CRITICISM

Cutts, John P. “Pericles: ‘downright violence.’” In Rich and Strange: A Study of Shakespeare's Last Plays, pp. 4-23. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1968.

Maintains that Pericles is an active protagonist whose rash behavior sets into motion the harmony/disharmony motif in Shakespeare's romance.

Fawkner, H. W. “Miracle.” In Shakespeare's Miracle Plays: Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale, pp. 13-56. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992.

Advocates a semiotic approach to exploring Pericles's “muteness” as a negative speech act that “transforms truth into miracle.”

Freeh, John. “Pericles and ‘Marina’: T. S. Eliot's Search for the Transcendent in Late Shakespeare.” In Shakespeare's Last Plays: Essays in Literature and Politics, edited by Stephen W. Smith and Travis Curtright, pp. 111-35. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2002.

Compares Pericles to T. S. Eliot's “Marina,” detecting a common theme in which spiritual transcendence transforms darkness into light and absolute good.

Hart, F. Elizabeth. “‘Great is Diana’ of Shakespeare's Ephesus.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 43, no. 2 (spring 2003): 347-74.

Argues that Shakespeare intentionally included the setting of Ephesus and Diana's temple in Pericles to foreground the feminine issues of reconciling the virginal and the maternal.

Jackson, MacD. P. Defining Shakespeare: Pericles as Test Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 249 p.

Offers an in-depth analysis of the authorship controversy surrounding Pericles and details how the issue impacts the play's inclusion in Shakespeare's literary canon.

Jordan, Constance. “Pericles.” In Shakespeare's Monarchies: Ruler and Subject in the Romances, pp. 35-67. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Contends that Shakespeare offered a benign commentary on good versus bad rulers in Pericles, contrasting Antiochus's tyranny with Pericles's courage and Marina's benevolence.

Scott, W. I. D. “Pericles—The Schizophrenic.” In Shakespeare's Melancholics, pp. 131-44. London: Mills & Boon, 1962.

Psychoanalyzes Pericles's irrational behavior, determining that he enters a prolonged schizophrenic state due to an unconscious fear that he will commit incest.

Skeele, David, ed. Pericles: Critical Essays. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000, 348 p.

Collection of essays and theater reviews that document the lengthy critical and stage history of Pericles.

Vickers, Brian. Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays, pp. 291-332. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Summarizes the scholarly debate surrounding the authorship of Pericles.