 Dame Ellen Terry as Imogen - This article is about Shakespeare's play. The mythical British king Cymbeline is identified with Cunobelinus. For other uses of the word, please see Cymbaline (disambiguation).
The Comedy of Cymbeline, King of Britain is a play by William Shakespeare. Critics often put it in a grouping called Shakespeare's Late Romances along with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. Although it was grouped with the tragedies in the First Folio, it is almost universally accorded a place in the comedies today. It is believed to have been written around 1609. The King, Cymbeline himself, is based on a British chieftain, Cunobelinus, who reigned before the time of the Roman invasion. Though once held in very high regard, Cymbeline has lost popularity over the past century. Some have held that, written late in Shakespeare's career, the play was a personal joke of Shakespeare's, parodying his earlier works.[citation needed] Both William Hazlitt and John Keats numbered it among their favorite plays. The play is sometimes referred to as a "problem play", as it focuses on a character confronting a specific moral or social concern. The play is rarely performed, as it contains scenes that are almost impossible to stage (such as the moment when Imogen wakes up next to the decapitated body of somebody who looks exactly like Posthumus but isn't...) . Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
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Cunobelinus (also written Kynobellinus, Cunobelin) was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe of pre-Roman Britain. ...
Cymbaline/Cymbeline is a word that has the following meanings: // Cymbeline, a mythical British king often identified with Cunobelinus. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of William Shakespeares later plays, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale, and The Tempest. ...
Title page of the 1611 quarto edition of the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a play written (at least in part) by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected plays despite some questions over its authorship. ...
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Autolycus (1836) by Charles Robert Leslie This article is about the play by Shakespeare. ...
The title page of the First Folio with the famous engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout The First Folio is the name given by modern scholars to the first published collection of William Shakespeares plays; its actual title is Mr. ...
// Events April 4 – King of Spain signs an edit of expulsion of all moriscos from Spain April 9 – Spain recognizes Dutch independence May 23 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia. ...
Cunobelinus (also written Kynobellinus, Cunobelin) was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe of pre-Roman Britain. ...
William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, often esteemed the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson. ...
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The term problem plays is applied to the three plays William Shakespeare wrote between the last of his pure comedies (Twelfth Night) and the first of his pure tragedies (Othello) They are Alls Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida. ...
Performance and Publication
Only one early performance is recorded with certainty:[1] it occurred on Wednesday night, Jan. 1, 1634, at Court. (It was "well-liked" by Charles I.) The play was not published before its inclusion in the First Folio in 1623. In the Restoration era, Thomas D'Urfey staged an adaptation of Cymbeline, titled The Injur'd Princess, or The Fatal Wager. In 1761, David Garrick returned to a more-or-less original text, with good success: Posthumus became one of his star roles.[2] Events Moses Amyrauts Traite de la predestination is published Curaçao captured by the Dutch Treaty of Polianovska First meeting of the Académie française The witchcraft affair at Loudun Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay, Wisconsin Opening of Covent Garden Market in London English establish a settlement...
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ...
The title page of the First Folio with the famous engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout The First Folio is the name given by modern scholars to the first published collection of William Shakespeares plays; its actual title is Mr. ...
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King Charles II, the first monarch to rule after the English Restoration. ...
Thomas DUrfey (Tom Durfey) (1653 - February 26, 1723), was an English writer and wit. ...
1761 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
Portrait of David Garrick David Garrick (February 19, 1717 – January 20, 1779) was an English actor, dramatist, theatrical producer and theatrical manager, and a friend and pupil of Samuel Johnson. ...
The play has a relationship with Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding, a tragicomedy that Beaumont and Fletcher wrote ca. 1609-10, which tends to support the dating of Cymbeline—though it is not clear which play preceded the other.[3] Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I. It is still uncertain how many plays were their joint work. ...
Plot synopsis Posthumus, a man of low birth but exceeding personal merit, has secretly married Imogen, daughter of King Cymbeline. Cymbeline, angered at this subversion of his will, banishes Posthumus from the kingdom. His faithful servant Pisanio remains. Imogen was the daughter of King Cymbeline, in Shakespeares play, Cymbeline. ...
Iachimo (or "Little Iago"), a soldier in the Roman army, makes a bet with Posthumus that he can tempt Imogen to commit adultery. The falsely besmirched Imogen, warned by Posthumus' faithful servant Pisanio, fakes her death to weather the reverberations of this trick (as Hero does in Much Ado About Nothing), and makes her way to Milford Haven on the West Coast of Britain. There she befriends "Polydore" and "Cadwell," who, unbeknownst to her, are really Guiderius and Arviragus, her own brothers. Othello and Iago. ...
