Pericles, Prince of Tyre has a great deal to say about listening, especially in contrast to looking. This Chapter demonstrates that in Pericles visual modes of perception are imbricated in regimes of power and exploitation, while audition is presented as a way out. When characters in the play lend their ears to sounds and voices that are all-too-often silenced, ignored, or drowned out – especially those belonging to women and the natural world – they are miraculously redeemed and regenerated. Marina’s voice, in particular, drives the drama toward its happy conclusion. To account for the power of her voice, I turn to Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and David Kleinberg-Levin, each of whom takes aim at the oppressiveness of logocentrism, celebrating instead the enlivening energies of the pre-semantic and extra-verbal. As do these authors, Pericles associates the plenipotent voice of the play with the feminine, the more-than-human, and the beyond-meaning, indicating that these can usher us into productive and ethical relationships with others and our world.

This Chapter examines the ways Prospero vocally projects his authority in The Tempest, either on his own or in conjunction with other entities. It unpacks the vast range of vocal tricks Prospero uses to gain and wield power over others, especially his disgruntled slave, Caliban. Drawing on the work of Jennifer Lynn Stoever, it shows how Prospero imposes and enforces a “sonic color line” that punishes Caliban’s vocal difference in a way that enacts racial oppression through the ear. To the degree that it does this, the play chillingly anticipates racialized listening practices that remain with us today. Nevertheless, the play’s conclusion gives us reason to believe that Prospero perhaps comes to recognize, regret, and even repent of his vocal tyranny. Though the drama stops short of enacting a truly ethical dialogue, this possibility calls out to us, albeit faintly, at the end of the play.