Yes, Cymbeline is an anagram of Imbecile-y.
You can call it anagrammatical determinism if you like….
The play: Cymbeline
Year written: 1609 or so
Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): srsly, who cares?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymbeline
Plot in a paragraph: I’d need more than a paragraph. It’s a mess. Cymbeline is a vassal king whose sons were kidnapped 20 years before. HIs remaining child, Imogen (or possibly Innogen), is in love with someone Not Entirely Suitable, who gets banished. Meanwhile… oh, god, I am losing the will to live
Bill is phoning it in here. What a shitshow.
Two limericks and a quatrain
This mess with Immy and Cloten
In a sea of stupid is floatin’
A wicked step queen?
The Bard’s a has-been
This play in my house is verboten.
and
The Bard wrote at the death of his mother
Ii’s a play unlike any other
The Victorians loved it
But I’d have shoved it
In a draw entitled “oh brother”
Quatrain
Perhaps the play is not so weak
Perhaps it is just tongue in cheek
A mashup of the greatest hits
Written when he’d no more his shits
Samuel Johnson nailed it –
“The play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogue, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. 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.”
George Bernard Shaw thought it so bad he rewrote the final Act.
“for the most part stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order, in parts abominably written, throughout intellectually vulgar, and judged in point of though by modern intellectual standards, vulgar, foolish, offensive, indecent, and exasperating beyond all tolerance.”
Harold Bloom thought it was Shakespeare winking at the audience, taking the piss of himself by mashing up all his greatest hits. Maybe.
Other people think so too.
I am glad to report, however, that Johnson, Strachey, and Shaw are wrong. Cymbeline is a fun play. Indeed, after reading it, I was surprised when I started reading commentaries on it; so many critics seem to miss what makes the play fun.
Imagine someone sitting down with the collected works of Shakespeare and deciding to write a giant over-the-top parody of the complete works of Shakespeare. Then, imagine that the parody is written in language as good as anything Shakespeare himself would write. It is hard to imagine someone pulling off that feat. But, it happened. Shakespeare wrote it himself. Cymbeline.
And
Now, imagine my shock when I looked at the professional critics and their disdain for this play. How did they miss the fun? Yes, the scenes in Britain are set in the age of Julius Caesar, but the scenes in Italy sure seem like they are taking place right down the street from Shylock making a deal with Antonio. That isn’t a failing; that’s funny.
Harold Bloom comes closest to getting it: “Cymbeline is a pungent self-parody on Shakespeare’s part: we revisit King Lear, Othello, The Comedy of Errors, and dozens of other plays, but we see them now through a distorting lens.” Aha! I thought. Exactly right…well except for the “pungent” bit. Even after realizing it is a parody, Bloom decides it is a failed play: “No other play by Shakespeare…shows the playwright so alienated from his own art as Cymbeline does.” Or this: “Shakespeare is his own worst enemy in Cymbeline: he is weary of making plays.” Does Bloom really think Cymbeline is “aesthetic self-wounding”? Yes he does.
What is happening here? Are serious Shakespeare scholars really so obsessed with thinking of everything in lofty terms that they are unable to recognize when something is just plain fun? Shakespeare just did the equivalent of writing a literary Airplane! and the critics forget to laugh and just sit up in their boxes shaking their heads at this guy who has lost his powers. You can hear the relief of the critics when The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest come along; maybe this guy isn’t washed up after all.
One of the serious blights on the academic landscape these days is this obsession with being serious. What happened to fun? What happened to the idea that you can show the heights of brilliance by being able to laugh? Of course we want Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but isn’t there space for Douglas Adams too? The Godfather and Citizen Kane are amazing, but does that mean we can’t appreciate at This is Spinal Tap? Doesn’t it make Shakespeare even more amazing that he can write both Hamlet and Cymbeline?
And there is also this.
Things that worked well: Er….
Things that didn’t work well: The rest of it
Favourite character: None of them? They were all various types of asshole or fool. I felt sorry for Pisanio (servant).
