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Questioning History in "Cymbeline"
Author(s): J. Clinton Crumley
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 41, No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama
(Spring, 2001), pp. 297-315
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1556190
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SEL
41,2
(Spring
2001)
297
ISSN 0039-3657
Questioning History in Cymbeline
J. CLINTON CRUMLEY
I
The First Folio of William Shakespeare's works misclassifies
Cymbeline with vigor, including the play in the table of contents
under "Tragedies" and setting the running title, "The Tragedie of
Cymbeline," over the play text. Of course, either of the two other
kinds of plays listed in the contents, "Comedies" and "Histories,"
would have made a better match. Cymbeline ends happily, with
joyful reunions aplenty, and its setting in the years of Britain's
tribute payments to Rome secures its connection to recorded history. Perhaps the play's dual status as comedy and history compelled the Folio editors to throw up their hands in dismay,
prompting the perverse classification that reached print in 1623.
In the twentieth century, when faced with the fact that
Cymnbeline exhibits the characteristics of both history and what has
come to be called "romance," critics have usually sought to identify
the play with its chronological neighbors, Pericles and The Winter's
Tale, thereby subordinating the extent to which Cymbeline concerns itself with matters historical. Some have dismissed the play's
historical elements outright. For James M. Nosworthy, the play
is a "pseudo-historical" experiment in romance; for Irving Ribner,
it qualifies as "historical romance," a kind of play for him "devoid
of real historical concern" and ultimately responsible for the de-
mise of the "legitimate" history play.' More recent writers have
embraced the idea of a historical sense functioning in this play,
but their topical interpretations channel history into contemporary politics; Cymbeline is historical only insofar as it comments
upon historical (for us) events during Jacobean England.2
J. Clinton Crumley teaches English in the Upper School at Providence
Day School, Charlotte, North Carolina.
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298
History
in
Cymbeline
In this essay, I wish to open up Cymbeline for discussion as a
kind of history play, a play that has something to say about history and historiography. Also, I will argue that, largely through
the character of the queen, the play demonstrates awareness that
it occupies a space between history and romance, and that it
uses romance to question history. Being more firmly rooted in
Raphael Holinshed's historiographical practice than traditionally
given credit for, Cymbeline honors both the form and the content
of its historical source even while it takes exorbitant romantic
liberties with that source. Ultimately, my discussion suggests that
we take seriously the historical content of other erstwhile historical romances, plays that, for all their romantic qualities, cannot
be completely disqualified as, among other things, historical
drama. If we seek a full understanding of the practice of history
writing in early modern England, so-called historical romances
must be considered along with those plays that have enjoyed the
status of "history play."3
In order to demonstrate how Cymbeline bears out the promise
of this new direction in the study of Tudor and Stuart historical
drama, the present argument begins via an exploration of the play's
dynamic attitude to Roman history. Although Rome begins as an
anchor, holding the romantic story in a familiar and stable context, Rome's conceptual integrity as represented by popular history
comes to be questioned. A pattern emerges as Cymbeline critiques
history through its repeated calling into question of the value placed
upon reading and interpretation. Ultimately, the interpretative liberties taken with various "texts" throughout the play point to an
unresolved epistemological crisis related, I contend, to the play's
status as a historical romance, a mode not separate from "real
history," but tremulously situated between history and romance.
II
A primary question demanded by a study interested in the
uses of history in a play has to be whether Jacobean audience
members would even have noticed that Cymbeline includes references to historical figures and events. We have no conclusive
evidence as to how the play was billed in its earliest performances.
The full title, Cymbeline King of Britain, clearly suggests a historical subject; but this title belongs to the 1623 Folio, the earli-
est published version of the play. The play's most famous auditor,
Dr. Simon Forman, refers to "the storri of Cymbalin king of England" after having attended a performance in 1610 or early 161 1.4
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One wonders whether his reference to both the king and kingdom derives from the same title as the Folio's or whether Forman
supplies the royal descriptor on his own. Surely, most audience
members would not have recognized the name of this obscure
pre-Conquest ruler the way they would have a Richard II or an
Edward Longshanks. If the play were billed as simply Cymbeline,
few would enter the playhouse expecting history.
