Cymbeline
Cymbeline,a play by Shakespeare , first published in the Folio of 1623 . It may have been written in 1609/10 ; Forman saw a performance of it, perhaps at the Globe, probably in Apr. 1611 . Its sources are Holinshed , A Mirror for Magistrates , and perhaps Boccaccio's Decameron (See also Philaster ). Though included among the tragedies in the First folio , the play is now generally classified as a ‘romance’, and is more highly regarded than it was by Dr Johnson , who said that ‘To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, 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.’ The play was much loved in the 19th cent., however; Tennyson died with a copy of it on the coverlet of his bed....
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