SOURCE: Lynch, Stephen J. “The Authority of Gower in Shakespeare's Pericles.” Mediaevalia: A Journal of Medieval Studies 16 (1993): 361-78.

In the following essay, Lynch argues that Gower serves as the “surrogate author” of Pericles, claiming that Shakespeare's use of Gower “involves a double strategy: a confession of authorial limitations matched with a claim to authorial elevation and mystification.”

The presence of so ancient a figure as Gower in so late a play as Pericles poses a series of immediate questions. Why, so late in Shakespeare's career, does he resort to a chorus? Why John Gower as chorus? Most importantly, what is the relationship between the choric Gower and the text of the play?

The first two questions can be addressed with a few brief, though tentative, remarks. A chorus seems requisite in part because of the very nature of the material as Shakespeare received it. The story of Apollonius...