Pericles (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Suzanne Gossett (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2004

Controversy has surrounded Pericles for centuries, due to the fact that critics and editors have argued that much of the play was written between 1607 and 1608 by one of Shakespeare's inferior collaborators, and that it shows in both its style and content. However, Shakespeare was clearly the driving force behind the play, and it is important to remember that it was one of the most popular plays of its time. In the Arden Shakespeare Third Series edition, Suzanne Gossett gives readers a detailed introduction to the probable circumstances by which this anomaly of the Shakespeare canon was created, but also provides a thorough critical interpretation of the text, its characters, and its themes. A doubling chart for casting is included as an appendix.

The Arden Shakespeare has developed a reputation as the pre-eminent critical edition of Shakespeare for its exceptional scholarship, reflected in the thoroughness of each volume. An introduction comprehensively contextualizes the play, chronicling the history and culture that surrounded and influenced Shakespeare at the time of its writing and performance, and closely surveying critical approaches to the work. Detailed appendices address problems like dating and casting, and analyze the differing Quarto and Folio sources. A full commentary by one or more of the play’s foremost contemporary scholars illuminates the text, glossing unfamiliar terms and drawing from an abundance of research and expertise to explain allusions and significant background information. Highly informative and accessible, Arden offers the fullest experience of Shakespeare available to a reader.

 

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
General Editors' preface
Preface
INTRODUCTION
'Everyone with claps can sound': the popularity of Pericles
'Incke, and paper': text and printing history
   The condition of Q
   Proposed explanations for Q
   Early reprints
'To foster is not always to preserve': editing Pericles
   The editorial task
   Editing and interpretation
'Her art sisters the natural roses': the creation of Pericles
   'Winged time': date and circumstances
   'Fit counsellor and servant for a prince': evidence for collaboration
   'From ashes ancient Gower is come': sources of Pericles
   'What pageantry, what feats, what shows': the theatrical context
'The stages of our story': Gower and the structure of Pericles
'It hath been sung at festivals': production history
Interpretation and critical history
   'The heavens through you increase our wonder': reading Pericles ideologically
   'A book of all that monarchs do': reading Pericles politically
   'Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are?': reading Pericles geographically
   'You not your child well-loving': reading Pericles through the family
   'Make us love your goodly gifts: Pericles and the gift
   'Her way to go with warrant': imperatives for a conclusion
Collaboration, one last time
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE
Longer notes
Appendix on casting
   Doubling chart
Abbreviations and References
   Abbreviations Used in Notes
   Works By and Partly By Shakespeare
   Editions of Shakespeare Collated
   Other Works Cited
   Modern Productions Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Suzanne Gossett is Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago. She has edited or co-edited Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair as well as Jonson, Marston, and Chapman's Eastward Ho!, Thomas Middleton's A Fair Quarrel, Lady Mary Wroth's Urania, Jacobean academic plays, and plays from the English College, Rome. Her publications include many articles on Shakespeare and his contemporaries. She is one of the general editors of the Arden Early Modern Drama series.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Arden Shakespeare; 3rd edition (March 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903436850
• ISBN-13: 978-1903436851
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for Shakespeare Snobs, September 6, 2004

By 

Craig Gustafson (Lombard, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pericles (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) (Paperback)

Aside from people who just plain hate Shakespeare (and I don't get them at ALL), there are two types of Shakespeare Snobs. 1. The ones who think Shakespeare couldn't have written his plays because he wasn't born to nobility. These people are idiots. 2. The ones who idolize Shakespeare to the point where, if they don't like one of his plays, He Obviously Couldn't Have Written It -- he is incapable of writing something they don't like. Um... right. Let's apply this rationale to a latter day artist: since Charlie Chaplin made "The Gold Rush", he obviously had nothing to do with "A King in New York."

Geniuses grow and change with everything they do. The Beatles of "A Hard Day's Night" are not the Beatles of "A Day in the Life." Shakespeare spent his career shifting with the tides of what was Currently Popular. If he had lived in the mid 1970's, he would have followed a "Five Easy Pieces" with a "Star Wars". He rolled with the flow, but stamped his own creativity on every work. "Pericles" and the other later romances were written because that's what the current popular genre was. Box office dictated form; artistry dictated content.

Having recently read "Pericles", I have to say that it's one of the best, wackiest plays ever written. (I also think "Measure for Measure" is meant to be darkly funny, not brooding and angsty; but that's just me.) "Pericles" is what would happen if the writer of the Hee Haw "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me" song had decided to make a Hope and Crosby Road picture. Unlike Shakespeare's tragic heroes and their Fatal Flaws, Pericles is just a poor schmuck (who happens to be a king) upon whom Murphy's Law comes down like a 50 pound hammer. EVERYTHING happens to this poor guy; your jaw drops at his second or third consecutive shipwreck.

The opening scene alone is worth the price of admission. Pericles has to guess the answer to the riddle of a very John Cleesian king. If he guesses right, he marries the princess. If he guesses wrong, he dies. Unfortunately, he guesses the right answer -- that the king is screwing his own daughter -- and he can't possibly say it out loud. He'll be killed if he answers and killed if he doesn't. It's a very Ralph Kramden hummena-hummena-hummena moment.

And the Act IV brothel scenes, where Pericles' daughter Marina has been sold into prostitution, are among the funniest scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. She doesn't just hold onto her virginity -- every male who tries to do her is coverted to the path of righteousness and the brothel is losing its shirt.

Nevertheless, you feel for the characters even while laughing at the outlandish sheer enormity of each new disaster; Bambi getting killed isn't funny. Bambi getting squashed by Godzilla is hysterical. The reconciliation scene is one of Shakespeare's most affecting.

If you like quirkiness, this is a wonderful play.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good But Not Great, February 16, 2006

By 

Richard M. Peck "The Great Dabbler" (St. Charles, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pericles (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) (Paperback)

This is a quirky play. The first act is quite disconnected to

the rest of the play - a number of characters and the setting are not revisted again in the play and have little to do with remaining four acts. In the third act, the play finally stretches out, the language improves, there is more dramatic tension and interest. Indeed, the language is quite beautiful in the last three acts. The identification scenes are done nicely - it is clear what will happen (Pericles is going to find out that the young woman he is talking to is his daughter) but Shakespeare still manages to create tension and drama as the scene unfolds.

This edition has a good introduction, though it tends to linger over the co-authorship issue. It is widely believed that the play had a co-author for this play and the introduction goes through all the scholarly twist and turns of the debate on who was the co-author, and so forth. Still the introduction is helpful.

4.0 out of 5 stars Love Shakespeare! Love free!, April 2, 2011

By 

Autumn - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pericles (Kindle Edition)

This is the first Kindle edition Shakespeare play I have tried. Great read only if your a Shakespeare fan. I held back one star because of grammer, spelling, and poor formattimg. This editon was free on my Kindle. Although I had heard of the title previously I never did make time to read it. Enjoy as I did.