The title character in Shakespeare’s play “Cymbeline” is king of where?
In the play “Cymbeline” the title character is King of Britain, otherwise known as Cunobelin, a Celtic ruler in pre-Roman Britain from about AD 10 until about AD 40. The play is a ‘tragi-comedy’ in five acts and is one of Shakespeare’s later plays, written in 1608–10 and published in the “First Folio” of 1623. Set in the pre-Christian Roman world, Cymbeline draws its main theme, that of a wager by a husband on his wife’s fidelity, from a story in Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Decameron”.
The play is a lesser known work by Shakespeare. It has a most convoluted plot and has had many ups and downs in terms of audience and critical acclaim. The early 1900s writer and critic, Lytton Strachey, said with reference to “Cymbeline”, that he found it "difficult to resist the conclusion that he [Shakespeare] was getting bored himself. Bored with people, bored with real life, bored with drama, bored, in fact, with everything except poetry and poetical dreams." Harley Granville-Barker, an English actor, director, playwright, manager and critic of the same period, had similar views, saying that the play shows that Shakespeare was becoming a "wearied artist”.
However In 2013, Ethan Hawke and director Michael Almereyda, who previously collaborated on the 2000 film “Hamlet”, re-teamed for the film “Cymbeline”, in which Hawke plays the character "Iachimo". The film is set in the modern context of urban gang warfare with Ed Harris in the title role.
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