Genre
Drama, romance
Language
English
Setting and Context
Ancient Mediterranean
Narrator and Point of View
John Gower serves a choric figure throughout the play, introducing and commenting on each act.
Tone and Mood
Fated, chaotic, hopeful
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the play is Pericles and the antagonist is Antiochus. Later, the antagonists are Cleon and Dionyza.
Major Conflict
The central conflict of the play is that Pericles is consistently met with challenges and obstacles that prohibit him from returning to Tyre with his family intact. Only at the end of the play do husband, wife, and daughter reunite.
Climax
The climax of the play occurs when Thaisa appears to die during childbirth in the middle of a tempest.
Foreshadowing
Pericles' description of Antiochus' incest as hellish and demonic foreshadows Antiochus' eventual death by fire.
Understatement
Marina is the character in the play who speaks most frequently with understatement, as it is her innate chaste quality that makes others listen to her advice.
Allusions
The primary allusion in the play is to its source material, John Gower's Confessio Amantis (1393). There are also frequent allusions to ancient Greek and Roman art, culture, and mythology.
Imagery
Important imagery in the play includes music, fire, virtue, and the sea.
Paradox
The central paradox of the play is that Pericles, who only ever strives to return to Tarsus, is consistently prohibited from doing so by unpredictable events.
Parallelism
The various leaders in the play are all parallel characters: Pericles, Antiochus, Simonides, Cleon, Lysimachus, etc. The play contrasts these leaders to showcase what kind and effective kingship actually looks like.
Personification
John Gower is a personified version of a dead poet, but he is also a personification of the era of medieval drama more generally. Gower often comments on the events of the play with a medieval sensibility of right and wrong, which appeared frequently in medieval morality plays.
Use of Dramatic Devices
The most notable dramatic device used in the play is the dumbshow, or pantomime, that occurs with no spoken language. Even by this time in Shakespeare's career, dumbshows had fallen largely out of fashion.