Title page of the first quarto (1600) Much Ado about Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ...
This article is about the town. ...
Guiderius (Welsh Gwydr), according to the traditional British history found in Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) and related texts, was the eldest son of Cymbeline, and succeeded his father to the kingship of Britain. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Two British noblemen swore false oaths charging that Belarius had conspired with the ancient Romans, which led Cymbeline to banish him twenty years before the action of the play. Belarius kidnapped Cymbeline's young sons in retaliation, to hinder him from having heirs to the throne. The sons were raised by the nurse Euriphile, whom they called mother and took her for such.
Some have taken the convoluted plot as evidence of the play's parodic origins. In Act V Scene IV, "Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt," then commands an untangled plot and goes back up.
At the play's resolution, virtually the entire cast comes forth one at a time to add a piece to the puzzle. Cornelius, the court doctor, arrives to dazzle everyone with news that the Queen, Imogen's stepmother, is dead, reporting that with her last breath she confessed her wicked deeds: she never loved old Cymbeline, she unsuccessfully attempted to have Imogen poisoned by Pisanio (without Pisanio's knowledge), and she was ambitious to poison Cymbeline so Cloten, her own son, could assume the throne.
Cymbeline concludes with an oration to the gods, declares peace and friendship betwixt Britain and Rome, and great feasting in Lud's Town (London), concluding "Never was a war did cease, / Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace."
Notes
Imogen Imogen is one of the relatively small number of great female roles in Shakespeare. The editors of the Oxford and Norton Shakespeare believe Imogen is a typo for Innogen, and draws several comparisons between this play and Much Ado About Nothing in which a ghost character named Innogen was supposed to be Leonato's wife (of course, Posthumus is also known by the epithet, "Leonatus", the Latin form of the Italian name in the other play). The Yale Shakespeare edition suggests the presence of a collaborator during the writing of this play, and certainly some scenes (Act III scene 7 and Act V scene 2) may strike the reader as less characteristic of Shakespeare than the rest of the play. Title page of the first quarto (1600) Much Ado about Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ...
In playwriting, a ghost character is a character that is mentioned as appearing on stage but neither says nor does anything but enter, and possibly exit. ...
Sources Cymbeline is loosely based on an authentic British ruler, Cunobelinus. Shakespeare took a tale told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and then added many additional ideas and sub-plots. Isaac Asimov notes the interesting similarities between the stepmother / daughter / stepson part of the plot and the actual or supposed circumstances of the Roman Emperor Augustus. But most of the play is newly invented by Shakespeare. Cunobelinus (also written Kynobellinus, Cunobelin) was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe of pre-Roman Britain. ...
Wikisource has original text related to this article: Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. ...
Asimovs Guide to Shakespeare, by Isaac Asimov, vols I and II (1970), ISBN 0-517-26825-6 Asimov gives a short guide to every Shakespeare play, and also the two epic poems. ...
Augustus (Latin: IMP•CAESAR•DIVI•F•AVGVSTVS;[1] September 23, 63 BC–August 19, AD 14), known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (English Octavian; Latin: C•IVLIVS•C•F•CAESAR•OCTAVIANVS) for the period of his life prior to 27 BC, was the first and among the most important of...
Influences Probably the most famous verses in the play come from the funeral song of Act IV, Scene 2, which begins: - Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
- Nor the furious winter's rages;
- Thou thy worldly task hast done,
- Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
- Golden lads and girls all must,
- As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
These last two lines appear to have inspired T. S. Eliot; in Lines to a Yorkshire Terrier (in Five-Finger Exercises), he writes: Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ...
- Pollicle dogs and cats all must
- Jellicle dogs and cats must
- Like undertakers, come to dust.
The first two lines of the song appear in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The lines, which turn Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts to the trauma of the First World War, are at once an elegiac dirge and a profoundly dignified declaration of endurance. The song provides a major organizational motif for the novel. Vanessa Redgrave as Clarissa Dalloway Mrs Dalloway (1925) is a novel by Virginia Woolf detailing one day in Clarissa Dalloways life about post-World War I England. ...
References - ^ There is a performance mentioned in the Book of Plays of Simon Forman. Even if it is genuine (not all commentators think it is), the Book of Plays reference is undated and lacks specific information.
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 125.
- ^ Halliday, p. 366.
Simon Forman (December 30, 1552 – September, 1611) was a prominent Elizabethan occultist, astrologist and herbalist active in London. ...
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