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- # Defects of the plot.
## Overview
This is a section titled "Defects of the plot," extracted from a chapter on Shakespeare's play *Pericles*. It discusses the dramatic flaws in the play's plot, particularly its incoherence and extended timeline. The section appears on lines 13726-13738 of the source file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA).
## Context
This section is part of the chapter "[PERICLES](arke:01KG6S4D9MD59KJ70ZSS7J97J8)" within the collection "[PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y)". The chapter is part of a larger collection of Shakespeare's works, specifically "Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, Sonnets, and Pericles (Facsimile Editions)". It follows the section "[The nomenclature of the play.](arke:01KG6S5QA1AB8TXN1FP27H4V9A)" and precedes "[II](arke:01KG6S5Q9ZT62HK6BS4PD5ZM13)".
## Contents
The section critiques the play *Pericles* for its dramatic shortcomings, arguing that the Apollonius story is not well-suited for the stage. It highlights the play's multifarious action, rambling scenes across various locations (Antioch, Tyre, Tarsus, Mytilene, Ephesus, and Pentapolis), and the improbably long periods of time between events. The author cites Dryden's criticism of *Pericles* as an example of awkward dramatic practices. The section also mentions the play's production in 1608 at the Globe Theatre by the King's Company and its publication in 1609 under Shakespeare's name.
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- Defects of the plot.
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- 13726
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- Defects of the plot.
The play, whatever literary merit attaches to a small portion of it, proves, as a whole, that the old story of Apollonius’ travels is ill adapted to drama. The action is far too multifarious to present a homogeneous effect. The scene rambles confusedly by sea from Antioch to Tyre, Tarsus, Mytilene, Ephesus, and Pentapolis. The events cover too long a period of time to render them probable or indeed intelligible in representation. At least nine months separate the last scene of Act ii, where the hero’s marriage is celebrated, from the first scene of Act iii, where his first child is born; a year elapses between Scenes 2 and 3 of the latter Act, and as many as fourteen years pass between its close, where the child figures as an infant of one year, and the opening of
¹ Richard Flecknoe, writing of the play in 1650, called the hero Pyrocles. Musidorus, the other hero of Sidney’s romance, had already supplied the title of another romantic play, *Macedoras*, which appeared in 1595.
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PERICLES 11
Act iv, where she is a full-grown woman. The choruses, which are themselves interrupted by dumb-shows, supply essential links in the narrative. They ‘stand i’ the gaps to teach the stages of the story’. The whole construction gives the impression of clumsy incoherence.¹ Dryden, when defending the construction of his own play, *The Conquest of Granada*, in 1672, instanced *Pericles* and the ‘Historical Plays of Shakespeare’ as illustrative of the awkward practice of dramatists of the past in working on ‘some ridiculous, incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age’. The censure is fully applicable to *Pericles*.
The play was produced in the spring of 1608 at the Globe Theatre by the King’s Company of players, of which Shakespeare was a member. On May 20 of that year a licence was secured for its publication. The drama was published, with a title-page bearing the date 1609² and assigning the authorship to ‘William Shakespeare’.
- title
- Defects of the plot.