Donald Richardson Complete Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Annotation

Even though most Shakespearean scholars argue that Pericles is not entirely the work of Shakespeare, similar to The Winters Tale, it continues to attract playgoers. Shipwreck, famine, and other disasters punctuate this wondrous tale, in which a knight in rusty armor fights for his true love and a princess kidnaped by pirates retains her honor by setting a virtuous example for her captors (Daurio, cover). The play is a true romance, or as Joseph Papp states, it is a fairy tale about a separated familys coming back together again. (Quoted in Bevington). Papp also reminds perceptive readers or audience members to look for little bits of wisdom along the way; such is true of the entirety of the Shakespeare canon.