Pericles, Prince of Tyre

[laughs]

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Coriolanus? Where did everybody go?

[laughs]

Would, would you repeat the question, please?

Certainly.

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Coriolanus?

Um, uh-

Well, don't stand there.

Next question.

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Coriolanus? Where did everybody go? Would you repeat the question, please? Certainly.

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Coriolanus?

Um...

Uh...

Visit SpinQuest.com for more details.

So in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out, O Helicanus, strike me, honored sir, give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me, or bear the shores of my mortality.

The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line, Eyes that do mislead the mourn nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic in that marvelous play midsummer night's dream is one of the most extravagant things in literature thou rememberest since once i sat on a promontory and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath that the rude sea grew civil at her song, and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea-maid's music.

This is so marvelously told that it almost seems probable.

So he's writing plays for men about men early in his life.

Now, what is so interesting is at the tail end of his career, in those later plays that he writes, The Winter's Tale, Pericles, The Tempest, Cymbeline, these are plays about fathers and daughters More so than they are about fathers and sons.

And of course, history plays are all about fathers and sons.

They're all about succession of one Henry to the next, right? So that's another interesting kind of curve of binding energy from the beginning to the end of his career.

You could see how somebody would come up with it, but it's terrible.

Next is Pericles.

And the dates I have for Pericles are 1608 to 1609.

Yeah,

I have it in 1606, so these really disagree.

Pericles.

Again, not my favorite.

And also not written by Shakespeare.

Any door, the right support.

So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out, O Helicanus, strike me, honored sir, give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me, or bear the shores of my mortality.

The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line, eyes that do mislead the morn.

Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic.

We miss a wedding day only because Imogen and Posthumus are already married, but we do have forgiveness and those who have done evil get their just desserts.

So, structurally, definitely a comedy, but the play shares that melancholic feel of Pericles and The Tempest, two plays it is close to chronologically, and which are often cited for their similarities.

This feeling comes from the fact that the play lacks the witty, boisterous dialogue of A Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing, and so the play is not so obviously joyful and comedic in tone.

Rather than verbally sparring with each other, Posthumus and Imogen are characters of virtue and loyalty.

And she embraces the return of her brothers, whose presence demotes her position at court as the king's heir.

Much as we can like her character, we expect a little more.

But perhaps a spikier character would have been out of place in this play, which has a fairytale quality similar to that that we saw in Pericles.

And in this mythic fable, the return to peace and harmony at the end of the play also means that Imogen must willingly take up a more traditional role.

Next question.

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Coriolanus?

Where did everybody go? Would you repeat the question, please? Certainly.

What plays did Shakespeare write between the two entitled Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Coriolanus?

Um...

Uh...

Yeah.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

Like, these are plays that-

Mm-hmm

Like they wouldn't go to a salsa class or they wouldn't go to an acting class.

They wouldn't audition for a community theater, but by God, they were gonna get up and run around and play a monster or Pericles or whatever you had them do.

And so it felt really, it was lovely to see An audience of folks who haven't been given this opportunity get that opportunity through your show.

I think that's one of the things that's so nice about gaming and that people worry about it with Shakespeare.