Indeed, the play seems to anticipate its audience's likely dearth
of familiarity with its title figure and with his era by first situating
itself historically, not through references to Britain, but through
talk of battles with Rome.5 Cymbeline carries out its chronological exposition by way of Roman, rather than British, markers. In
the opening scene, two anonymous gentlemen discuss the situa-
tion at an unspecified court, where "You do not meet a man but
frowns," as courtiers slavishly mimic the emotions of the royal
family.6 The discussion tells us that the king has just banished
Posthumus Leonatus, the noble-hearted but low-born son of a
brave and honorable soldier, for marrying Princess Imogen without paternal approval. Without knowing the national identity of
any of these characters, without knowing from which realm
Posthumus has been expelled, we learn that Posthumus's father
earned his fame while fighting the Romans, thereby gaining his
infant son a place in the royal nursery at his death. The fantastic
story of the rapid death of Posthumus's entire family sets up the
familiar romantic interplay between nature and nurture, which
finds its most vivid expression in the wedded, vexed pair of Imogen
and Posthumus. In introducing the history of Posthumus's name,
the first gentleman also introduces the history/romance binary
insofar as his history of Posthumus is itself suggestive of rescued
orphans in stories derived from Greek romance, an indirect source
of much in the entire corpus of Shakespeare's plays. Thus, from
the first scene, audience members would have known that the
gentlemen come from an as-yet-unnamed nation recently at war
with Rome, a war once fought by Posthumus's father. However,
notwithstanding a reference to Tenantius and Cassibelan (I.i.301), pre-Conquest Britons probably even less familiar to audience
members than Cymbeline, the historical focus begins on Rome
rather than on Britain.8
Thanks to Forman's account, we have proof that this primary
focus was effective for at least one audience member. Clearly, his
recollection of the entire play suggests that Roman history left the
deeper impression on him. For Forman, Roman history provides
the historical frame of reference into which the British history
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History
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fits. His opening words beckon his reader to "Remember ... the
storri of Cymbalin king of England in Lucius time." This mistaking of England for Britain further implies Forman's uncertain
knowledge of British history. Completing the frame of reference,
the last plot event he records also involves the Roman general:
"& howe [Imogen] was found by lucius &c."9 Nosworthy suggests
that Shakespeare erred in selecting a monarch associated in the
chronicles with Britain and Rome: the former offers a setting
sufficiently murky to suit the mysteries of romance while the
latter does not.'0 One wonders how many of the audience members would also have made the association had Shakespeare not
sought explicitly to establish the Roman connection from the first
scene. As Forman's testimony bears out, the Roman dimension
of Cymbeline supplies a historical clarity whereas the British elements float in the clouds of legend.
In relying on the authority of Rome, Shakespeare may be following the example of Holinshed's Chronicles. In the popular brief
chronicles of Thomas Lanquet and Thomas Cooper, John Stow,
and Anthony Munday, Cymbeline's reign provides but a backdrop
for a truly epochal event: the birth of Jesus Christ. Lanquet and
Cooper put the matter in especially succinct fashion: "Of
[Cymbelinus] there is no notable thyng written, but that in his reigne
our sauiour Iesu Christ . . . was borne.""II Holinshed's account
begins similarly, but it proceeds to describe the British king's
upbringing. These details bear relevance further down the page, in
what amounts to a more substantial description of the reign of
Cymbeline than Shakespeareans have recognized: "Kymbeline or
Cimbeline ... was of the Britaynes made king after the decease of
his father ... This man (as some write) was brought up at Rome,
and there made Knight by Augustus Cesar, vnder whome hee serued
in the warres, and was in suche fauour with him, that he was at
libertie to pay his tribute or not. Little other mention is made of
his doyngs, except that during his reigne, the Sauiour of the world
... was borne of a virgin."'2 Shakespeare's Cymbeline, of course,
emphatically demonstrates this "libertie to pay his tribute or not"
at the play's conclusion. But of the historical king's doings, we
know little. Consequently, critics have quickly assumed that, for
Shakespeare, the most important historical fact of Cymbeline's reign
would have been the birth of Christ. 13 How curious, then, that we
find no allusion to that event in Cymbeline, other than the renewal and reconciliation common to all Shakespearean romance.
