<quote>Exit, pursued by a bear</quote> <quote>Exit, pursued by a bear</quote> Author Maecyn Klassen Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Maecyn Klassen, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Animal Baiting Bear Gardens Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. swapped the desc and figDescs to be correct. added image citation and figure. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Maecyn Klassen Maecyn Klassen

Maecyn Klassen was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/

The appearance of the bear in the last stage direction of Act 3, Scene 3 of The Winter’s Tale is possibly the most well-known stage direction in the history of Shakespeare’s plays. It occurs after a courtier, Antigonus, abandons the baby Perdita in Bohemia after fleeing the court of Leontes. Antigonus is abruptly chased off-stage by a bear and mauled to death, at which point the Shepherd appears and confirms to the audience that Antigonus really has been killed. At this moment, halfway through the play, The Winter’s Tale transforms into a comedy of love and reunion, abruptly shifting from the tragic tale of jealously and betrayal with which it begin. Though it is a brutal way for Antigonus to die, exit, pursued by a bear prompts a necessary catharsis for the audience, allowing the viewer to relax, laugh, and shift their mind to the new comedic tone.

The Bear in Elizabethan England

I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain, but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed.The Merry Wives of Windsor 1.1.269

To the audience attending Shakespeare’s plays, a bear would have been the most well-known wild creature. Bears were a very common form of entertainment and a popular bear-baiting ring, the Bear Garden, operated near the Globe Theatre. Much like theatre, bear-baiting appealed to both the upper and lower classes, and it was a favourite pastime of royalty and commoners alike. Bear-baiting became known as a uniquely English activity and was so entwined with popular culture that a celebrity bear of the time, Sackerson, was mentioned by name in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The bears involved in this popular blood sport were perceived as creatures of sheer might and natural power, but in the context of bear-baiting and its popularity, bears also became humourous animals.

Tragedy to Comedy
Antigonus, Child, & Bear, painted by John Opie, engraving by John Hall. 1794. Folger Digital Image Collection. Public Domain.

Thou meet'st with things dying, I with things newborn.The Winter’s Tale 3.3.1554

Broadly speaking, themes of life and death are incorporated in a play to create separation between tragedy and comedy. Death features heavily in the first half of The Winter’s Tale and this focus ends only when Antigonus is killed by the bear. Literary scholar Andrew Gurr suggests that Antigonus’ death marks the precise moment The Winter’s Tale becomes a comedy. To Philip Goldfarb Styrt, Antigonus’ mauling and death is a kind of sacrifice, allowing space for new life to begin since Perdita, who does survive her abandonment, returns to her rightful place as a princess by the end of the play. The suddenness of the bear’s appearance also serves a dramatic function. Gurr discusses that, when confronted with something frightening, the audience experiences a fear reaction (424); once the shock is over, they are relieved and often laugh. The viewer’s mind is therefore ready for the complete tonal shift that comes directly after Antigonus’ death.

Since any staging of The Winter’s Tale would struggle to incorporate a real bear just for one stage direction, the appearance of the bear also plays into the humour and allows the audience some catharsis. As described by the Shepherd, the bear is enormous and incredibly powerful, strong enough to tear out Antigonus’ shoulderbone (3.3.1536). The reality is that the bear was more than likely played by an actor in a costume, and the discrepancy between the described size and what the audience has just seen as the bear is a dramatic wink at the viewer. However, scholars have not ruled out the King’s Men using an actual bear for performances, given the availability of live animals from the nearby Bear Garden.

The dramatic shock of Antigonus’ death releases the audience from the tension of the preceding tragedy of the first half of The Winter’s Tale, in which a lifelong friendship and a happy marriage are destroyed by baseless jealousy. While the stage direction itself has taken on a life of its own, exit, pursued by a bear represents Shakespeare’s deep knowledge of dramatic tricks and conventions, and how those principles can be used to guide an entire audience right from one genre to another.

Key Print Sources Hagen, Tanya and Sally-Beth MacLean. How to Track a Bear in Southwark: A Learning Module. Medieval English Theatre, vol. 37, 2015, p. 90. De Somogyi, Nick. Shakespeare and the Naming of Bears. New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3, 2018, pp. 216–234. De Somogyi, Nick. Shakespeare and the Three Bears. New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 2, 2011, pp. 99–113. Gurr, Andrew. The Bear, the Statue, and Hysteria In <title level="m">The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4, 1983, pp. 420–425. McPartland, Perry. References to the Doubling of Autolycus and the Bear in Shakespeare’s <title level="m">The Winter’s Tale.Notes and Queries, vol. 66, no. 3, 10 Sep. 2019, pp. 454–457. Styrt, Philip Goldfarb. Resistance Theory, Antigonus, and the Bear in <title level="m">The Winter’s Tale. SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, vol. 57, no. 2, 2017, pp. 389–406.
Key Online Sources Bear Garden. REED, University of Toronto, https://library2.utm.utoronto.ca/otra/reed/content/bear-garden. Accessed 6 Oct. 2023.
Image Source Opie, John, painter. Engraved by John Hall. Antigonus, Child, & Bear. 1794. Engraving. Folger Digital Collections. Call number ART File S528w1 no.21.https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img29382.