Shakespeare and Romance
A Short Bibliography
The following is a very selective list; most of the works focus on a group of late plays,
or some of them—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, sometimes
The Two Noble Kinsmen—that are often classified as 'romances', more rarely as
'tragicomedies'. Some take account also, however, of Shakespeare's predilection for
the romance mode and romance motifs in a number of earlier plays, traditionally
labelled 'comedies': The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, As You
Like It, Twelfth Night, All's Well that Ends Well, among others. Still others deal with
the late, or last plays, as a chronological group, including those which do not fit easily
into the 'romance' category. Romance, comedy, pastoral and related critical concepts
are dealt with in many of the works listed. An asterisk denotes the most immediately
helpful works on the specific subject of Shakespeare and romance.
I. Monographs
*Robert M. ADAMS, Shakespeare: The Four Romances (1989)
*Helen COOPER, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey
of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare (2004)
H.W. FAWKNER, Shakespeare's Miracle Plays: Pericles, Cymbeline and The
Winter's Tale (1992)
*Howard FELPERIN, Shakespearean Romance (1972)
*Northrop FRYE, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957). A classic. Many pages
on romance, the mode and the mythos, with numerous references to
Shakespeare.
*Northrop FRYE, A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean
Comedy and Romance (1965)
Northrop FRYE, The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance (1976).
Not solely or even primarily on Shakespeare, though his works are frequently
referred to, but a classic study of the romance mode.
Robert HENKE, Pastoral Transformations: Italian Tragicomedy and Shakespeare's
Late Plays (1997)
Maurice HUNT, Shakespeare's Labored Art: Stir, Work and the Late Plays (1995).
Substantial chapters on the five late romances, plus Henry VIII.
*G. Wilson KNIGHT, The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare's
Final Plays (1947)
*Raphael LYNE, Shakespeare's Late Work (2007). Addresses the concept of
'lateness' as applied to the Shakespeare canon, with full discussions of all the
late romances.
Russ McDONALD, Shakespeare's Late Style (2006)
Thomas McFARLAND, Shakespeare's Pastoral Comedy (1972)
Gordon McMULLAN, Shakespeare and the Idea of Late Writing: Authorship in the
Proximity of Death (2007)
*Marco MINCOFF, Thing Supernatural and Causeless: Shakespearean Romance
(1992)
Robert MIOLA, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and
Terence (1994). Has useful sections on The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth
Night, as well as Pericles and The Tempest.
*Barbara A. MOWAT, The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances (1976).
Robert ORNSTEIN, Shakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic
Mystery (1986). Treats The Comedy of Errors, despite its evident romance
elements, as 'Roman farce', and concludes with chapters on Cymbeline, The
Winter's Tale and The Tempest.
Simon PALFREY, Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words (1997)
*E.C. PETTET, Shakespeare and the Romance Tradition (1949). An early study of
Shakespeare and romance, covering a large number of his plays, both early
and late, as well as the work of two other important Elizabethan dramatists,
Lyly and Greene.
Leo SALINGAR, Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (1974)
*Hallett SMITH, Shakespeare's Romances (1972). Often overlooked, this is an
important work on the subject. Devotes long chapters to As You Like It and
The Winter's Tale in relation to their respective Elizabethan prose romance
sources, Lodge's Rosalynde and Greene's Pandosto.
*E.M.W. TILLYARD, Shakespeare's Last Plays (1954). Deals only with Cymbeline,
The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, omitting the collaborative Pericles and
The Two Noble Kinsmen. Nevertheless, an influential work by a major critic.
Rober WARREN, Staging Shakespeare's Late Plays (1990). On the late plays in the
theatre, by an experienced theatre director, Shakespeare editor and critic.
Long chapters on Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest and Pericles.
*R.S. WHITE, Let Wonder Seem Familiar: Endings in Shakespeare's Romance
Vision (1985)
Charles WHITWORTH, ed, The Comedy of Errors, The Oxford Shakespeare (2002).
The introduction to this edition of one of Shakespeare's early comedies,
traditionally labelled a 'farce', identifies and emphasizes its prominent romance
motifs, many of which recur in later plays, from Twelfth Night to the last works.
Frances A. YATES, Shakespeare's Last Plays: A New Approach (1975)
II. Essay Collections
*Catherine M.S. ALEXANDER, ed, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's
Last Plays (2009). The most recent collection of essays, all of them new, with
an excellent ten-page up-to-date bibliography.
*John Russell BROWN and Bernard HARRIS, eds, Later Shakespeare, Stratfordupon-Avon Studies 8 (1966). See especially the essay by Stanley Wells,
'Shakespeare and Romance' (pp. 49-79).
Carol McGinnis KAY and Henry E. JACOBS, eds, Shakespeare's Romances
Reconsidered (1978)
D.J. PALMER, ed, Shakespeare's Later Comedies: An Anthology of Modern
Criticism, Penguin Shakespeare Library (1971)
Jennifer RICHARDS and James KNOWLES, eds, Shakespeare's Late Plays: New
Readings (1999)
*Alison THORNE, ed, Shakespeare's Romances, New Casebook Series (2003)
C W Whitworth
Montpellier, July 2010