Cymbeline Literary Elements

drama; romance

English

Pre-Christian Britain

N/A

The tone and mood of the play switch between dark and joyous, bleak and celebratory. This is one of the reasons the play is often labeled a "tragicomedy," or a combination of tragedy and comedy.

The central protagonist of the play is Imogen. There are two notable antagonists: the Queen and Iachimo.

The major conflict in the play is twofold: politically, the Queen has stopped paying tribute to Rome, which leads to war. In Cymbeline's court, his daughter Imogen has chosen to marry Posthumus, who is not of noble birth, and the Queen is simultaneously scheming to marry Imogen to her son, Cloten.

The climax of the play occurs when Posthumus orders Pisanio to kill Imogen. Imogen dresses as a boy (Fidele) and flees to Wales.

When Posthumus refers to his gifted bracelet as a "manacle" and Imogen a "prisoner," he foreshadows the insecurity that will take hold when he places his wager with Iachimo over Imogen's fidelity.

Iachimo's description of his sexual encounter with Imogen, though detailed, stops short of actually confirming that he slept with her. As such, he merely implies to Posthumus that Imogen is unfaithful, and Posthumus's insecurity makes assumptions for itself.

There are frequent allusions to Pagan gods like Jupiter, who actually appears in person in the play. This is due to the play's setting – ancient, Pre-Christian Britain – and the influence of Greek and Roman arts and culture on early modern England.

Important imagery in the play includes nature, light, decay, and music.

In many ways, the play as a whole can be considered a paradox, as it blends together elements of both tragedy and comedy.

Posthumus uses parallelism in his language when he rails against all womankind, the successive repetition of phrases suggests his loss of control and inability to process the implication that Imogen has been unfaithful.

The play makes frequent use of inverse personification, or zoomorphism, in its comparisons of people to animals. Imogen, for example, is compared to a phoenix while Posthumus is compared to an eagle and Cloten a "puttock," or scavenger. These comparisons reveal certain desirable or unsavory qualities about their characters.

The play, like many of Shakespeare's comedies, relies heavily on apparel and costuming for advancing the plot. Imogen's disguise as Fidele helps complicate the interactions between her and her brothers, while Posthumus dons the garb of a Roman warrior despite wanting to fight on the side of Britain. The use of clothing as disguise was, of course, an inherent element of the theater and especially the early modern stage, where female characters were played by boys or young men.