Cymbeline

I've read this play three times, and I've found that the longer since I last read it, the better I imagine it to be. In theory, it's a great play: the political situation, involving the tribute an emerging British nation must pay to a "Roman" empire has interesting Jacobean parallels in continental......more

Book Review 3 out of 5 stars to Cymbeline, a play written in 1611 by William Shakespeare. I read this during a Shakespeare course in college and then watched a film version. My review covers both. There seems to be a very dark aura surrounding the characters and the setting. All of the c......more

Imagine that characters from previous plays have ganged up on Shakespeare and threatened to sue him for libel--clearly, they would never behave in the way he suggests. They demand the real story be told. He offers a compromise: rather than go to the trouble and expense of rewrites and retractions, h......more

Cymbeline, is not one of Shakespeare's best known plays but it certainly one of the easiest to read. It mostly takes place in Roman-ruled Britain. It has an evil stepmother and her unworthy son, a princess, and prince and two lost princes. It has weird medicine, intrigue, and battles. It is full of......more