Gower's 'Custom' in Pericles: Shakespeare's Hand?
- Author/Editor
- Boni, John
- Title
- Gower's 'Custom' in Pericles: Shakespeare's Hand?
- Published
- Boni, John. "Gower's 'Custom' in Pericles: Shakespeare's Hand?" American Notes and Queries 16 (1977), pp. 35-36.
- Review
- In Shakespeare's Pericles, the character Gower describes the incestuous relationship of Antiochus and his daughter as follows: "But custom what they did begin / Was with long use accounted no sin" (1. Cho. 29-30). By an examination of the word "custom" in Shakespeare's other works, Boni demonstrates that Gower's "custom" is used in the sense of "inurement or accustomation" (36). While Gower's lines (adapted from CA 8.345-46) are to some degree proverbial, they also fit well with Shakespeare's use of "custom" elsewhere. [CvD]
- Date
- 1977
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
- Influence and Later Allusion