ROMANCE, MASQUE, AND MIRACLE PLAY: THEOPHANIC TRADITIONS AND THE HYBRIDIZATION OF GENRES IN PERICLES AND CYMBELINE

Abstract

Lawrence Danson has argued that Shakespeare’s late plays hybridize elements of distinct genres. This tendency toward hybridization is especially evident in Shakespeare’s use of the earnest theophany. In Pericles, the goddess Diana appears. In Cymbeline, the god Jupiter. These two scenes are similar in their use of music, in their implicit pageantry, and in their being presented as idiosyncratic dream visions, available to and mediated through the experience of one character. The bodily appearance of a deity in this manner is arguably unique to these two plays. Since their first staging, these theophanies have been critically panned, either attributed to a co-author or subsumed under and thus conflated with the often recognized late-play “atmosphere of wonder.” More recent scholarship has established their Shakespearean authenticity and read the theophanies as, among other things, scientifically, socio-politically, or religiously significant. These theophanies ought to be read for their literary significance as well. They are consummate moments of generic hybridity, instances that hybridize theophanic traditions already present in three specific genres, webs of association according to Alastair Fowler: the medieval miracle and saint’s play, the romance, and the court masque. These genres would have been variously appealing and available in the heterogeneous spaces in which Shakespeare staged his late work. Shakespeare’s hybridizing participation in these theophanic traditions subsequently influences their later iterations.