Although most of the brief chronicles dwell only upon the
coincidence of Christ's birth and Cymbeline's reign, Holinshed's
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Chronicles devotes most of its space to the matter of the tribute to
Rome. Frequently intent on presenting multiple perspectives on
history throughout the Chronicles, Holinshed's text here focuses
on what the Roman historians have to say about international
politics during Cymbeline's reign. 14 Indeed, rather than implying
a religious significance for Cymbeline, the sense that the play's
happy ending conforms to the romance promised by Christianity, the Holinshed account begins to suggest that Shakespeare's
play owes a tangible debt to the historiography of its day. Accord-
ing to the Roman historians, "after lulius Cesar's death, when
Augustus had taken vppon him the rule of the Empire, the
Britaynes refused to pay that tribute." In Cymbeline, of course,
Britain's refusal to pay Rome originates from the arguments of
the queen and Cloten, which will be discussed in more detail
later. In Holinshed, the source remains obscure: "whether this
controuersie which appeareth to fal foorth betwixt the Britaynes
and Augustus, was occasioned by Kymbeline or some other Prince
of the Britaynes, I haue not to auouch for that by our writers it is
reported, that Kymbelyne being brought vp in Rome, and made a
Knight in the Court of Augustus, euer shewed himselfe a friend to
the Romanes, and chiefly was loth to breake with them."''5 Just as
the play begins by establishing its Roman elements, Shakespeare's
source devotes most of its attention to matters Roman.
The play draws upon a solid grounding in Roman history in
its audience before it commences filling in its version of British
history. Correspondingly, from Holinshed's perspective, apparently only Roman historians provided enough data from the pe-
riod to clarify the events of Cymbeline's reign. In Cymbeline,
different versions of history unexpectedly come directly from the
mouths of the play's two most unattractive characters, the queen
and Cloten. At the beginning of act III, a conversation remarkable for its implications with regard to the use of history occurs. 16
Caius Lucius, the Roman general, appeals to history in order to
persuade Cymbeline to continue paying tribute to Rome:
When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet
Lives in men's eyes and will to ears and tongues
Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain
And conquered it, Cassibelan thine uncle,
. . . . * * * . . . . . . . . * *.. . . . * *.. . . . **. . * *.* *. .
for him
And his succession granted Rome a tribute.
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History
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The king closes the discussion with a similar gesture. Cymbeline
requests that Lucius report to Caesar that he aims to reform the
British legal system, to return it to its pre-Roman state:
Say then to Caesar,
Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which
Ordained our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar
Hath too much mangled, whose repair and franchise
Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made our
laws,
Who was the first of Britain which did put
His brows within a golden crown and called
Himself a king.
(III.i. 52-60)
Cymbeline apparently believes that Caesar would appreciate such
a justification grounded upon historical tradition. Viewed in this
light, the discussion seems symmetrical and logical: Lucius begins with an appeal to history; Cymbeline ends it with an appeal
that reaches further back in history.
Yet, the intermittent speeches by the queen and Cloten, though
on the same topic, fail to follow the direct logical path implied by
the beginning and end of the debate just cited. The queen takes
up Lucius's demand for the tribute payment with an address to
the king, appealing to royal ancestry and emphasizing Britain's
self-sufficiency. Her avowed intent is "to kill the marvel" (III.i. 10),
to replace Lucius's astonishment at Britain's refusal with a logi-
cal explanation of a different order than that proposed soon after
by Cymbeline. A recent article quickly dismisses her version of
history as "a patent lie."'7 Yet, a closer look reveals that the queen
directly challenges Lucius's version of history, seeking to distinguish legend from fact: "A kind of conquest / Caesar made here,
but made not here his brag / Of 'Came and saw and overcame"'
(III.i.22-4). She offers an untold British version of the Roman
invasion, which suggests that legend has obscured the actual
facts of the event. Like Shakespeare, she uses her audience's
familiarity with Roman history, which here appears in the form
of Julius Caesar's most famous words in-most appropriatelyEnglish translation, as context for her retelling.
The queen's brief history of Britain's repulsion of Caesar erects
several rhetorical markers, seminal moments that carry the au-
thority of actual facts. For instance, her characterization of the
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shame that accompanied Caesar's defeat as 'The first that ever
touched him" (III.i.25), a phrase that simultaneously acknowledges his greatness and attaches due recognition to British greatness, suggests not emotion-driven jingoism but the exercise of
sound judgment. Her vivid simile of the Roman ships "Like eggshells ... cracked / . . . 'gainst our rocks" (III.i.28-9) conveys a
palpable immediacy that persuades her husband because it rings
true. And finally, her description of how the Britons accentuated
their triumph with a fire-lit civic celebration clarifies, perhaps,
the now obscure origins of a holiday (III.i.29-33). Certainly, her
moral position in the play inclines us to treat her nationalistic
strutting as utter falsehood. In fact, however, her account corresponds on several points to Caesar's own memory of his efforts to
subdue Britain, as recorded in the fourth and fifth books of De
Bellum Gallicurm 18 Caesar recounts the damage wrought upon
his ships by high tides and storms and the Britons' suspension
of intertribal disputes for the united defense of their island. Only
on the third try did Caesar defeat the Britons.'9 The queen defends Britain on historical grounds with conviction and in compelling terms, but her defense also has a basis, however oblique,
in documented history.
