- description
- # Section III
## Overview
This section, labeled "III," is part of a larger chapter titled "[PERICLES](arke:01KG6S4D9MD59KJ70ZSS7J97J8)" and is extracted from the file "[pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA)". It discusses the popularity and early reception of the play *Pericles*.
## Context
This section is contained within the "[PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y)" collection. It follows the section "[Wilkins' novel of Pericles.](arke:01KG6S5QAASGCSMH2444DA5GAC)" and precedes the section "[Early criticism.](arke:01KG6S5HQZ1X5C24R81GK7QND2)".
## Contents
Section III provides evidence of *Pericles*' popularity, noting at least six editions published between 1609 and 1635. Early editions, attributed to Shakespeare, described the play as "late and much admired" and frequently acted. Despite its popularity, *Pericles* was excluded from the First and Second Folios of Shakespeare's plays. The section also references contemporary literature, including a 1609 doggerel poem and Robert Tailor's 1614 comedy prologue, which attest to the play's warm reception. It further mentions performances at court in 1619 and a revival at the Globe Theatre in 1631, as well as its continued popularity at the Restoration. The text also includes a footnote discussing the play *Shore* and a reference to a footnote concerning the novelization of *Pericles*.
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- ### III
Of the popularity of the piece, both on the stage and among readers, there is very ample evidence. There were at least six editions issued within twenty-six years of its production, two in 1609, and one in each of the years 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. The title-page of the early editions, all of which announced the work to be by Shakespeare, described it as ‘the late and much admired play’, and noted that it had ‘been diuers and sundry times acted’. Not more than six plays of Shakespeare were printed more frequently in quarto within the same period of time. It was, however, excluded from the First Folio of 1623 and from the Second Folio of 1632. Together with the six spurious plays which had been fraudulently assigned to Shakespeare in his lifetime, it was appended to a reissue of
¹ For example, Marina’s appeals to Lysimachus and to Boult in the brothel scene, iv. 6, are far longer in the novel than in the play, yet they obviously come from the latter, at an earlier stage of its development than that which is represented by the printed text. One of Marina’s speeches in the novel (p. 66) ends thus:—‘O my good Lord, kill me, but not deflower me, punish me how you please, so you spare my chastitle, and since it is all the dowry that both the Gods haue giuen, and men haue left to me, do not you take it from me; make me your seruant, I will willingly obey you; make mee your bondwoman, I will accompt it freedome; let me be the worst that is called vile, so I may liue honest, I am content: or if you think it is too blessed a happiness to haue me so, let me euen now, now in this minute die, and Ile accompt my death more happy than my birth.’ A very slight transposition of the words, with an occasional omission, would restore this passage to the blank verse from which it was obviously paraphrased.
The popularity of Pericles.
C
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# PERICLES
the Third Folio in 1664 and to the Fourth Folio of 1685. Some doubt clearly lurked in the minds of Shakespeare’s earliest editors as to the extent of his responsibility for the piece.
Numerous references to the piece in contemporary literature attest the warm welcome which the public extended to its early representations. As early as 1609 some popular doggerel entitled ‘Pimlyco or Runne Red-cap. Tis a mad world at Hogsdon’ (Sig. C 1, line 6) included the lines:—
> Amazde I stood, to see a Crowd
> Of Civill Throats stretchd out so lowd;
> (As at a New-play) all the Roomes
> Did swarme with Gentiles mix’d with Groomes,
> So that I truly thought all These
> Came to see Shore¹ or Pericles.
In the prologue to Robert Tailor’s comedy, *The Hogge hath lost his Pearle*, 1614, the writer says of his own piece:—
> If it prove so happy as to please,
> Weele say ’tis fortunate like Pericles.
On May 24, 1619, the piece was performed at Court on the occasion of a great entertainment in honour of the French ambassador, the Marquis de Trenouille. The play was still popular in 1630 when Ben Jonson, indignant at the failure of his own piece, *The New Inn*, sneered at ‘some mouldy tale like Pericles’ in his sour ode beginning ‘Come leave the lothed stage’. On June 10, 1631, the piece was revived before a crowded audience at the Globe Theatre ‘upon the cessation of the plague’. At the Restoration
¹ *Shore* may be the play by Thomas Heywood, printed in 1600, entitled *The first and second parts of King Edward the Fourth Sc.* It presents the whole story of Jane Shore.
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PERICLES
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Pericles renewed its popularity in the theatre, and Betterton was much applauded in the title rôle.
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- III