Along with his Pandosto, the source of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Menaphon stands as Greene’s most skillfully rendered effort in the genre of pastoral romance. Relying on the conventional elements of romance—shipwrecks, lost children, disguise, mistaken identities—the tale boasts a well-sustained plot, sprightly dialogue, and one of Greene’s most brilliantly drawn heroines- the princess who defiantly marries a pauper. Finely balanced between moments of sheer lyricism and darkly sensational elements, Menaphon keeps readers in delighted suspense and amazement until the very last moments, when true to the nature of romance, from its origins in Greece until now, love conquers all.

The Editor

Brenda Cantar teaches English at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario. She has written principally on the cultural aspects of sixteenth-century romance, in particular, their influence in the construction of gender. She has now turned her attention to the women writers of romance of the seventeenth-century.

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