Making Sense of Cymbeline

Good luck.

With the title of my blog, I don't mean to suggest that the play's action itself doesn't make sense... In fact, I'm amazed that I've never heard of this play before I took this class. I found the characters, the action, the dialogue, and the story itself to pack a big punch. Each character, even the villains, are given such incredible detail and nuance to their personality--many of the more tragic characters are redeemed in the end (thanks to Ashley Arcel for pointing that out so well in her blog entry). And, of course, since college-aged students love sexual innuendo, I have to say that the dialogue in this play is masterful and quite filthy. I didn't even need to look at the footnotes to tell that Cloten was a sick, perverted bastard!

I am not yet able to completely describe how Cymbeline makes sense in the grand scheme of Shakespeare's romances as far as its relation to the mythic, as I have not yet completed the rest of them. My initial impression of this romance, as it compares to some of Shakespeare's other very, very dark tragedies (especially King Lear) is that while they maintain a similar arc, the ending tends to share more in common with the present-day narrative in American films.

This doesn't apply to all works of the present day, but it seems as if audiences are willing to accept just about any insane, dark, twisted elements in a story so long as things turn out all right in the end. If a character has been through hell, then they better make it out alive. Not to disparage the end of Cymbeline as a "Hollywood ending" (even though everything fell completely into place quite conveniently), but the characters we know and love make it out just fine. By and large, I think it works. Perhaps if Cymbeline ended in a blood bath like King Lear or Hamlet, its reputation would be more prominent because of that (I have no way of knowing, just a hunch).

Based on my current impressions on Cymbeline, what seems out of place when trying to categorize it as more of a comedy versus a drama makes for an interesting product, nonetheless. It's amazing how much of a model this is for what we see as a standard for entertainment today. A problematic set-up where everything that can possibly go wrong does, and in the end the difficulties are reconciled in such a way that it doesn't feel too out of place. Graned, the god Jupiter makes an appearance, but it felt okay with me. After all, deus ex machina has become so common in today's popular culture that most non-English majors (and even plenty who are) could see one without even knowing it.

Next up: Pericles.

Antony and CLEOPATRA (IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS)

"Success in heroic love being impossible, better to fail heroically than to succeed in mediocrity". -- Northrop Frye

Antony and Cleopatra is sprawling. A huge cast of characters, numerous locations, a very fragmented and fast-paced middle portion with plenty of scenes, and very richly developed main players. Though Antony is no slouch, the real emphasis, of course, is on Cleopatra.

I admit that for as realistic and non-mythological as this play is in comparison to the other plays we have studied, a lot of it went over my head. I'll be lucky if I even got the 24% of Shakespeare that Dr. Sexson equated to the 89% of Stephen King. Regardless, there's a lot to be said about the titular characters. Inherent in the play's setting is a lot of dichotomy between Antony and Cleopatra and the worlds they live in. As mentioned in class, the Roman and the Egyptian societies have vastly different characteristics-- white versus black, masculinity versus femininity , reason versus passion, fluid and indistinct versus fixed, and many, many more.

As mentioned in Northrop Frye's look at Antony and Cleopatra, the character of Antony does not adhere to one society's tendencies completely. He finds himself drifting back and forth between the world of desire and love of Cleopatra's Egypt and the politics and heroism of Caesar's Rome. Frye noted that Antony has a very interesting place on the typical stratification of literary characters, which looks a little something like this:

1. Divine beings, or a hero descended from the gods.
2. Romantic heroes and lovers. Human, but not subject to ordinary limitations.
3. Kings and other commanding figures in social or military authority.
4. The ordinary folk.
5. Unfortunate people, assumed to possess less freedom that us.

(132-133)

By the love he has for Cleopatra, Antony rises above the ranks of Caesar in the respect that he has "a heroic dimension that makes him a romantic legend" (133). However, Frye notes that Shakespeare references Plutarch in making one of the only mythic references in the play. In Act IV Sc 3, the mention of Hercules abandoning Antony means that he technically falls short of true deity status. However, one could argue that in his death and with the nature of the legendary story, a certain divinity is bestowed upon the character.

On the other hand, you have Cleopatra--a much more colorful character around whom the play revolves.. and there's no doubt about the fact that she knows it, too. The discussion continued ad infinitum about the character of Cleopatra very much embodying drama with every grand gesture and emotional tirade. As queen of Egypt, she very much already is a goddess (134)--so why shouldn't she act like one?

I found the fact that her dramatic style being associated with the constant presence of an audience of some sort present with her to create an interesting but confusing portrait of her. As big as her emotions are played out, as violently as she treats the messengers who displease her, as dramatic as her death really is, do we really know anything about the real Cleopatra? To me, there always seemed to be a sense of artifice in every action, even if the emotion behind it was one of sincerity.


