Pericles

Though listed under the works of Shakespeare, Pericles was partly authored by playwright-pamphleteer George Wilkins. Modern scholarship agrees that the play’s first two acts, as well as the choruses by Gower, were composed by Wilkins, while Shakespeare was the principal author of the last three acts. One of the reasons for the attribution to Wilkins is that in 1608, he published the prose work The Painefull Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre, which shares several similarities with the play printed in a 1609 quarto. Wilkins borrowed the story of Pericles from two sources: Laurence Twine’s prose work The Patterne of Painefull Adventures (1594) and, more significantly, poet John Gower’s 14th-century verse Confessio Amantis. The eighth book of Confessio recounts the trials of Apollonius of Tyre, a character possibly inspired by the historical Pericles, an ancient Greek statesman.

Stylistic differences separate Wilkins’s sections from the last three acts. While the first two acts focus more on unfolding linear plot points, the last three acts involve more character-led developments. Pericles’s lament for Thaisa, Marina’s conversions of the brothel-goers, and the conversation between Pericles and Marina, all occur in the last three acts of the play.