Holinshed narrates Caesar's conquest of Britain in the twelve
pages immediately preceding the account of Cymbeline's reign,
and De Bellum Gallicum is one of the sources for the Chronicles's
narration. Shakespeare's queen goes further than Caesar in em-
phasizing the Roman difficulties with subduing Britain, and so
does Holinshed, who draws attention to the wide discrepancy
between Roman and British accounts: 'Thus according to that
which Cesar himselfe and other autentike authors haue written,
was Britayne made tributorie to the Romaynes by the Conduit of
the same Cesar. But our histories farre differ from this, affirming, that Cesar comming the second time, was by the Britaynes
with valiancie, and martial prowes beaten, & repulsed."20 In offering Lucius's and the queen's versions side by side, Cymbeline
adopts an important formal characteristic of Holinshed's rendering of British history.
While Holinshed draws upon Caesar's De Bellum Gallicum,
the sixteenth-century text strives for balance, providing the Scot-
tish version of Hector Boece and Bede's British representation.
After offering Boece's perspective, the Chronicles clarifies its purpose in drawing upon so many sources: 'Thus haue the Scottes
in their Chronicles framed the matter, more to the conformitie of
the Romaine hystories, than according to the report of our Brytish
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and English writers: and therfore we haue thought good to shew
it here, that the diuersitie of writers and their affections maye the
better appeare. "21 In III.i of Cymbeline, the queen, and through
her, Shakespeare, offers another history and, truly in the manner of Holinshed, allows the listeners to decide between competing versions. Cloten, of course, interrupts her, in prose, with a
typically oafish appeal to the island kingdom's military might,
which earns a rebuke from the king: "Son, let your mother end"
(line 38). Cloten continues undeterred, and soon, Cymbeline takes
up his stepson's martial rhetoric and finally makes his appeal to
legal reform.
Critics have puzzled over this scene's nationalist sentiment.
Here, the play's two most repellent characters deliver the highest
praise for Britain, praise that at first blush recalls John of Gaunt's
"this England" speech in Richard II (II.i.40-68). If the play teaches
us, in G. Wilson Knight's words, "to reject all for which [the queen
and Cloten] stand," then what do they stand for in this scene?22
In a reading somewhat consistent with mine, Richard F. Hardin
suggests that educated members of a Renaissance audience would
have identified more with Rome than with Britain, thus compel-
ling a rejection of the queen's nationalism and explaining the
play's final resumption of the tribute payment.23 Yet, ultimately
the perils of speculating on the diverse tastes of the early seventeenth-century playgoer hamper unqualified acceptance of this
hypothesis. Several other critics have linked the queen and Cloten
with retrograde isolationism.24 I want to add another explanation for this scene's seemingly misplaced panegyric to Britain. By
supplying a logical historical justification for breaking ties with
Rome, the queen attempts to "kill the marvel" of one-sided his-
tory and its exaggerations. Her version of history, furthermore,
aiming to challenge the legend of Julius Caesar, follows Holinshed
in throwing the subjectivity of historiography into high relief.25
Perhaps even more importantly, Shakespeare, through his
dramatic medium, is able to achieve a delicate balance between
moral sympathies and any nationalistic biases within the audience. If a sympathetic character, such as Imogen, had presented
the account of Caesar's invasion offered by the queen, then that
version would have received the playwright's tacit endorsement.
In effect, audiences would have been encouraged to give their
support to the pro-British version. That version would have been
handled as the truth. In giving the pro-British account to the evil
characters, Shakespeare prevents one version of history from
outweighing the other in terms of historical credibility. As a con-
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sequence, the scene leaves us not with anti-Roman sentiment;
the queen's words do not negate her treachery. Instead, the scene
leaves us with something close to historical objectivity.
