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Abstract
Shakespeare's late plays display a sustained and genuine interest in the Middle Ages. This interest, it is argued, was not primarily motivated by themes or ideas but rather by an exploration of narrative structures and generic boundaries. So, without disputing that a binary opposition between the medieval and the modern was propagated at the time, I will explore how the reappraisal of what was perceived as typically ‘medieval’ also led to creative experiments with respect to narrative and genre. Focussing on Shakespeare's adaptation of Chaucer's ‘Knight's Tale’ as well as Shakespeare and Fletcher's adaptation of Gower's ‘Tale of Apollonius’, I will discuss narrative patterns in Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen that (re-)construct the tales’ ‘medieval’ character. It is in the juxtapositions of grief, happiness, suffering and joy that the (re-)construction of the Middle Ages as an era ruled by fatum is clearly evident. Shakespeare and Fletcher thus tell the story of a world of inconsistencies and abrupt changes, and the key to their stereotypical view of the Middle Ages lies in their approach to narratives and ultimately in their choice and/or creation of genres that can accommodate these narratives. Paradoxically, the genre best suited to render stereotypical constructions of the Middle Ages seems to have been a genuinely ‘modern’ genre, the tragicomedy.
Notes
Klaus Reichert has traced a possible cause for Pericles' punishment in Ezekiel 28, 2–19 ‘Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord God, Because thine heart is exalted, and thou hast said, I am God, … thou shalt die the death of them, that are slain in the sea …’ (Geneva Bible). However, neither Gower nor Twine, Shakespeare's sources, suggests hubris as the cause for Pericles' odyssey (cf. Reichert, Citation1985: 206–12).
For a detailed account of Emilia's (sexual) empowerment cf. Johnston, 2010.