SOURCE: de Alvarez, Leo Paul S. “The Soul of the Sojourner: Pericles, Prince of Tyre.” In Shakespeare's Last Plays: Essays in Literature and Politics, edited by Stephen W. Smith and Travis Curtright, pp. 197-215. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2002.

In the following essay, Alvarez argues that Pericles's journey to understanding moves from external to internal as he realizes that the harmony of the soul is achieved through the union of three parts: the “appetitive, the spirited, and the intellective.”

I

The story of Pericles¹ is one that, like the story of Troilus and Cressida, was very popular in the Middle Ages, as the story of Apollonius of Tyre. One of the principal tellers of the story was John Gower, who appears here, in the play, as the narrator. Gower is one who sings the old song. As Andrew Welsh puts it, “He is the ancient story-teller whose job it...