Shakespeare’s Romances and the Problem of Genre

Abstract

According to the ideas of structuralism, every literary unit from the individual sentence to the whole order of words should be traced closely in relation to the concept of system. The study of literary genres also attempts to find, classify, and reconstruct well-wrought related system in individual works of an author. Generic criticism sees literature as a system within the larger scale of human culture. It delves into the dominant factors that structure either the whole works or an individual work of a writer. Critics have debated on the similar structures in Shakespeare's last plays: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest. In recent times, they have been, without much dissent, defined as romances. It has been admitted that they all show unrealistic development of events, the fusion of comic and tragic elements, and complicated plots in common. J. H. P. Pafford even says that they are of a kind. This paper aims at generic criticism, exploring the structural similarities in Shakespeare's four romances: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and categorizing each of them into the genre of romance. Through Highet's and Bakhtin's close analysis of the common traits in Greek romances, I will pursue not only the origin of Greek romances and their influences on Shakespeare's last romances, but also their generic similarities in structure. The primary components studied in Shakespeare's four romances are: the lovers' adventures and obstacles, travel to distant and exotic land, the abduction of hero and heroine, the long separation of two young lovers, their unflinching fidelity through temptation and trial, inquiries into chastity and fidelity of the lovers; parental opposition to the marriage of young lovers, the flight of the lovers, their mishap such as a storm at sea, a shipwreck, an attack by pirates, captivity and prison, battles; faked death, the disguised identity of lovers, presumed betrayals, false accusations of crimes, unexpected inheritance of great wealth, the true birth and parentage of hero and heroine, reunion with their parents, and happy ending with lovers united in marriage.