With Cleopatra that outrageousness and power create a figure so unmistakably her that, as Frye said, she fully expected to maintain her kingdom, her man, and her goddess persona in the afterlife. I would say that her ferocity, passion, and taste for the theatrical coupled with Antony's spectacular (though failed) attempt at maintaining love with Cleopatra makes for the stuff of legends. Shakespeare certainly has a way of escalating the business of humans to mythic proportions.

Final Thoughts on "Lear"

Before I dig into Antony & Cleo, I thought I'd get this Lear business wrapped up.

My secondary reading for this class is Frye's On Shakespeare book, which has a lot of fascinating things to say about King Lear, some of which was covered in class. Specifically, the recurrence of the words "nothing", "nature", and "fool". I found the concept of nature to be very interesting... or for this occasion we'll give it a capital "N".

Lear takes place in pre-Christian times, as we know, but the concept of Nature having a tiered structure is a very compelling one that places a lot of Christian/mythic dimension to the story. As Frye described Nature, it has four levels:
1. Heaven (or wherever God lives), represented by the sun and moon (and the stars, perhaps? Such as Edmund's contemplation of his "baseness" to the stars)
2. "Unfallen" Nature (such as the Garden of Eden)
3. "Fallen" Nature (in which animals survive well enough while humans struggle)
4. The demonic world (which may represent itself in the vile elements of Nature, such as the storm in the play)

Taking into account the notion of "displaced myth", Frye goes deeper in describing what the world of Lear is like... There is no God or gods but only occasionally deified representations, the "unfallen" Nature exists only in the goodness of select characters, the "Fallen" existence of men renders them animals, and that the "hellish" elements are found in the madness of Lear. It's an incredibly grim, bleak world indeed.

Reading King Lear comes as a bit of a shock considering that the three previous plays we have examined are comedies, and rather light-hearted ones. The Green World of A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It is nowhere to be found. The very idea of it seems like it's just a very foggy notion, an absolute impossibility. The only remnants of it, found in the love of Cordelia or the loyalty of Kent, are not realized or embraced until the devastation has already taken place. Even so, the love that he has for Cordelia and the reason behind it is really just "nothing", or at least it exists for no real reason, as Frye explains. It's an interesting and disturbing thought--a world of a fallen, animalistic experience that sends Lear spiraling into madness, and even the scarce love that he can find, however sincere it is, exists for no reason... perhaps that's what consumes Lear. The idea of "nothing".

What You Need

Finding a universal "need" is definitely a difficult task. For me, one personal "need" is the Internet. It's funny that I blog about it on my own computer when there are people around the world who don't even know where their next meal will be coming from.

I did an interesting exercise with my coworkers lately that explored what we valued the most. We each noted the four people, memories, things, and values in our lives that we valued and needed the most. As the exercise progressed, we eliminated items from the dock--once they were gone, they were theoretically out of our lives. I found it easy at first, thinking "OK, I could really do without my computer in the grand scheme of things," or "As much as I love my dog I would still be me without him." Eliminating the list down to just ONE component was surprisingly emotional and eye opening. Taking people out of your life was something that was extraordinarily difficult for me. So, what was I left with? My mom--no matter how I look at my life, all of my values and abilities are in some way rooted to what she taught me and how she raised me.

It's a fascinating exercise that shows what you hold closest to you. What was first to go for me were things, and when I had to cut people out of my life then I was hard pressed to do so. I don't think it's presumptuous at all for me to say that everybody, across the board, no matter what-- needs people. It's a broad statement and those of you who are reading it are probably saying, "Well, duh."

While this may seem like a heavy-handed way to include Shakespeare into this pretty personal blog post, look at what happens to Lear's character. He isolates himself from those who love and care for him (Kent and Cordelia), investing his love and energy into people who reject him. Truth be told, Lear is no saint--his brashness in inflicting punishment on the ones who love him too much to see him do something stupid is evidence of that. If it's the cruelty of the people who betrayed him that sets him on the road to madness, it's the death of his daughter Cordelia that finally kills him. Pure, unconditional love lost forever, and indirectly by his doing nonetheless.

I find myself to be a fairly optimistic person when it comes to dealing with people. In spite of the cruelty that humans are capable of, the goodness that is potential within everyone far outweighs whatever flaws we may have as human beings. Without good people, we would be lost. A life separated from that limitless, unconditional source of love and fellowship is hardly a life at all.

King Lear in Film: Kurosawa's RAN

I cannot recall how many direct (or indirect) adaptations of King Lear I've encountered, but one that sticks out in my mind is legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's Ran (pronounced RON). It's essentially Shakespeare's play set in feudal Japan.

The trailer doesn't quite do justice to this film, which is quite a masterpiece. However, I will include it because our favorite animal makes an appearance. I didn't even notice it until now! THE BOAR!

Here's another look at it with commentary from critic A.O. Scott. It doesn't touch too much on how it's an adaptation of King Lear, and I'll admit that it's been a few years since I've watched it, but what I remember is an incredible story of the fall of an "ailing king". Highly recommended.