Cymbeline

"What shalt thou expect, To be depender on a thing that leans?" (pg. 29)

There's a strange, placid satisfaction in enjoying something that most people have dismissed, a sort of positive, constructive counterpart to schadenfreude; an assurance that, having appreciated something, you appreciated it according to your own lights and not because you were told it was great. Like Iachimo in the play's famous bedchamber scene, I approached Cymbeline with scepticism and with pen in hand, ready to note down any errors, only to leave unaccountably charmed.

I really don't understand the dismissal of this play. I thought it was rather great. Shakespeare's reputation has been forged on his perfection of various forms of established drama: his show more tragedies, most notably, but also his comedies and his histories. (I should also mention his satires, The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew, though many people tend to misunderstand them.) He took the time-tested conventions and laced them with his own incomparable genius, giving depth to heroes, shade to villains, and ringing eloquence to characters who, in other hands, would be relegated to plot devices.

Cymbeline, on the other hand, belongs to a small stable that Shakespeare sought to construct from scratch, late in his career. Neither comedies nor tragedies nor histories, this group of plays (including the likes of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale) are more freewheeling, more experimental. And like most experiments, the results are of mixed success (with The Tempest widely considered the most successful), and most of the commentary on them tends to be apologetic. Sometimes the apologies are generous (the Introduction to my Arden edition of the play describes it as "a comprehensive piece of impressionism, that… finally expresses something which Shakespeare never quite achieves elsewhere" (pg. lxxviii)), but they're apologies nonetheless. Cymbeline isn't generally seen as being able to stand on its own, unlike, say, the inarguable brilliance of Macbeth or Hamlet.

However, while Cymbeline is one that the academics and the iamb-counters will break their lances on, those who recognise that Shakespeare was an entertainer (and an erudite one, at that) will wonder what all the confusion is about. As one of those strangest of creatures, someone who reads Shakespeare for fun, in his spare time, I found Cymbeline quite straightforward and thrilling.

Despite three plotlines, it's easy to follow. In one, the exiled Posthumus lays a wager with Iachimo that his wife Imogen is virtuous and incorruptible; Iachimo's attempts to undermine this are the cause of much of the destruction in the play. In the second plotline, tensions between the British kingdom and Rome are inflamed by manoeuvrings in the court of Cymbeline, king of the Britons. In the third (and weakest), Cymbeline's kidnapped sons have come of age in the wilderness, and the play primes itself for their return. We get the usual Shakespearean doses of scheming, cross-dressing and soliloquising, and if Cymbeline is never a match for Shakespeare's more well-known works, it certainly shines bright for such a lesser light.

The play has a lot of energy right from the start, and carries it through right to the end (the final scene has the daunting technical task of wrapping up three plotlines simultaneously, and unlike, say, The Winter's Tale, it pulls it off). Cymbeline himself is a bit-part player, with seemingly little understanding of what is going on around him (perhaps one of the reasons Shakespeare didn't steer this play into outright comedy was to avoid the dangerous business of mocking a king). Guiderius and Arviragus might be the king's sons, but Imogen, his daughter, is the sun around which the play orbits. She enters the play unpromisingly, like a grain of sand enters an oyster, and emerges, layered by the various happenings of the plot, as a bona fide pearl.

Unlike some of his other great heroines, I don't think Shakespeare intended for Imogen to be this good a character. In this, an experimental play, she is accidental; and the reason I believe this is so is because she has no worthy counterpart. Cleopatra had her Antony, Juliet her Romeo, Lady Macbeth her Macbeth – and, as far as father/daughters go, Cordelia had her Lear. Imogen, however, stands among inferiors. Posthumus, her husband, is a bit of a drip, and Iachimo is a venal trickster (though the latter is irresistibly moved by her, he is too dulled in his morality to process it). Her father Cymbeline has no hold over her, nor indeed any sense that she is already outside his grasp, and it is only Pisanio who comes closest to deserving to stand alongside her.

It is nevertheless these interactions which result in Cymbeline emerging as a fine piece of drama, and one much better than its critical dismissal suggests. The play lacks the iconic lines that can draw the punters in to, say, Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, but it makes up for this lack with some truly fine moments of drama. Scenes like the one between Imogen and Pisanio at Milford-Haven (a tense encounter which wouldn't be out of place in The Sopranos – "What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper Hath cut her throat already" (pg. 90)) are, if not among Shakespeare's best, are only not so because his best is so high, and are comfortably among the second rank. Others are truly special: the famous encounter in Imogen's bedchamber might be one of the most erotic scenes in literature.

This latter scene is, quite brilliantly, for the most part a single soliloquy, and this fact reminds me that Cymbeline, while not iconic, has its fair share of lines too. Imogen's fatalistic replies to Pisanio in the afore-mentioned Milford-Haven scene are deliciously curt, and her romantic lament after her husband departs for Italy carries real poetry ("I would have broke mine eye-strings, crack'd them, but To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle: Nay, followed him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat, to air: and then Have turn'd mine eye, and wept" (pg. 16)). Even Posthumus gets his moment, with a bracing soliloquy on man's frustrations with womankind (pp71-73). The play might not be peopled with characters to stand with Imogen, but it is peopled with moments, and these are enough for the play to resist the leanings of even the most misguided critic. show less

Well that was fairly crazy! Convoluted plotting, humourous scenes reminiscent of the major comedies, preposterous coincidences reminiscent of Pericles, potions a la Romeo and Juliet or Much Ado About Nothing, girls dressed as boys like...almost every other Shakespeare play...reversals of fortune, repentant confessions, name a non-Tragic Shakespeare trope it's probably in here and it's all pretty daft. Nevertheless the last two Acts are fun if you can tolerate the silliness and just see how Shakespeare manages to resolve all the disparate and knottily tangled plot threads.

