Challenging Exile
'Exile' comes from the Old French word 'essil', meaning "state of banishment, also devastation, destruction" (OED). In William Shakespeare's late dramas, especially Pericles and Cymbeline, exile and banishment are not presented exclusively as punishments. Exile and banishment are presented as separations from society that allow characters to be renewed and transformed. This is a new type of exile, one which values reform and renewal over punishment. This remarkable difference is caused by nature. Characters in these plays are set on new courses by storms, and educated by woods and beasts. Yet this change in the causes and functions of exile are not merely artistic expressions of Renaissance banishment customs. Banishment was a common punishment in Shakespeare's Britain, and these plays especially may have been subtle responses to the overwhelming power of monarchs, or symbolic of …show more content…
The prevalence of exiled characters in Shakespeare's late dramas could have been influenced by, or at least analogous of, instances of banishment in Renaissance Britain. William Shakespeare's parents, Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, were recusant Catholics. Shakespeare may have taken from the experiences of recusant Catholics who remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church amid oppression from the Church of England. It is possible that the natural banishment of Pericles, Guiderius, and Arvirargus were written in an attempt to challenge the "proclamations in the years 1554-1625...concerned with refining the process of exile" (Kingsley-Smith 11). It is also possible that Shakespeare felt estranged from his dramatic works, and was exhausted by all things except "poetry and poetical dreams" (Strachey 64). Exile in Pericles and Cymbeline can be read as symbolic of Shakespeare's experiences while writing these plays, though there is no definite comparison that can be