Pericles, Prince of Tyre is one of Shakespeare’s late plays, which are usually grouped together under the term ‘romance.’ The romance plays are characterised by diverse events in numerous different locations and extreme reversals of fortune prior to an ultimate resolution which offers hope for the future, while not denying the misery that has been suffered in the past. In the case of this play, Pericles (and subsequently his close family members) certainly suffer from all kinds of problems and separations as they are carted about the Mediterranean Sea on a variety of ships. Reminiscent of Odyssey and the whole tradition of ship-board voyages representing voyages of the soul and flights of imagination generally, Pericles is cast up on one shore after another after shipwrecks. His first adventure brings him face to face with a royal riddle – he solves the riddle but only to realise that it represents an act of incest at the centre of the court which had taken him in and which could not, therefore, be revealed in public. Escaping from that island he is washed up on another where events call upon him to enter into a tournament with a prince for the hand of the princess Thaisa. In the nick of time, his armour also washes up on shore and although it is rusty, Pericles prevails and claims the girl and, also, persuades the father that he represents a potentially good son and heir. After a period of respite, Pericles is separated from his wife who, on board a ship inevitably and in child birth, appears to die. The superstitious sailors persuade Pericles to put his wife’s remains overboard to ward off a storm (women on board a ship have regularly provoked a strong taboo). He is also separated from the child after another tragic accident.

More voyages and events occur (somewhat reminiscent of what Henry Ford is supposed to have said about history that it was just ‘one damned thing after another’). Finally, more reversals enable Pericles to be reunited with his daughter and eventually his wife, who had taken up employment as a Priestess of Diana for lack of other opportunities. Consequently, the resolution is the reunion of the family which must be accorded a happy ending, even though audience members might wonder to themselves what kind of domestic bliss such a family might be expected to enjoy.

The play itself is thought to have been written sometime between 1603-8, since a published version from 1609 appears to be a garbled version relying on someone’s memory of a performance (although this is largely speculation). The fairly chaotic way in which the play has been put together has encouraged some people to believe that a collaborator may have been involved – then again, there are some people who are very willing to sense upon any excuse to argue that Shakespeare was not the author of almost any of his works.