From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (Buffalo, NY: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 531-32. [This section was prepared and proofread by Deborah Hill.]
PERICLES
1608
THE LATE, | And much admired Play, | Called | Pericles, Prince | of Tyre, | With the true Relation of the whole Historie, | aduentures, and fortunes of the said Prince: | As also, | The no lesse strange, and worthy accidents, | in the Birth and Life, of his Daughter | MARIANA. | As
it hath been diuers and sundry times acted by | his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on | the Banck-side. | By William Shakespeare. | Imprinted at London for Henry Gosson | and are to be sold at the Signe of the Sunne in | Paternoster Row. 1609. | -- TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION, 1609.
And if it prove so happy as to please,
Weele say 'tis fortunate like Pericles.
-- TAYLOR, ROBERT, 1614, The Hogge hath lost his Pearle, Prologue.
With Sophocles we may
Compare great Shakespeare: Aristophanes
Never like him his Fancy could display,
Witness the Prince of Tyre, his Pericles.
-- SHEPPARD, SANIUEL, 1646, The Times displayed in Six Sestyads.
But Shakespeare, the plebeian driller, was
Founder'd in his Pericles, and must not pass.
-- TATHAM, J., 1652, in Jovial Crew by Richard Brome.
We dare not charge the whole unequal play
Of Pericles on him, yet let us say,
As gold tho' mix'd with baser metal shines,
So do his bright inimitable lines
Throughout those rude wild scenes distinguish'd stand
And shew he touch'd them with no sparing hand.
-- LILLO, GEORGE, 1738, Marina, Prologue.
This tragedy, I think, exhibits no equitable claim to be regarded as a work of Shakspeare's, any more than that with which it is most worthily associated, in the same volume, "Titus Andronicus." If one of these compositions is ludicrously shocking, the other is shockingly ludicrous; and the poet's reputation, I believe, would have been better consulted, by dismissing them both to contempt and oblivion. SEYMOUR, E. H., 1805, Remarks on Shakspeare, vol. II, p. 436.
Many will be of opinion that it contains more that he might have written than either "Love's labour's lost," or "All's well that ends well." DOUCE, FRANCIS, 1807, Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. II, p. 144.
However wild and extravagant the fable of "Pericles" may appear, if we consider its numerous choruses, its pageantry, and dumb shows, its continual succession of incidents, and the great length of time which they occupy, yet is it, we may venture to assert, the most spirited and pleasing specimen of the nature and fabric of our earliest romantic drama which we possess, and the more valuable, as it is the only one with which Shakspeare has favoured us. . . . From the extensive survey which has now been taken of the merits and supposed era of this early drama, the reader, it is probable, will gather sufficient data for concluding that by far the greater part of it issued from the pen of Shakspeare, that it was his first dramatic production, that it appeared towards the close of the year 1590, and that it deserves to be removed from the Appendix to the editions of Shakspeare, where it has hitherto appeared, and incorporated in the body of his works. -- DRAKE, NATHAN, 1817, Shakspeare and His Times, vol. II, pp. 266-286.
Though it contains one fine scene and many scattered beauties, the play is a bad one; it is destitute of reality and art, and is entirely alien to Shakspeare's system: it is interesting only as marking the point from which he started; and it seems to belong to his works as a last monument of that which he overthrew -- as a remnant of that anti-dramatic scaffolding for which he was about to substitute the presence and movement of vitality. -- GUIZOT, FRANCOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME, 1821-52, Shakspeare and His Times, p. 67.
It is generally believed that he had much to do with the tragedy of "Pericles," which is now printed among his works, and which external testimony, though we should not rely too much on that as to Shakspeare, has assigned to him; but the play is full of evident marks of an inferior hand. -- HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. ii, ch. vi, par. 35.
If it be the work of Shakspere, the foundations of it were laid when his art was imperfect, and he laboured somewhat in subjection to the influence of those ruder models for which he eventually substituted his own splendid examples of dramatic excellence. -- KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1849, Studies of Shakspere, bk. ii, ch. ii, p. 53.
The work as it has come down to us is not in reality a drama at all, but an incompletely dramatised epic poem. . . . Thus the germs of all his latest works lie in this unjustly neglected and despised play, which has suffered under a double disadvantage: it is not entirely Shakespeare's work, and in such portions of it as are his own there exist, in the dark shadow cast by her hideous surroundings about Marina, traces of that gloomy mood from which he was but just emerging. But for all that, whether we look upon it as a contribution to Shakespeare's biography or as a poem, this beautiful and remarkable fragment, "Pericles," is a work of the greatest interest. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. ii, pp. 279, 295.
Great part of it must be Shakespeare's; there is perhaps no part that might not be; and the general characteristics of story-management and versification are a very odd mixture of his earliest and his latest manner --- a "Love's Labour's Lost" blended with a "Winter's Tale. " -- SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short History of English Literature, p. 327.
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