SOURCE: Solway, David. “Pericles as Dream.” The Sewanee Review 105, no. 1 (winter 1997): 91-5.

In the following essay, Solway examines the dreamlike qualities of Pericles.

Some to the Lute, some to the Viol went, And others chose the Cornet eloquent. These practising the Wind, and those the Wire, To sing Mens Triumphs, or in Heavens quire. 

—Andrew Marvell, Musicks Empire

Pericles, despite its earlier composition and disputed status, best sums up, of all the late plays, the character of Shakespearean romance. Its schematic form, its “gaps” and archaisms, its unadorned outlines and loose texture enable the spectator to observe with minimal distraction the tragicomic Muse at work. Its subject then appears not as any peculiar or local set of circumstances—misunderstandings, departures, reconciliations—but as nothing less than the universal dream of retrieval and atonement. The romance may be regarded as a dream not only in its unrealistic or improbable...