Born at sea, buried at Tarsus, and found at sea again: Pericles and Liminal form

Abstract

In Shakespeare’s Pericles, hazard-prone dramatic subjects undergo any number of reductive transformations as they drift towards redemption. Arguing that the logic of these transformations resonates with certain anthropological structures, the paper examines the rituality of this late romance through the lens of liminality. Sequences of both trauma and healing in the play are suggestively compared with the movement of liminal subjects from separation, through trial, to communal reaggregation...