SOURCE: “Cymbeline and the Comedy of Anticlimax,” in Shakespeare's Late Plays: Essays in Honor of Charles Crow, edited by Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod, Ohio University Press, 1974, pp. 131-41.

[In the following essay, Powlick proposes that Shakespeare deliberately modified the conventions of tragedy in Cymbeline in order to expose the constricting nature of the genre.]

For the more than three hundred years since its first publication critics have debated where among the other plays of Shakespeare to place Cymbeline. The first fault, of course, lay with Hemminge and Condell who included it with the tragedies in the first folio edition, and it is obvious that Cymbeline is no tragedy. The usual tendency of critics to say definitely that if it is not fish, then it must perforce be fowl has in this case been scrupulously avoided, and the result has been that some combined form—tragicomedy or romance—has been used to describe the play. The popularity of the Beaumont and Fletcher tragicomedies, which came out at roughly the same time as Cymbeline, apparently justifies placement of Cymbeline in the same generic bag with Philaster and A King and No King. Yet the difference in tone between these and Cymbeline is enormous. What distinguishes A King and No King, for instance, from Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy is simply the ending: through clever plotting, the former is given a happy ending; in tone, the two are equally tragic. Neither is Fletcher's famous definition—“A tragie-comedie is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respects it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedie, yet brings some neere it, which is inough to make it no comedie …”¹—a sufficient measure. In addition to the fact that Fletcher's own tragicomedies are not adequately defined by this description, it is sufficiently broad to describe such diverse plays as Aeschylus' The Eumenides and Labiche's A Trip Abroad. If we follow Fletcher's practice, however, we find that in his tragicomedies the tone is not that of comedy, but of tragedy. Such is not the case in Cymbeline.

When we look at Cymbeline, we find that it contains all the elements necessary for a comedy, even if it does meet the definition of tragicomedy as put forth by Fletcher. In the matter of tone alone, for instance, the serious inevitably gives way to the comic. This comic tone is shown in the very opening lines of the play which, as Una Ellis-Fermor points out for other plays,² set the tone for what is to come after:

You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the King's.

(I, i, 1-3)³

What starts out as serious exposition degenerates into double talk. The effect of the speech is to draw us up short, to deflate the pompous atmosphere hinted by the sound of the words. In the same manner, Twain's Duke and Dauphin are shown up. To produce the same result, a Chaplin or a Keaton would, in the most serious of scenes, fall on his face. In Beaumont's own The Knight of the Burning Pestle, the citizen and his wife are ridiculed because they admire just such pompous lines spoken by Master Humphrey.

Thus there is set up in Cymbeline a comic tone which, for Shakespeare, is unique to this play. What gives Cymbeline its special quality is this technique of deflation, of the frustration of expectations, of anticlimax. In his The Foundation of Aesthetics, Theodor Lipps describes this technique:

The comical is the insignificant, less impressive, less significant, less important—i.e., not sublime—which takes the place of something relatively great, impressive, significant, important, sublime. … Something great or relatively great is expected and something rather insignificant occurs which appears to be the fulfillment of expectation, but yet, on the contrary, cannot appear as such on account of its insignificance.⁴

Lipps calls this a mountain laboring to produce—a mouse. Just such a pattern dominates Cymbeline.

The distinct echoes of Shakespeare's tragedies to be found in Cymbeline have frequently been noted, but their purpose has only been guessed at (“lack of inspiration” is one of the more extreme guesses); and yet they fit perfectly into the comic structure outlined by Lipps. In Cymbeline Shakespeare has used these echoes, aware that the audience would be familiar with tragic situations, in order to set up an expectancy, then proceeds to frustrate that expectation. Given the circumstances of a particular situation, the audience would be led to expect certain events, perhaps not Lipps' “sublime” ones, but certainly important ones. These events, in each and every case, do not occur.

