: 25.56%, Coriolanus: 22.96%, and Cymbeline: 12.8%)
- 96 rhyming lines (3.22% of total lines, which is far less than the average [play: 8.35% and romance: 8.6%]; compare with Comedy: 20.10%, Titus: 2.42%, Taming: 3.93%, 1HenryVI: 9.79%, 2HenryVI: 3.16%, 3HenryVI: 5.37%, Richard III: 7.55%, LLL: 40.86%, 2Gents: 35.08%, Midsummer: 43.5%, Romeo: 16.61%, King John: 6.19%, Merchant: 5.16%, Richard II: 18.95%, 1HenryIV: 1.04%, 2HenryIV: 2.32%, HenryV: 1.80%, Merry Wives: 3.79%, As You Like It: 10.87%, Much Ado: 2.43%, Caesar: 0.41%, Twelfth: 6.09%, Hamlet: 4.91%, and Troilus: 5.40%, All’s Well: 9.05%, Measure: 3.16%, Othello: 3.09%, King Lear: 4.02%, Macbeth: 12.58%, Antony and Cleopatra: 0.99%, Timon: 5.33%, Pericles: 19.02%, Coriolanus: 1.17%, and Cymbeline: 4.08%)
- 15 scenes; less than average (plays: 21; romance: 20)
- 34 characters; about average (plays: 36; romance: 35)
Check out our “by the numbers” breakdown as an infographic!
