Journeys and Spaces in Shakespeare's Romances

Abstract

Structurally Shakespeare's romances including Pericles, Cymbeline. The Winter's Tale and The Tempest show a common movement or pattern of separation, wandering, and reunion derived from the chivalric romance. Also they represent the pattern of pastoral romance of exile from court, pastoral sojourn, and return to court. Therefore, most of characters in his romances can be seen as travellers or wanderers who leave their own native places, experience a variety of ups and downs in the exotic and distant locations and return to their homes. Seen from the aspect of time, the major characters' life journeys in the romances exhibit a tragicomic pattern in which the catastrophic movement down into terrible disorder is followed by the anastrophic movement up to stability. The pattern also represents the cyclic movement from order and harmony through chaos, disorder, and then back to order and harmony. In addition, their tragicomic life journeys are depicted as recurrent actions in successive generations ranging from father to daughter or son. Also the continuous familial disintegration reflects the repeated past as history. Hence, such life journeys portray a world of archetypal order in which the recurrent tragicomic cycle ultimately shapes human beings' existence. The cycle is also closely related to the cosmic rhythms such as the seasonal change from spring through winter and then back to spring or the ever-changing sea showing the recurrent rhythms of instability and stability. From the angle of space, characters' journeys in all the four plays show the movement of exile from court, recreative sojourn in the country or exotic places, and triumphant return to court. Then, each world of court and country is described as an imperfect or real world, which has both positive and negative things, not the ideal world of the Golden Age in the Arcadian romance. The courts or palaces are shown as the most destructive and tragic place in the beginning of journey, but in the final scene, they are changed into the most harmonious and restorative world. Hence, through characters' life journeys, the court worlds shows the extremes of hell and paradise, winter and spring, and exile and return. The country or pastoral worlds symbolizing the mutual concord and love, compared with the court society of disintegration and separation, are also represented as an imperfect reality, that is, the distant and exotic places in Pericles, the Welsh mountains in Cymbeline, the Bohemian countryside in The Winter's Tale, and the enchanted island in The Tempest are seen as an uneasy haven lack of permanent stability and rest. Through the time and space journeys of major characters in Shakespeare's romances we can read the archetypal order of our human beings' life journeys beyond history, which repeats the cycle of loss and recovery, separation and reunion, failure and success. The journeys also reflect the cosmic rhythms of daily change from night to day, seasonal from winter to spring or historical from chaos to harmony.