The authority of geography in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: Jacob Falckenburgk and Dionysius Periegetes

Taking into account the complex authorship of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, this paper surveys the intertextual influence of the Latin verse narrative of the Apollonius saga by Jacob Falckenburgk (London, 1578) and Thomas Twayne’s translation of Orbis terrae descriptio (The Surveye of the world) by Dionysius Periegetes (London, 1572) on the erratic geography of Pericles. Drawing on the Pericles/Apollonius tales (the play and its Latin verse and English prose intertexts), as well as the ancient geographic narrative describing the Eastern Mediterranean spaces of the settings, the play decentres the authority of ancient geography maintained via the well-travelled Apollonius tale or through the weight of classical texts. Pericles destabilizes the authority of both classical language and geography through a process of defamiliarization of and distancing from the legitimization of ancient texts and geographic tradition. Through the suggestion of alterity during the dramatic interaction, the play incorporates the recognition of difference and the support of tolerance within early modern transnational communities.