In a tragedy most of the larger events are predictable. Once the chain of circumstances is set in motion we know fairly well what the hero will (or at least should) do in his given situation. Shakespeare, in Cymbeline, takes great pains to build just such expectations, only to undercut them. One such instance occurs when Posthumus arrives in Philario's house. We are told in great detail about his adventure in France:

… Twas a contention in public, which may without contradiction suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time vouching—and upon warrant of bloody affirmation—his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant, qualified, and less attemptable than any the rarest of our ladies in France.

(I, iv, 48-55)

This matter was the cause of a near-mortal combat between Posthumus and the anonymous Frenchman, a combat that “… would by all likelihood have confounded one the other or have fall'n both.” To the rest of the men in the room, the dispute seemed to have been over a triviality. Yet we are told that Posthumus did not, and still does not consider the matter trivial: “But upon my mended judgment, if I offend not to say that it is mended, my quarrel was not altogether slight” (I, iv, 42-43). Thus, when Iachimo taunts him about Imogen's fidelity, we expect—and have been led to expect—that there will be another mortal combat, this time with Iachimo. After all, even considering Posthumus' faith in Imogen, what Iachimo says of her is outrageously insulting as well as false:

With five times so much conversation I should get ground of your fair mistress, make her go back even to the yielding, had I admittance, and opportunity to friend.

(I, iv, 96-98)

The sexual innuendoes in these lines, applied to Imogen, are far from the trivial matter in France, and if Posthumus was moved to violence then, these references to his wife should be sufficient to send him into a rage and reaching for his sword. Instead, he makes a wager that Iachimo cannot seduce Imogen. Posthumus' certainty of her fidelity is not sufficient to explain this action, for the tone of Iachimo's words is insult enough—and provocation enough. Thus, we are led to expect some violent scene and some great action from Posthumus (if a duel can be considered great), and we get something far less than great. The seriousness of the scene is totally undercut by the triviality of the result. To use Lipps' metaphor, the mountain has labored greatly only to produce a mouse.

This technique of frustrating expectations through the use of anticlimax occurs repeatedly in the sections of the play dealing specifically with the travails of Imogen and Posthumus. We again find it in the scene of Iachimo's attempted seduction of Imogen. As he plants the idea of Posthumus' infidelities (shades of Iago, even to the similarity of their names), we are given the distinct impression that he is succeeding:

Imogen:
Revenged?
How should I be revenged? If this be true—
As I have a heart that both mine ears
Must not in haste abuse—if it be true,
How should I be revenged?

(I, vi, 128-32)

Iachimo's answer is a model of the urbane, continental lover's:

Iachimo:
Should he make me
Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets,
Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
More noble than that runagate to your bed,
And will continue fast in your affection,
Still close as sure.

(I, vi, 132-38)

And what is Imogen's response? This paragon of womanhood, whose intelligence has been much praised, whose resourcefulness has been noted—calls for help.

Expectations reach new heights later in Imogen's bed chamber. We see her asleep, with Iachimo rising from the trunk. It is late at night and the entire household is fast asleep. Iachimo has already indicated his violent attraction for her. The stage is set for a very dramatic scene. And Shakespeare makes certain that our expectations are aroused when Iachimo points out a resemblance between himself and Tarquin, calling The Rape of Lucrece to mind. The intensity of the scene builds as we watch him skulking about the chamber noting the details. He comes close to her, extolling her beauty, but then moves off. He comes back, describing the mole on her breast. When he notes that she has been reading the tale of Tereus and Philomel, the possibility of rape again arises. Then with a curt “I have enough” he returns to the trunk. His words and his action destroy the carefully constructed atmosphere wherein the expectancy of something violent has been deliberately nurtured. There will be no “great” action here either.

The same sort of action occurs when Iachimo reports his “success” to Posthumus. Posthumus, from all we learned of him before, is an impetuous, passionate man. Yet he readily accepts Iachimo's word. He is reassured by Philario, but he is convinced that Imogen has been unfaithful to him. He is certain that Iachimo could not possibly have the information he does except by having seduced her. To the suggestion that perhaps one of her women had been suborned, his immediate answer is that it was not possible since they were all “sworn and honorable.” Thus, he completely undercuts his dramatic soliloquy in the next scene, and the only impression we now have of Posthumus is of his overwhelming gullibility. He rushes out muttering horrible threats:

O that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal!
I will go there and do't i' th' court, before
Her father. I'll do something.