Other queens in Shakespeare have resisted subjection to
Roman rule. In Titus Andronicus, Tamora exclaims memorably
against the Romans' "cruel irreligious piety" and lack of civility;26
in Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra kills herself partly to avoid
being made the centerpiece of Caesar's triumph and being
"enclouded" amidst the foul-smelling Roman populace.27 Yet, a
more direct analogue might be found not by focusing on the dramatic conflict between Roman conquerors and foreign queens
but by considering approaches to history. The queen's performance in III.i connects her with female characters in
Shakespeare's earlier English history plays. Phyllis Rackin sees
the few prominent women in the two tetralogies and in King John
as "antihistorians" who stand in threatening opposition to history making and history writing. In the hands of women, such as
Joan and Margaret in the Henry VI plays, "historiography itself
becomes problematic, no longer speaking with the clear, univocal voice of unquestioned tradition but re-presented as a dubious construct, always provisional, always subject to erasure and
reconstruction, and never adequate to recover the past in full
presence."28 As we have seen, Holinshed explicitly underscores
the diversity of voices that form the Chronicles. Therefore, we
must regard with caution any implication that Tudor historiography speaks in a "clear, univocal voice." Nevertheless, Rackin's
conclusions suggest a rich precedent for the stand taken by
Cymbeline's queen against the unappealing version of history offered by Lucius.
Although the queen exits the stage for the last time after Ily.v,
this wicked stepmother plays an important role in bringing a romance atmosphere to Cymbeline. Having no counterpart in the
English chronicles, she seems to come directly from the romance
tradition. Yet, as David Bergeron has shown, she also resembles
in striking ways the Roman empress, Livia, who, with other figures from Roman history, had enjoyed a revival of sorts in the
proliferation of Roman histories in English translation.29 I suggest that the queen's simultaneous gesturing to romance and to
history-both Roman and British-allows her to embody the transit between fiction and fact.
Given the queen's genealogical instability, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to remember that this character distinguishes
herself by her unusually firm reliance on empirical data. When
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History
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the physician Cornelius asks her why she requires noxious drugs
from him, she claims to be "[amplifying her] judgment" by testing
the effects of the chemicals on various animal subjects. Indeed,
her response describes an ongoing chemistry program which the
ambitious "pupil" wishes to advance into more complex biologi-
cal subjects:
I wonder, Doctor,
Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learned me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceededUnless thou think'st me devilish-is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions? I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging-but none humanTo try the vigor of them and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.
(I.v. 10-23)
The queen never intends to experiment with what she believes to
be poison. Of course, if she did, she would soon discover that she
had been swindled by the kindly Cornelius. Undoubtedly, how-
ever, her false statement, combined with her stance toward history in act III, further suggests a mind keen on "killing marvels,"
in whatever form they assume, through appeals to reason and its
concomitant weighing of evidence.
Modern scientific experimentation and historical method, both
of which rely on principles of inductive reasoning, arguably
sprouted their English roots in the early seventeenth century. Sir
Francis Bacon certainly called for reform in these areas, in addi-
tion to the law, in his Advancement of Learning (1605, 1623).
Julian Martin makes Bacon's connection between legal and scientific procedure explicit in demonstrating how Bacon "envisioned
an 'experiment' [in 'natural philosophy'] to be closely similar to a
lawsuit and its trial in a court room."30 Moreover, D. R. Woolf contends that the increasing primacy accorded documentary evidence
over oral testimony constitutes one of the most significant histo-
riographical developments in this period.3' I wish to suggest that,
in addition to her position on the boundary between romance
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and history, Cymbeline's queen also connects to the intellectual
currents contemporary with the play's earliest performances. She
questions a hardened legend about Julius Caesar, and she attempts to undermine an authorized version of history with an
alternate version. Emblematic of the recent turns to rationalism
and of the multivocality of historiography in early modern England, she resists the mimetic slippage between fiction and fact
and embraces the new inductive methods advocated by Bacon
and already beginning to shape history writing.
Other critics have also pinpointed epistemological issues as
major concerns for Cymbeline. E. M. W. Tillyard's book on
Shakespeare's late plays discusses each of them in terms of their
explorations of different "planes of reality."32 According to Douglas L. Peterson, Cymbeline proceeds from "representational to
emblematic narrative," a movement which he links with Sir Philip
Sidney's poetics, in which the brazen world gives way to a golden
one in the imagination.33 More recently, and more usefully for
the present study, Karen Cunningham argues that the play "[at-
tends] self-consciously to the uncertainties of getting at the
truth."34 Focusing primarily on Katherine Howard's trial for treason in the mid-sixteenth century, Cunningham's article shows
how this play's interrogation of the processes of fact making implies a relation between the theater and the state of legal testi-
mony during the early Jacobean period. For even as far back as
Howard's trial, we can locate the beginnings of "a complex his-
torical process in which documentary evidence is gaining authority
and becoming institutionalized as the most persuasive form of
testimony."35 Surely, part of what makes the process so "complex"
is the corresponding development occurring in historiography.
