If we consider all this, we will realize that dramatic romance, or, as it was then known, tragicomedy, cannot and ought not be judged exclusively by its realism or its social commentary. Romance speaks about society by speaking about poetry, art, dream, and transcendence—and about the quest of the individual, as human being and as art-maker, for identity and for eternity. In fact, Jacobean audiences loved Pericles.
