Why Bodies Matter in Mouldy Tales: Material (Re)Turns in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre."

Author/Editor
Oesterlen, Eve-Marie.

Title
Why Bodies Matter in Mouldy Tales: Material (Re)Turns in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre."

Published
Oesterlen, Eve-Marie. "Why Bodies Matter in Mouldy Tales: Material (Re)Turns in 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre'." The Upstart Crow 24 (2004): 36-44.

Review
This article includes analysis of Gower the choric character in Shakespeare's "Pericles, Prince of Tyre." It does not discuss the works of Gower the poet. Famously disparaged by Ben Jonson as "a mouldy tale," "Pericles" serves Oesterlen, quoting Judith Butler, as a kind of test case for examining "the reciprocity of language and the body [that] is so creatively explored in [Shakespeare's] romances" (41). The "rich strangeness" of the romances is "more visionary than metaphysical," as the embodied experience of characters and audience is transformed into a vehicle of revelation. In "Pericles," Shakespeare (with his coauthors) created a new genre, the "dramatic narrative," in a "'mouldy tale' forever prone to all kinds of textual and bodily returns" (41). She sees the character of Gower as especially suited to personify the transcendental via the corporeal, as he returns, phoenix-like, from the "mould" of death to introduce a drama of "spectacular bodily and textual 'restorations'" (36, alluding to the "restorative" power claimed by Gower for his storytelling at "Pericles," choric Prologue 8). Mould-y indeed, the play creates "the mold" for something new, a melding of "narrative and drama," as the dead poet reappears at intervals to narrate past actions not enacted on the stage and set the scene to follow. Throughout this play, Oesterlen argues, the near-miraculous regeneration of the human body will be accomplished in close communion with a renewal of speech and text (37), as demonstrated by "outmoded" yet "re-creative" poetic style of Gower the character. Through sight and sound, the ancient tale is transfigured as "a play that matters [pun intended]" (38). Similarly, the "paradox" of the queen's restoration to life "is framed by the similarly anachronistic presence of Gower as narrator. This play "delays the need for explanation long enough to let the performance dominate the desire to know [as Pericles states]: "we do our longing stay/To hear the rest untold" (V.3.83-84, p. 41). Spoken by Gower, the final lines of the play sustain the theme of revival: "New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending" (Epilogue 18). This "ending" will not be permanent, however, as "the protean body of texts stays behind, promising 'new joy' with every new performance" (41). [LBB. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]

Date
2004

Gower Subjects
Influence and Later Allusion