Riddled Romance: Kingship and Kinship in Pericles

Despite the construction of a fantasy romance world in Pericles, where goodness is rewarded and regeneration is realized, contradictions within the text seem to resist romance. Pericles in no way lacks romance conventions, but a full awareness of them leads paradoxically to the conclusion that the play uses those generic conventions to challenge the basic assumptions of romance. Naturalized representations of power and patriarchy undergo a critique, as Shakespeare addresses familiar discourses and reverses their dynamics to emphasize that they are not as natural as we assume them to be — inside the romance world and perhaps outside it as well.