Pericles

The student of Pericles may be forgiven if he or she becomes confused. Before any question of judgement can arise the question is thrust forward, did Shakespeare write all of it? Quickly following upon the heels of that question is another: if he did not, then who wrote the rest? Here we are into the territory admirably mapped out for us by Suzanne Gossett in her 2004 Arden edition of the play. However we must beware from the beginning: scholarship is not united on the initial question. Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond in their 1998 Cambridge edition claim that the play is all Shakespeare’s, while Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells much earlier, in the Oxford edition of 1984, accept the view that it is a collaboration and set out briefly and clearly their reasons for believing that it is. Suzanne Gossett spells out these reasons in more detail.