SOURCE: Hillman, Richard. “Shakespeare's Gower and Gower's Shakespeare: The Larger Debt of Pericles.” Shakespeare Quarterly 36, no. 4 (winter 1985): 427-37.

In the following essay, Hillman compares Pericles to John Gower's Confessio Amantis. The critic maintains that the character of Pericles shares many traits with the character Amans in the Confessio and undergoes a similar journey of self-discovery.

Shakespeare's Gower used to embarrass with his quaintness; nowadays, as often as not, he dazzles with his theatrical savoir faire. His choric role is increasingly recognized as an effective part of Pericles' dramatic method, while the effects themselves have become the chief subject of debate, most of which concerns the issue of mediation: does the Chorus create alienation or engagement, and exactly how?¹ The proliferation of aesthetic arguments parallels a welcome tendency to approach the play, whatever the circumstances of composition, as an artistic whole for which Shakespeare at least made himself responsible...