Cymbeline Group

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umbragetaker
umbragetaker

Is there a record of how "Cymbeline"'s character names would have been pronounced?

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Posted by umbragetaker on Thursday December 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM and tagged with character names, cymbeline, pronunciation, record, speaking, vowels.

Answers:


  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    In a word, no! John Barton (in his book "Playing Shakespeare") talks about original pronunciation, and I've put a link below to an audio excerpt which gives you an idea of how scholars think that actors in Shakespeare's day might have spoken. But it is all theoretical: obviously, Shakespeare lived long before the age of the tape recorder.

    Cymbeline's character names, though tend to be fairly uniformly pronounced. I've put below what is most usual - say it as it's written in the brackets:

    Cymbeline (SIM-BAA-LEAN)
    Cloten (probably CLOTTEN [to rhyme with "rotten"], though you sometimes hear CLOA-TEN)
    Imogen (IMM-OH-JEN)
    Posthumus (POSS-CHEW-MESS)
    Iachimo (YACK-EE-MO)
    Belarius (BELL-AH-REE-US)
    Guiderius (GID-AIR-REE-US)
    Arviragus (ARE-VIG-ARE-US)

    Sources:
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4761275

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Thursday December 4, 2008 at 2:41 PM