Other editions of book Cymbeline

"Cymbeline" by William Shakespeare. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The King of Britain, enraged by his daughter’s disobedience in marrying against his wishes, banishes his new son-in-law. Having fled to Rome, the exiled husband makes a foolish wager with a villain he encounters there - gambling on the fidelity of his abandoned wife. Combining courtly menace and horror, comedy and melodrama, Cymbeline is a moving depiction of two young lovers driven apart by deceit and self-doubt.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611.

Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's most ambitious and complicated plays, tells the story of a mythic king of England, Cymbeline, who reigned during the first century A.D. Its several plots trace the tribulations of the King and his royal family on several different levels: on one, the King's daughter, Imogen, marries Posthumus Leonatus, a noble but rather indigent lord, against her father's wishes; on another, Cymbeline defies Caius Lucius of the Roman Empire, who demands tribute from England. Another plot, adapted from Boccaccio's Decameron, concerns the framing of Imogen for adultery; and yet another traces the restoration to royalty of Cymbeline's long-lost sons, Arvigarus and Guiderius.Cymbeline is generally thought to have been written and first performed in 1609-10, placing the play after his last period of tragedies such as Pericles (1608-9) and Timon of Athens (1607-8) and directly before his final sole-authorship plays, The Winter's Tale (1610-11) and The Tempest (1611). Those latter two plays are generally acknowledged to be masterpieces of Shakespeare's late Romance genre. Cymbeline, to be frank, isn't. For centuries it was looked upon as one of Shakespeare's weakest works--unnecessarily complex in its plot and unusually forceless in its poetry. The famous critic Samuel Johnson wrote in his General Observations on the Plays of Shakespeare(1756): "To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names...and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation." This damning judgment was echoed in the twentieth century by the playwright George Bernard Shaw.Recent critics, however, have not been so quick to dismiss Cymbeline. The play's absurdities, which Johnson took umbrage at, are indeed abundant. But Johnson, writing during the so-called "Age of Reason", objected to A Midsummer Night's Dream--perhaps the most popular Shakespearean play of all--for the same sort of farfetchedness. Sympathetic critics have emphasized the way in which Cymbelineseems to be aware, so to speak, of its own excessive artificiality and theatricality. In other words, Cymbeline doesn't fail to be realistic because it isn't trying to be realistic. In this light, its wild disregard for continuity, baroque plot, and constant mixing of tragedy and comedy can be considered essential rather than detrimental to the play's purpose.Cymbeline is best read, at least until one adapts to its peculiar attractions, in light of its place among Shakespeare's more well-known works. As J.M. Nosworthey argues, the play represents a great experiment of sorts: the invention of the Romance genre. Books upon books have been written attempting to nail down the niceties of Shakespearean Romance, but the hallmark of Shakespearean Romance is fairly simple: in his romances, Shakespeare mixes comic, historical and tragic qualities together, expressing all of them at the same time. He had already introduced tragic elements to comedy--think of the sex extortion in Measure for Measure--and comic elements to tragedy--the drunken porter in Macbeth or the gravediggers in Hamlet. However, he had never combined these two forces into one expressive mode until Cymbeline (or, some argue, Pericles, which is Cymbeline's direct precursor). Thus, in this reading, the play's overwrought absurdity is the understandable result of experimental genre-bending that Shakespeare would come to master in his final Romances.It is not necessary to place Cymbeline in the context of Shakespeare's other, perhaps better plays to see that it has merits of its own. Foremost among these is the play's heroine, Imogen.

Annotated with image details.Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611. William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Such theories are often criticised for failing to adequately note that few records survive of most commoners of the period.

There are two main lines: the story of the lovers of Postum and Imogen and the story of lost and found royal sons. All this, like a silver frame, is framed by sufferings, oaths of loyalty, amazing coincidences and other tasty Shakespearean curlicues. Postum was simply naive and blind, like most of the heroes of Shakespeare. And Imogen, in my opinion one of the most intelligent and clever heroines of him.

Surrounded by historical myth and intrigue, Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" weaves an elaborate tale of palatial envy and power. Cymbeline, King of Britain, commands the wedlock of his lovely daughter Imogen to Cloten, the son of the Queen by a former husband. With her passionate eyes set upon the poor yet heroic Posthumus, Imogen refuses. Disgusted at the prospect of his daughter marrying a lower class citizen, Cymbeline banishes Posthumus from Britain. With death and deceit between them, Imogen and Posthumus tread international waters in an attempt to be reunited. First performed as early as 1611, Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" remains a highly playful yet tragic depiction of young love.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its date of composition is unknown, the play is known to have been produced as early as 1611.