Shakespeare's Pericles'

Type:

Book Chapter

Published:

2013

Publisher:

Routledge

Of Shakespeare's skill in the creation of individual character I think we may agree that Pericles contains no indications whatever, nothing therefore of his best excellence, but in this respect it is not much inferior to the Comedy of Errors and it is perhaps not more destitute than that play of the effusions of his vein of impassioned and fanciful poesy. Still the play has characteristics which have led critics, without exception, to recognize the hand of Shakespeare, and these have been found in style and execution, and principally in the fifth act. With this verdict I cannot disagree, and I do not know that I can give the grounds of it more definite expression than they have hitherto found. But the indications are quite as distinct of a different pen or at least of the same at a different time, and perhaps the choice between these alternatives is the most difficult problem connected with the play. Speaking from impression, I am disposed to think that Shakespeare remodeled a play of another writer from beginning to end, and that the discrepancies we observe are due to his sometimes contenting himself with lopping and abridging, sometimes taking the trouble to alter and insert words and lines, and sometimes recasting speeches, and perhaps scenes, entirely. We do not meet in the play with the doggerel verses that are so frequent in his known earlier plays, and what rhymed couplets occur are scarcely introduced with the judgment and system that are observable where he even …

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