The "book," or tablet, that rests on Posthumus's breast when
he awakes from his vision helps illustrate how Cymbeline's tex-
tual instability extends beyond legal concepts and into a general
undermining of texts, including those that constitute historical
evidence. The writing offers hope for both Posthumus and Britain, but its meaning otherwise remains obscure: "'When as a lion's
whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be
embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar
shall be lopped branches which, being dead many years, shall
after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall
Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and flourish in
peace and plenty"' (V.iv. 138-44). The incarcerated Posthumus
makes no sense of this text until the stunning succession of resolutions in the final scene demands that the Roman soothsayer
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Philarmonus read aloud the entire tablet again. Kristian Smidt
takes this duplication, unprecedented in Shakespeare's plays,
as evidence proving that the vision and attendant prophetic text
were late additions to the play.36 As Leah Marcus observes, however, such a repetition of "riddles" occurs throughout Cymbeline,
implying authorial intent and inviting audiences to participate in
deciphering them.37 For example, Philarmonus twice interprets
his vision of the Roman eagle's flight from the south to the west,
once, in anticipation of Roman victory in battle, and again, after
Cymbeline's free decision to renew the tribute. I would submit,
moreover, that since a large part of printed texts' utility resides in
their capacity for endless repetition, the inclusion of a verbatim
reproduction of Posthumus's tablet even further emphasizes its
status as a written text.
Cymbeline subjects the notion of reading, in general, to interrogation through its frequent employment of textual metaphors.38
Upon reading Posthumus's letter to Pisanio, commanding him to
kill Imogen, Britain's princess reinterprets her husband's erst-
while sacred writing: "What is here? / The scriptures of the loyal
Leonatus / All turned to heresy?" (III.iv.80-2). When Imogen
misidentifies the headless body of Cloten as Posthumus, she believes Pisanio to have forged the letter, a belief that provokes her
into exclaiming against textuality in general: "To write and read /
Be henceforth treacherous!" (IV.ii. 316-7). In act V, King Cymbeline
responds to the news that the queen had harbored malice toward
the welfare of the realm with the rhetorical question, "Who is't
can read a woman?" (v.48).
Obviously, Cymbeline's preoccupation with slander points to
the unreliability of testimony. Unlike Othello's handling of slander, however, Cymbeline concentrates on written proof. The false
accusations placed on Imogen and Belarius, of course, constitute important parts of the play's overall undermining of texts, as
do other more subtle examples. While lachimo writes down his
description of Imogen's bedchamber, he notices that she has been
reading about Tereus's rape of Philomel. That Imogen sleeps
straight through lachimo's symbolic rape suggests the worthlessness of reading as a preventive measure, an arming with knowledge against criminal acts. Traditionally, too, critics have
remarked on the inferiority of the prophetic tablet's prose. Marcus
rightly observes that, rather than disqualifying the prose's
Shakespearean authenticity, it conforms to the play's overall pattern, insofar as its relative awkwardness even further underscores
the "fallibility" of texts in Cymbeline.39
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Readers of Cymbeline have redeemed what earlier critics had
scorned as unrefined by calling attention to the play's multiple
manifestations of self-reflexivity. Joan Hartwig, for example, sees
the play's various elaborate "artifices" as signs of tragi-comic sophistication.40 Along these lines, Peggy Mufioz Simonds finds
enough references to conventional emblems to Mfil an entire book.4'
Marcus sees topical history, the "Jacobean line," as the primary
point of this play. Its constant interrogation of the use of texts
thus demonstrates a questioning of its own method.42 Robert
Uphaus claims that Cymbeline "wavers between tentative romance
and pure parody."43 The queen's attitude toward British and Roman history clearly contributes to the play's oft-mentioned selfreflexiveness. Her desire "to kill the marvel" amounts to a
demystifying impulse, an epistemological stance essentially at
odds with that of romance. Moreover, her relation both to the
romance tradition and to the multivocal history writing of
Holinshed situates her between romance and history, within and
without each. The entire play's emphasis on documentary insta-
bility further suggests an awareness of its own unstable generic
status as a romance grounded upon the written documents of
historiography, as a historical romance.
