SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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I mother, wife, and yet his child. (I.I.113-117).
This is in opposition to the account in Confessio Amantis, where it is “the wylde fader”
who “thus devoureth / His oghne fleissh” (VIII.309-10). Shakespeare’s usage of the
word ‘kindness’ brings to mind Gower’s concept of kynde and furthermore implies that
the ‘labour’ was pleasurable to the girl. Instinctively recoiling from the incest he
perceives, Pericles immediately rejects his initial feelings for the girl, demonstrating that
he is a good king in control of his emotions. In other words, he learned what Antiochus
did not: that tyranny is destructive to self, family, and nation.
The subtle difference in the presentation of the daughter in Shakespeare’s play
seems to reflect early modern concern over growing female agency 4 . Marina is
associated with tempest and ‘death,’ and her beauty and virtue make Marina a threat in
Dionyza’s mind to her own daughter. Marina refuses to accept her fate when she is taken
to a brothel, rejecting life as sexual receptacle. Furthermore, she teaches—not usually the
purview of the female. She has wisdom not usually associated with female characters in
early drama. She is sent to Pericles/Apollonius to cheer him, and in Shakespeare’s play
the danger she presents is clear. Pericles looks at her with admiration, comparing her to
his wife and flattering her almost as if he were beginning a courtship. In the long years
of his exile he has never been tempted by another woman, but this young girl is attractive.
He tells her that she looks “Like one I lov’d indeed” (5.1.125). Incest is a threat here, as it
seems possible that he is attracted to Marina. Of course, Pericles, through his innate
4 Laura Tosi’s recent publication, “After Elizabeth: Representations of Female Rule in Massinger’s
Tragicomedies,” discusses the representations of female power in Massinger’s tragicomedies.