Defining Autolycus: Identity Construction And The Use Of Verbal And Sartorial Disguise In The Winter’s Tale

Autolycus’s importance in The Winter's Tale has often been overlooked by critics, which I believe should be rooted not only in his sartorial but especially his verbal disguises. To avoid being recognised as a thief, he employs a series of disguises, proving to be psychologically challenging. In the borrowed discourses of his verbal masks, anxieties surface that range from fear of capture to unease about his social status. Nevertheless, Autolycus's commentary on society is thought-provoking. Indeed, his identity is shaped by the community with which he interacts, illustrating an important reciprocal relationship that helps us to recognise the aims of his identity construction. My analysis considers the methodology of New Historicism, incorporating Rhodri Lewis's perspectives, by applying Stephen Greenblatt’s concept of ‘self-fashioning’ to arrive at a theory of disguise containing the core idea that Machiavellian deception (which guides Autolycus) is at the centre of identity construction.