SOURCE: "'To the Judgement of Your Eye': Iconography and the Theatrical Art of Pericles," in Shakespeare, Man of the Theater, edited by Kenneth Muir, Jay L. Halio and D. J. Palmer, University of Delaware Press, 1983, pp. 86-97.

In this essay originally presented in 1981 at the second Congress of the International Shakespeare Association, Dunbar examines the stage imagery of Pericles, maintaining that the "visual presentation in Pericles is integral both to the intellectual design of the play and to its theatrical art."

Pericles' quest involves a fresh exploration of a problem central to classical, medieval, and Renaissance thought: what is the relation of fortune to the gods and to human virtue? This problem, as ancient as the Odyssey to which Pericles is related in the literary tradition, is richly depicted in Renaissance visual arts which deepen our understanding of verbal and visual images in the play.¹ Iconographical analysis, including...