(II, iv, 147-49)

Yet what is that something that he does? Like an Othello does he confront her and strangle her? Of course not. He sends a message to his servant to kill her. If we have been expecting Posthumus to act like Othello (and the implications are powerfully there that we should), our expectation is frustrated.

The ultimate use of anticlimax occurs fairly late in the play. In fact, it must occur late because Shakespeare goes to great lengths to set up the situation, employing much of the plotting in the second half of the play for this purpose. The situation in outline is this:

1. Imogen is on her way to Milford Haven to meet Posthumus. She is dressed as a boy, wearing clothes given her by Pisanio who was unable to obey his master's command. In addition, she carries a potion that Pisanio and she think is medicine, the queen thinks is poison, and we know to be a sleeping draught.

2. She arrives at Belarius' cave and is immediately taken in and adopted as a brother.

3. Cloten, the wicked queen's evil son, has learned that Imogen is on her way to Milford Haven and determines that he will follow her and rape her. To aid himself in this purpose, he dons the clothes that Posthumus was wearing when Imogen last saw him.

4. He stumbles onto Belarius' cave (while Imogen is out of sight, of course), fights with Guiderius, is slain and beheaded.

5. In the meantime, Imogen, feeling indisposed, has taken a dose of the elixir and falls into a death-like sleep. Belarius and her two unknowing brothers find her, think she is dead, and lay her out in the clearing, chanting over her the lovely dirge “Feel No More the Heat of the Sun.”

6. Belarius and the boys reconsider their decision to cast Cloten's body into the river and resolve that, since he was a nobleman, to bury him. While they go off to prepare the graves for him and Imogen, they lay his headless corpse next to her. Given this situation, so carefully contrived, we know exactly what will happen. We know that Imogen will awake, discover the body and think that it is Posthumus. We know that the situation is exactly the same (in its externals) as that in the monument in Romeo and Juliet, and we will assume—although by this time we should know better—that Imogen will attempt some violence upon herself. We are correct, but only up to a point. Imogen does awake and think that the corpse is that of Posthumus. In fact, she is absolutely certain of it:

I know the shape of's leg; this is his hand,
His foot Mercurial, his Martial thigh,
The Brawns of Hercules …

(IV, ii, 309-11)

And with a cry she throws herself upon the body. But does she attempt to join him in death, as Juliet and Cleopatra do in similar circumstances? No, she instead becomes the servant of the first person who comes along, Lucius, the leader of the invading Roman army. Here, of all places, we could have expected a “great” action, but instead the trivial action undercuts our expectation.

The conclusion of Cymbeline is also built upon an anticlimax. In the famous masque in which Jupiter descends seated upon an eagle, we are led to expect that the threads of this most complicated plot will be unravelled by an actual deus ex machina. And with the tablet left upon the breast of Posthumus, we think that it is provided. The language, certainly, is obscure enough to be the key which will solve everything. Yet when the unravelling does occur, this paper has nothing to do with it. The human characters have already worked out their own solutions before Jupiter's riddle is even remembered. Whatever expectations have been aroused by this little piece of supernatural literature are dashed, and the promised deus ex machina becomes anticlimactic.

