Gower (Pericles)

Play

Pericles

Summary

The figure of the medieval English poet John Gower (author of the Confessio Amantis, Shakespeare's primary source for the play) who appears as a Chorus to narrate, summarize, and moralize the action. He speaks in deliberately archaic verse — octosyllabic couplets evoking the Middle Ages — and his repeated appearances frame the play's episodic structure like a storyteller presiding over a tale told across many years and places. He is a unique figure in Shakespeare: a real historical author conjured as a dramatic character to tell his own story.

Notable Quotations

"To sing a song that old was sung, / From ashes ancient Gower is come." *(I.i)*

"In your imagination hold / This stage the ship, upon whose deck / The sea-tossed Pericles appears to speak." *(III.i)*

Cross-references

• Pericles — the play
• Romances (Late Plays)
• character_pericles — whose story he narrates
• character_marina — whose virtue he praises in some of the play's most admiring verse