Sistering the Natural Roses: Glimpses of Female Fellowship in Pericles

This essay reads Pericles against the grain, homing in on the play’s glimpses of female fellowship. Pericles channels chosen affinities between women through a panoply of minor figures: the unseen character Philoten plays the part of hapless friend and unwitting rival, but the ‘fellow maid’ who later accompanies Marina proves simultaneously hyper-visible and easy to overlook. From Thaisa’s offstage initiation into Ephesus’s community of priestesses to Marina’s reported profusion of female pupils and the corrupted text of Diana’s reference to her female followers, the play’s action and print history prove receptive to a reading of intimacies among women as telegraphed through hints and elisions. Ultimately, Pericles invites us to link the act of creating ‘artificial’ sisterhoods to modes of artistry ranging from embroidery to storytelling. In doing so, it tutors us – Marina-like – in the art of discerning previously unseen possibilities and pushing them to the edge of visibility.