SOURCE: Leggatt, Alexander. “The Shadow of Antioch: Sexuality in Pericles, Prince of Tyre.” In Parallel Lives: Spanish and English National Drama, 1580-1680, edited by Louise and Peter Fothergill-Payne, pp. 167-79. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Leggatt considers Shakespeare's inspired treatment of sexual themes in the otherwise episodic and somewhat incoherent drama Pericles, with particular emphasis on the incestuous relationship of Antiochus and his daughter.

When incest appears in Jacobean drama it is generally treated as a fundamental violation of nature, a criminal passion that horrifies even those who are in its grip. Arbaces in a A King and No King is driven temporarily mad when he believes he has conceived an incestuous desire for his sister; Ferdinand in The Duchess of Malfi will not admit his desire even to himself. Isabella in Women Beware Women will sleep with her uncle only when told he is...