Cymbeline (Vol. 47) - Overviews
OVERVIEWS
John P. Cutis (essay date 1968)
SOURCE: "Cymbeline: 'In Self-Figur'd Knot'," in Rich and Strange: A Study of Shakespeare's Last Plays, Washington State University Press, 1968, pp. 26-50.
[In the following essay, Cutts presents an overview of Cymbeline, discussing imagery, characterization, and the dream-like quality of the play.]
Since he gives his name to the play Cymbeline might reasonably be expected to dominate it in some way. Yet it is obviously difficult to claim that he is vitally essential to those parts of the play, the wager (Posthumus-Iachimo-Imogen), and the Milford Haven episode (Guiderius-Arviragus-Belarius-Cloten-Imogen), which give the play its best strength. He is by no means as vitally dramatic in himself as Pericles, with whom he invites obvious comparison if only on the grounds that both plays are usually considered together as examples of Shakespeare's experimentation with a new art...
[The entire page is 21273 words long]
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