Shakespearean Romance

If Shakespeare's last plays-Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and Henry VIII-are to be neither debunked nor idealized but taken seriously on their own terms, they must be examined within the traditions and conventions of romance. Howard Felperin defines this relatively neglected literary mode and locates these plays within it. But, as he shows, romance was not simply an establis...