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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Helena Haraštová The Puzzle of Pericles: the Play versus the Novel Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph. D. 2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. MgA. Helena Haraštová 2 Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my husband and my daughter for their love, patience and understanding during the process of writing this thesis. 3 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1. Sources of Inspiration ................................................................................................. 6 1.1 Apollonius of Tyre .............................................................................................. 6 1.2 John Gower's Confessio Amantis ....................................................................... 8 1.3 Lawrence Twine's The Pattern of Painful Adventures ....................................... 9 1.4 Change of Names ............................................................................................. 11 1.5 Other Sources ................................................................................................... 13 2. Pericles – the Play ..................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Historical Context ............................................................................................ 14 2.2 Looking for the Genre ...................................................................................... 18 2.3 Unique Structural Features: Choruses and Dumb-Shows ................................ 21 2.4 Bad Quarto and the Theory of Ur-Pericles ...................................................... 24 2.5 Two Different Parts .......................................................................................... 27 2.6 Theories about Authorship ............................................................................... 28 2.6.1 Early Years ........................................................................................... 28 2.6.2 Literary Experiment ............................................................................ 29 2.6.3 Improving Another Playwright's Work ................................................ 29 2.6.4 Collaboration ....................................................................................... 31 3. The Novel ................................................................................................................... 33 3.1 Novelistic Version of the Successful Play (History, Popularity, Context) ....... 33 3.2 Who Was George Wilkins ................................................................................ 35 3.3 Genre and Style ................................................................................................ 38 4. Comparison between Pericles and The Painful Adventures .................................. 40 4.1 Language, Verses, Rhythm ............................................................................... 42 4.2 Composition, Plot and Story ............................................................................ 45 4.3. Characters ........................................................................................................ 48 4.3.1 Main Characters .................................................................................. 48 4.3.2 Minor Characters ................................................................................. 52 4.4 Themes and Meaning ....................................................................................... 56 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 59 Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 62 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 66 Resumé ........................................................................................................................... 68 4 Introduction “So, as always with Pericles, the key words are uncertainty and popularity.” (Gossett 163) Shakespeare's late romance Pericles, Prince of Tyre (published in 1609) or just Pericles, as it is often referred to and will be referred to in this thesis, is usually ascribed (at least partly) to William Shakespeare. However, it remains one of the most mysterious works of the English theatre, and has always disturbed its readers. The text contains clear logical contradictions, countless corrupted verses as well as confusing and inhomogeneous passages. When studying the play as it is known today, it seems unbelievable that it was extremely popular at the beginning of the 17th century. But to study the play as it is known today also means to search for an older version, the original without later corruptions. In such a challenging task, modern scholars have often resorted to a nearly forgotten novel entitled The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608) or just The Painful Adventures by George Wilkins. Pericles is definitely different from all other Shakespeare's dramas, since it is the only Shakespearian play which has only been preserved in the form of a bad quarto, as opposed to a number of other plays (see Maguire 3), first quartos of which are considered corrupted but which have also been preserved in other – better and more credible – versions. Pericles is one of Shakespeare's late plays, not only because of the date of its assumed first appearance but also due to its romantic themes combining pre-Christian motifs with ideals typical of Christian medieval literature (for details, see Gossett 112– 1 121). The complexity of the plot, various settings, the unusually long time axis as well as the proximity to medieval genres only confirm the unique position of the play in the Shakespearian canon. Yet, the text is so full of evident errors and imperfections that it is very complicated to conceive of its original beauty. Philip Edwards calls Pericles “a hidden play, a play concealed from us by a text of confusion and with a clumsiness and poverty of language.” (qtd. in Warren 478) But despite this, the story stays fascinating and powerful; modern theatre productions of Pericles usually gain great success (for more information about modern productions of Pericles, see Gossett 91–106). There is something in Pericles that did not allow the play to sink into oblivion. This thesis will try to determine the substance of this unusual literary power, first by analysing the context, genre and stylistics of the play, then by introducing Wilkins's novel, and finally by comparing the play and the novel in terms of linguistic means, interpretation of the story, emphasizing various traits of the characters and working with specific timeless as well as temporal topics. It seems evident that the success and attractiveness of the play originate not only in the story but also in the unusual form, as well as the ambiguities about the authorship. That is why in this thesis, so much attention is given to various analyses of the primary sources. Hopefully this approach will lead to better understanding the key elements which cause that the play has always enthralled readers and the audience. Any analysis of Pericles would be incomplete if older sources were not taken into account as the basic stepping stone. In fact, Prince Pericles is based on the character of Apollonius of Tyre, a fictional king and a hero of many tales and manuscripts popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and still quite well-known to the Elizabethan 2 audience. Of the available sources of the story, it is certain that Shakespeare and Wilkins knew John Gower's Confessio Amantis (ca. 1390) as well as Lawrence Twine's The Pattern of Painful Adventures (1576), but there are other sources which might have been used. Chapter 1 deals both with the two main sources of the play and several other works that serve as an important source for better comprehending Pericles. Although William Shakespeare is considered the play's author in almost all editions including the First (bad) Quarto of 1609, and there is hardly any reason to doubt his authorship, practically all contemporary scholars agree that Pericles was written “almost certainly not by Shakespeare alone.” (Gossett 1) The main attention of scholars has always been aimed to the puzzling difference between the first two acts and the rest of the play. These two parts differ in all possible ways and to comprehend the reason means to understand the origin as well as the exceptionality of the play. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that the author with whom Shakespeare wrote Pericles was George Wilkins (ca.1576–1618), although there are still opinions maintaining the collaborator was someone else. The issue of dual authorship will be further discussed in the second part of chapter 2 of this thesis, which focuses on the play in detail. Nevertheless, George Wilkins will probably always be remembered as the author of the novel The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. It seems quite obvious that this work, printed in 1608, the year of the premiere of the play in Globe, exploits the popularity of the