MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT GOING TO SEE PERICLES. I am planning to go to Pericles this weekend, and I wonder what I will think of it. The reason that this is the last play on the list of Shakespeare’s plays that I will see is that it is done rarely—probably because it is thought not to be to the taste of modern audiences. I haven’t made an extraordinary effort to see it either. It’s a Romance, and I am not that big a fan of Romances.
On the whole, I have a preference for realism and logic. Tony Tanner says:”The romance tale permitted, or rather encouraged, a copious abundance of incident, with little or no concern for verisimilitude, plausible links of cause and effect, or clear continuity.” I generally like plausible links of cause and effect in what I’m reading or watching.
On the other hand, The Tempest, another of Shakespeare’s romances, is a favorite of mine, and it is a play about magic substituting for cause and effect.