Cymbeline

by William Shakespeare , Edited by Martin Butler

• ISBN13: 9780521296946
• ISBN10: 0521296943
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This new edition of Shakespeare's Cymbeline takes full account of the critical and historical scholarship produced in the late twentieth century. It foregrounds the elements of romance, tragicomedy and Jacobean stagecraft which together shape the play; it also acknowledges the postmodern indeterminacy of the play's key moments. Martin Butler breaks with the legacy of the sentimental Victorian reading of the heroine, Innogen, which still exerts some hold on production and interpretation today, and has given greater space than his predecessors to the politics of 1610, especially to questions of British union and nationhood. The play has been freshly edited from the text in the 1623 folio, with some interesting textual choices, and has a detailed commentary on linguistic and historical aspects of the text. There is also a full treatment of the play's stage history, from 1610 to the present day.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Acknowledgements	x
List of abbreviations and conventions	xi
Introduction	1	(2)
Date	3	(3)
Folktale and romance	6	(9)
Hellenistic romance	8	(2)
Sidney and Spenser	10	(3)
Dramatic romance	13	(2)
Tragedy and tragicomedy	15	(9)
The woman's part	24	(12)
Romans and Britons	36	(18)
Cymbeline on stage	54	(19)
Textual note	73	(3)
List of characters	76	(3)
THE PLAY	79
Longer notes	248	(3)
`Hark, hark, the lark'	251	(3)
Textual analysis	254	(13)
Reading list	267