Northrop Frye says that “… comedy contains a potential tragedy within itself,”⁵ and in Cymbeline we can see the truth of this statement many times over, for here we find the potential for many tragedies. At any one of a dozen points in the play a different course of action could have turned the play into a tragedy. If the doctor had not substituted a sleeping potion for the poison that the queen had ordered; if Posthumus had allowed his temper to carry him into a duel with Iachimo; if Imogen had allowed herself to be seduced; if Iachimo had given free reign to his passion and ravished Imogen; if Pisanio had carried out his master's orders; if Cloten had found Imogen in the mountains; if Imogen had killed herself when she supposed that Posthumus was dead: any one of these alternative actions would have made Cymbeline into a Jacobean tragedy of the first rank. The implications of all these alternative—and expected—actions are obvious, because they had already been explored by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in their tragedies. But here the situations are never allowed to become tragic; they are continually being undercut by anticlimaxes. At each point in the play where there is a danger that something will become too serious, the anticlimax deflates the situation, making it laughable. Even the grief of Imogen when she thinks that she has discovered the body of Posthumus is less than serious when we take into consideration her absolute assurance in describing his characteristics. Just as in farce violence loses its repugnant and fearsome characteristics by being made unreal, so here the death of Cloten becomes less than horrible.

In Cymbeline Shakespeare posits situations identical with those found in his tragedies, but gives them different—comic—resolutions. Wylie Sypher has written:

Unlike comedy, tragedy is a “closed” form of art, with a single, fixed, and contained meaning (by contrast to the disorderly relaxed meanings in comedy). Tragedy demands a law of necessity or destiny, and a finality that can be gained only by stressing a logic of “plot” or “unified action” with a beginning, middle, and end. Within the confines of this action the hero is given to sacrifice or death. That is, tragedy performs the sacrificial rite without the festival—which means that it is a less complex, less ambiguous form of drama than comedy. Retaining its double action of penance and revel, comedy remains an “improvisation” with a loose structure and a precarious logic that can tolerate every kind of “improbability.”⁶

We see this quality of “improvisation” and open-endedness in Cymbeline's potentially tragic situations which are never allowed to become tragic, no matter how strongly the logic—or illogic—of the plot demands it. The characters are always in control of their own fates; they are not driven forward by a tragic destiny. In Cymbeline, each character has certain options open to him: he can perform the “great” action and become a tragic hero; or else he can perform the insignificant, unheroic action, showing that he is an ordinary mortal. The great action is never performed. By choosing the lesser, unheroic action, the character enables other possibilities of action to take place, and these actions accumulate until we end with a resolution. The great action reduces the possibilities of the plot; it would create an inexorable chain of events that the human characters would be powerless to affect. The insignificant action, on the other hand, shows the way to all sorts of possibilities, and the plot opens out to allow the characters to order their world. In the process, the pompous and the pretentious have been deflated.

Some critics comment that Shakespeare had written himself out by the time he came to write Cymbeline. They complain of the lack of any “great” actions or heroic characters in the play; what they fail to see is that their absence is to a great extent what the play is all about. In a sense, Cymbeline illustrates the constricting nature of tragedy. Shakespeare had mellowed with age, and here was no longer showing men as gods. Now, in effect, he is saying that to be a man is enough, that man, error-prone and unheroic, is still capable of making his own decisions and controlling his fate. Thus, the resolution of Cymbeline comes about by means of the characters themselves. Jupiter's cryptic letter does nothing but confirm a fait accompli. In Cymbeline, Shakespeare's vision has broadened rather than narrowed. The narrow confines of tragedy have given way to the broad possibilities of comedy. Susanne Langer has said:

Comedy … expresses the elementary strains and resolutions of animate nature …, the delight man takes in his special mental gifts that make him the lord of creation; it is an image of human vitality holding its own in the world amid the surprises of unplanned coincidence.⁷

It is this delight in man's ability to order his existence that we find in Cymbeline. The play shows not a diminishing of Shakespeare's dramatic powers, but a reaffirmation of his faith in men and in life.

Notes

1. Quoted in Una Ellis-Fermor; The Jacobean Drama (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), p. 204.

2. Ibid., p. 33.

3. All references to the text are taken from the Cambridge edition of Cymbeline, ed. J. C. Maxwell (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1968).

4. In Theories of Comedy, ed. Paul Lauter (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1964,) p. 393.

5. Northrop Frye, “The Argument of Comedy,” in Theories of Comedy, p. 455.

6. Wylie Sypher, “The Meanings of Comedy,” in Comedy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1956), pp. 218-19.

7. Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 331.