Words I learnt:
| Word | Definition |
| cere | Cere – a waxy fleshy covering at the base of the upper beak in some birds. |
| puttock | Puttock – a bird of prey, esp the buzzard and the red kite. 2. informal. a greedy person. |
| neatherd | Neatherd – A cowherd; one who looks after bulls, cows or oxen |
| empery | Empery – dominion, power, empire |
| runagate | Runagate – deserter |
| cinque | Cinque – five |
| hilding | Hilding – contemptible person, wretch |
| pantler | Pantler – a servant or officer in charge of the bread and the pantry in a great family |
| fedary | Fedary – accomplice, confederate |
| franklin | Franklin – In the Kingdom of England from the 12th to 15th centuries, a franklin was a member of a certain social class or rank. In the Middle English period, a franklin was simply a freeman; that is, a man who was not a serf. In the feudal system under which people were tied to land which they did not own (or “own directly”, etc.), serfs were in bondage to a member of the nobility who owned that land. |
| clotpoll | Clotpoll – blockhead, fool |
| eglantine | Eglantine – is a species of rose native to Europe and western Asia |
| fane | Fane – temple/church |
| seely | Seely – happy, fortunate, blessed, pitiable |
| targ | Targ – A târg was a medieval Romanian periodic fair or a market town. Originally established on the places where periodic fairs were held, some of them (but not all) became permanent settlements,[1] as craftsmen built their workshops near the place where the fair was held. |
| fitment | Fitment – a fixed item of furniture or piece of equipment, especially in a house. |
| holp | Holp – archaic past tense of help, i.e. helped |
Lines worth knowing:
| Act scene lines | Character | Lines | Comment |
| Act 1, scene 1 | “Too bad for bad report” | ||
| Act 1, scene 1, line 68 | “That the negligence may well be laughed at | ||
| Act 1, scene 1, line 137 | Imogen | “Past hope and in despair: that way past grace.” | |
| Act 1, scene 2, line 1-2 | “Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt. The violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice.” | ||
| Act 1 scene 2, line 1-2 | “She shines not upon fools lest the reflection should hurt her.” | ||
| Act 1, scene iv, lines 163 | We will have these things set down by lawful counsel and straight away for Britain lest the bargain should catch cold and starve. | ||
| Act 1, scene vi, line 46 | Sluttery, to such neat excellence opposed, should make desire vomit emptiness | ||
| Act 2 scene 2, line 1-2 | Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turned up ace.” | ||
| Act 2, scene 3, line 55-6 | one of your great knowing Should learn, being taught, forbearance. | ||
| Act 4, scene 2, lines 3-4 | “So man and man should be, but clay and clay differs in dignity, whose dust is both alike,. I am very sick.” | ||
| Act 4, scene 2, lines 99-100 | Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not My dagger in my mouth. | ||
| Act 4 , scene 2, line 194 | Triumph for nothing and lamenting toys is jollity for apess and grief for boys | ||
| Act 4, scene 2 | Fear no more th frown o’the’great Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke Care no more to clothe and eat To thee the reed is as the oak The sceptre , learning, physic, must All follow this and come to dust | ||
| Act 4, scene ii, line 265 | Pisanio | Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered | |
| Act 5, scene 3, line 2 | Belarius | Nothing routs us but the villainy of our fears | |
| Act 5, Scene 3, line 75 | Being an ugly monster,’Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,Sweet words, or hath more ministers than weThat draw his knives i’ th’ war | The “he” here is death | |
| Act 5, scene 6, | Cornelius | The evils that she hatched were not effected, so despairing died. |
Marc’s entirely subjective verdict and score out of 5 bards (ymmv): 1
Will I be tracking down movies of this? : hell no.
How far would I travel to see a good production of this? If it’s not in Stone, you’re on your own. And probably even then.
Limericks (and a quatrain!) – at the top
UPDATE
Podcasts and their contents
| No Holds Bard | Cymbeline | 30m 46secs | Nicely done. Also mentions assassination of French king, Henry IV, in 1610 | ||
| Not True but useful | Cymbeline | 34m 50s | Shakespeare’s mum died, this play is full of dead mothers | ||
| Bard Files | Imogen, there’s no Cloten | Cymbeline | 59 | Harold Bloom saying it was self-parody. Nice “Aliens” comparison about the B villain (Cloten/Paul Reiser) vs the A-villain (The Queen/The Alien Queen | |
| Approaching Shakespear | Cymbeline | Professor Emma Smith on top form. Really good! Nice stuff on Nabokov 31 plot elements. Almost as long as Hamlet. |
marchudson.net 
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