I have the feeling Shakespeare was in a hurry to get some of the late romances down on paper and up on stage and less concerned with deep characterisation or even show more witticism or puns than in most of the earlier work. He was probably a very busy man, by then, not just a playwright and bit-part player but a shareholder in a Royally sponsored stage company, with all that entailed. show less

This is one of Shakespeare’s most convoluted plots. It combines bits and pieces from his greatest works, but in a strange way. There’s a battle to rival that in Henry V, parental ghosts like Hamlet, a jealous husband like Othello and ill-fated lovers and faked death like Romeo and Juliet. In the midst of this jumble are the old standbys, a woman pretending to be a young page and banished people living in the forest. This play is divisive among Shakespeare scholars when it comes to its categorization, some consider it a tragedy and others a romance.

King Cymbeline of Britain is furious when he finds out his only daughter, Imogen, has secretly married Posthumus Leonatus, a man from his court. He quickly banishes Posthumus from his show more kingdom and shortly thereafter Posthumus meets Iachimo in Italy. He tells his new friend all about his beautiful Imogen. Iachimo isn’t impressed and makes a bet with Posthumus regarding her honor. Add in a devious Queen plotting the King’s death, her horrid son Cloten, missing heirs to the throne, warring Romans and a beheading and you’ve got the gist of it.

BOTTOM LINE: A strange mishmash of Shakespearean themes, but a satisfying if contrived ending. I’d love to see this one performed, but until then I’ll have to settle for the wild ride the play takes you on. show less

Cymbeline defies the standard genre divisions in the Shakespeare corpus. It sets itself up as a tragedy, with a scheming villain defiling the reputation of a young princess (e.g., Othello), murder plots and poison. Yet, the resolution is famously happy, with the main love interests reconciled and peace between Britain and the Romans obtained.

It makes for an interesting read, but it is this happy ending which is the most common point of dispute over this work. Not only is the play a happy ending, but the circumstances seem to simply come from one speech after another laying all of the scheming bare. First, Iachimo tearfully confesses his crime, followed by the posthumous confessions of the Queen, ending in Belarius' revealing that his show more sons were in fact the sons of Cymbeline, and so Princes of Britain. These events happen quickly, and the plots of the book are simply pointed out in convenient speeches. I have been told that it performs far better than it reads, but the problem is not with Shakespeare challenging the genre, but rather with the rapidity and tidiness of the conclusion.

On the other hand, there is another layer present in the ending. Cymbeline takes place in the time of Caesar Augustus, and also the time of the birth of Christ. Though not referenced directly, the plays fortuitous conclusion and honorable peace indicate an era of peace dawning on a conflicted land. One might read the ending of the book as revealing the power of the Christian's savior to bring peace to the Earth.

It also lacks a powerful villain. The Queen's plots come in early, but are pushed to the side as the play progresses. Iachimo, whose betrayal of Imogen sets the main conflicts in motion, is merely a charlatan attempting to win a bet. Like the Queen, once his damage is done, he plays little role in the events. Cloten is consistently obnoxious, and when he attempts to engage in some dastardly deeds, he is promptly killed in the attempt. They play more like the villains of the comedies, whose schemes move the plot along, but who do not take center stage.

Despite these complaints, it is still a work of literary beauty, filled within Shakespearean genius. In particular, the scene where Pisanio reveals his letter from Posthumous to Imogen is gripping. It is poetic and passionate, as Imogen reveals the strength of her character, dominating the scene and Pisanio. It also contains some moving poetry, most notably the first song (II.3, 19-27):

Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings
And Phoebus gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-Buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise,
Arise, arise! show less

Not a favourite, but mainly because the convoluted plot turns on far too many stacked up coincidences to ultimately be believable.

However, the biggest failing comes not from the play, but from Arkangel, in this one. In each play, they plug in some transition music to move you from scene to scene, which is all well and good, however, even with each transitional piece taking up less than a minute of airtime...

The music. Is. Terrible.

It's not fun to listen to, it's intrusive, and I, over the course of so many plays, now actually cringe each time a scene transitions.

And yet, even that pales to the odd time they actually put Shakespeare's lyrics to music. Again, simply awful.

And that's still not the worst part. In this particular play, when show more Posthumus (which is an absolutely quality handle, by the way. Good going, William!) sleeps and dreams of his family and, ultimately, Jupiter, the entire sequence is put to some of the most annoying music I've ever heard. It was so awful that I literally had to skip ahead to avoid it, and go to my hard copy of the play to read what I missed.

Honestly, whoever was the musical director for Arkangel should be soundly beaten, forced to listen to his or her own music continuously for a month, then have someone box their ears. show less

I sensed that Shakespeare trying to reuse his favorite dramatic devices, including: jealous lovers, wronged women, plucky heroines, male impersonation, scheming villains, idyllic landscapes, wise clowns. I also couldn't help noticing that, although the Bard called the play a tragedy, he was using a romantic comedy / adventure plot. He also gave the "tragedy" a happy ending, albeit a very complicated one. He had to unwind a large number of plot entanglements in one act. I found that complicated to read and wondered how it could be staged without turning into a train wreck. Despite that, I quite enjoyed reading the play, a rousing adventure with great characters. I thought was a vast improvement over the collaborations and a welcome show more lightening of tone. show less

This play is not greatly to my taste. But it does work on stage, and is a surviving work of the great writer. Imogen, the King's daughter is falsely accused of adultery, by the machinations of Iachimo, who creates an appearance of the deed. Imogen flees her father's court, but does recover her position by an unlikely series of events. the play did not give birth to the usual number of later clichés in language.