SOURCE: Jordan, Constance. “‘Eating the Mother’: Property and Propriety in Pericles.” In Creative Imitation: New Essays on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Thomas M. Green, edited by David Quint, Margaret W. Ferguson, G. W. Pigman III, and Wayne Rebhorn, pp. 331-53. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992.

In the following essay, Jordan argues that the incestuous relation of Antiochus and his daughter in Pericles constitutes a metaphoric representation of political tyranny, and that Antiochus represents Pericles's desire for absolute rule.

Bot yit it is a wonder thing, Whan that a riche worthi king … Wol axe and cleyme proprete In thing to which he hath no riht, Bot onliche of his grete miht. 

(Confessio amantis III)

This essay begins with a question: Is there any basis for reading Shakespeare's last plays—focused as they are on monarchs caught up in familial strife, often expressed as inter-generational rivalry between...