III
As critics such as Annabel Patterson and Graham Holdemess
have pointed out, textual instability in the midst of apparent fixity also characterizes early modern historiography. Holderness
notes that history writing was "more complex in practice than
the ... theories the historians sometimes espoused."44 Verbatim
reproductions from one chronicle to another also contribute to
the sense of profound conservatism when reading these writers.
Seeing through the superficial sameness and recognizing the
multiple kinds of dialogues about history lying beneath can create room for new interpretative possibilities, dramatic and otherwise. I do not wish to attribute to Cymbeline the qualities of an
emblem for the unsettled state of the chronicles; however, its
primary chronicle source, Holinshed, also contains a provocative
and productive contradiction.
As the Chronicles's account of Cymbeline's reign must rely on
Roman historians for the suggestion of a conflict over the tribute,
it prefaces the relatively lengthy Roman excerpts with the British
historians' version: "our histories do affirme, that as well this
Kymbeline, as also his father Theomantius, liued in quiet with
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310
History
in
Cymbeline
the Romans, and continually to them payed the tribute which
the Britons had couenanted with Julius Cesar to pay."45 On
whether such a battle as dramatized in Cymbeline ever happened,
Holinshed leaves us doubtful. Judging by the Roman writers,
who record the British refusal to pay tribute, such an event certainly seems plausible. Yet, even the Roman historians cited by
Holinshed do not know whether Augustus Caesar ever followed
through on his intention to travel personally to Britain in order
to negotiate a settlement. Meanwhile, "our histories" say that
armed conflict never happened because tribute payment contin-
ued unabated. Once again, we are left to decide for ourselves.
Shakespeare opts to have it both ways, converting Holinshed's
uncertainty over war or peace into a historical (and dramatic)
sequence. In his battle, no one of any importance dies, clearly
minimizing the representational impact of any war's horrors. And
his king becomes far more magnanimous than that depicted in
the chronicles, thanks to his astonishing generosity in victory.
Given the Roman historians' rendering of the subsequent rebellious rule of Guiderius, as well as the mystery over what hap-
pened to Cymbeline's tribute, one is not shocked to find
Guiderius's battles back-dated into Cymbeline's reign in
Shakespeare's play. It seems that the playwright has taken from
Holinshed both the Roman recorded wars and the British emphasis on peace in fashioning his fifth act.
That peace emerges only through the defeat of the mighty
Roman legions smacks of nationalism and basic ignorance of history. Yet the play refuses to allow the fantastic elements com-
pletely to subdue its historical sense. For example, III.vii exists
entirely to establish the plausibility of a Roman defeat at the hands
of the Britons. In this sixteen-line scene, two senators and a tribune discuss current events, just the sort of newsy interaction
we would expect to find in a history play. With word that "the
common men are now in action / 'Gainst the Pannonians and
Dalmatians" and that elsewhere in Europe the armies are weak,
the first senator brings the command to the tribunes to levy an
emergency force of "gentry" to fight in Britain (lines 2-3, 7). Thus,
Shakespeare shows us that the army that fights and loses has
been hastily summoned and assembled. Though the soldiers are
elsewhere described as "most willing spirits / That promise noble
service" (IV.ii.338-9), this forced change in military practice portends a change in military fortunes, thus preserving for
Shakespeare some semblance of historical plausibility.
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This movement of demystification squares with the queen's
various efforts "to kill the marvel," with her offering of a British
version of history, and with the play's self-reflexive interrogation
of all things textual. Yet, act V obviously places a premium on
mystery, on the wonder inspired by the multi-layered reunions
and repentances which conclude Cymbeline. I suggest that the
demystification in this play ultimately gets erased by act V's
remystification. The peace between Britain and Rome resolves
the play's engagement with historiographical debate into a single,
tidy version of history, sealing off the romantic excursion, surrounding it with the known past recorded by native historiogra-
phers: "our histories do affirme ... that Kymbeline .. . liued in
quiet with the Romans." The fictional queen and Cloten, blotted
from memory, might as well never have existed. The tribute, once
resumed, might as well never have been interrupted.
IV
In Cymbelne, Shakespeare takes exorbitant liberties with the
facts of history. He gives the king a daughter. He orphans the two
princes. His Britons defeat the Romans. With regard to its overall
atmosphere, Cymbeline clearly owes more to literary than to
chronicle history. Yet, history constitutes more than a mere back-
drop to the romantic stories in this play. We have seen how
Shakespeare remains loyal to the spirit and even to the letter of
Holinshed while filling in the historical gaps with romance. But
more than revealing how careful a reader of Holinshed
Shakespeare was, Cymbeline makes vivid the difficulties in finally separating the romantic impulse from the telling of history.
