"The winter's tale": Leontes' derangement and the chronotope of melancholy

David Houston Wood
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:30 PDT

To recent critical formulations regarding melancholy and its role in the Renaissance humoral body, this project contributes the argument that melancholy's trajectory from its natural to its unnatural state carries with it a fundamental shift in temporal-senses. I illustrate this shift through close analysis of Leontes' derangement in Shakespeare's 'The winter's tale.' Based on Renaissance physiological texts, as well as modern psychoanalytic, anthropological, and gender studies, I explore how melancholy's inherent volatility signifies the masculine anxieties of early modern English patriarchy. I argue that melancholy's bifurcated temporal-senses serve to clarify the subjectivity of Renaissancee passions.