ALTRALANG Journal
Volume 8, Numéro 1, Pages 329-342
2026-06-05
Parodying Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale In Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap Of Time (2015)
Authors : Dahmani Abd-el-illah .
Abstract
This paper attempts to examine how Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time (2015) employs Hutcheon’s model of parody in her rewriting of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. In contrast to the classical view of parody, Hutcheon (2003) reconceptualizes the definition for parody that dies not confine only in a farcical frame, but it can also take the parodied work’s literary dimension even further. Such modal of rewriting was applied constantly in postmodern writing. In her The Gap of Time (2015), Jeanette Winterson chooses to parody William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1611). With thorough analysis to the novel, the parodical novel reveals. To be carrying no attack against Shakespeare, but rather criticizing both the theatrical conventions and the societal scepticism towards some issues that were considered taboo at that time. Such taboos were social judgmental assumptions against themes that had to do with sexuality such as homoerotism, female sexuality and sexuality, etc. In this regard, The Gap of Time engages in this parody at both aesthetic and thematic levels. On the one hand, The Gap of Time would alter and distort both temporal linearity and bardic language of The Winter’s Tale. On the other hand, the novel would shed more light on some hidden themes in Shakespeare’s work such as homosexuality and women’s trauma. Such critical way of parodic writing can only be carried on through the application of postmodern techniques, which include: intertextuality, hyperreality, minimalism and temporal distortion.
Keywords
Feminist rewriting, Jeanette Winterson, literary techniques, Parody, postmodern literature, William Shakespeare.
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