It dislodges the sense of difference between history and romance.
Countless early modern title pages attest to the fact that the
word, history, could encompass both "story" (considered to be
fictional) and "history" (considered to be factual) until, as the
OED tells us, the nineteenth century. To the extent that much
early modern historiography shaped the chronicled facts into
conformity with the master narrative that we call providentialism,
one might refer with more accuracy to all early modern history
writing as "historical romance." In Hayden White's terminology,
the writer of history in any era "emplots" the known facts according to the most familiar narrative genres of his or her day.46 In
the case of Cymbeline, historical romance seems most appropriate as a generic label. In spite of its taxonomic precision, though,
the phrase has traditionally carried the same stigma for
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312
History
in
Cymbeline
Shakespeareans as "pseudo-history." As recently as 1990, a critic
of historical drama could make a reference to "history plays per
se" and "historical romances" as though the two were obviously
distinct kinds of plays.47 How much "pure" history does a play
need in order to escape being labeled as, in essence, a bastardized history play? And how could one ever hope to measure the
amount?
I want this essay to suggest that historical romances must be
reexamined if we seek a full understanding of the practice of history writing in early modern England. By bringing suggestions of
historiography to bear in Cymbeline, Shakespeare calls attention
to the storytelling inherent to any telling of history. For as the
play's ending achieves plot resolution, it brings us back to history even as we return to romance.
NOTES
I would like to thank David M. Bergeron and Geraldo de Sousa, each of
whom read several versions of this essay and offered invaluable counsel. I
also appreciate the careful and perceptive reading given by this essay's anonymous reader at SEL.
I J. M. Nosworthy, "Introduction," in Cymbeline, ed. Nosworthy, Arden
Shakespeare Series (1955; London and New York: Routledge, 1991), p. xix;
Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1957), p. 253. Ribner's final chapter, 'The History
Play in Decline," discusses historical romances such as Cymbeline and alleges their collective role in extinguishing the history play (pp. 266-305).
2 See Leah S. Marcus, Puzzling Shakespeare: Local Reading and Its Discontents (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1988), pp. 116-48; David M.
Bergeron, Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Family (Lawrence: Univ.
Press of Kansas, 1985); Howard Felperin, Shakespearean Romance (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 189-96; and Emrys Jones, "Stuart
Cymbeline," EIC 1 1, 1 (Winter 1961): 84-99.
3For a preliminary list of such plays, see Ribner, appendix B, pp. 31927. Also, see my "Anachronism and Historical Romance in Renaissance
Drama: James IV," EIRC 24 (1998): 75-90.
4Quoted in Nosworthy, p. xiv.
5For a different reading of the play's indebtedness to Roman history,
this time to English translations of historians of Rome, see Bergeron,
"Cymbeline: Shakespeare's Last Roman Play," SQ 31, 1 (Spring 1980): 3141. Coppelia Kahn compares the Roman ideology in Cymbeline with that in
the more fully Roman plays by Shakespeare. Focusing on the play's "specific
concern with British national identity," she argues that Cymbeline restricts
that identity, even as it restricts notions of gender, to Roman standards
(Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women [London and New York:
Routledge, 19971, p. 160). Robert S. Miola addresses the connections to
Shakespeare's other depictions of Rome in "Cymbeline: Shakespeare's Vale-
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diction to Rome," in Roman Imnges, ed. Annabel Patterson, Selected Papers
from the English Institute 8 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1984),
pp. 51-62.
6William Shakespeare, "Cymbeline," in The Complete Works, ed. Alfred
Harbage, The Pelican Text Revised (New York: Viking-Penguin, 1969), pp.
1290-1333, I.i. 1. All subsequent citations of this play come from this edition
and will be cited parenthetically in the text by act, scene, and line number.
I See Carol Gesner, Shakespeare and the Greek Romances: A Study of
Origins (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1970).
8Although the first gentleman also refers to the British king, Tenantius,
and his brother, Cassibelan, in this opening scene, the audience is no more
likely to recognize these precise references to pre-Conquest Britain than they
are the play's title figure. My assumption is that, for many audience members, this precision in naming the British works against recognition; the
vague references to "the Romans" would have carried at least some meaning,
however imprecise. For all that many in the audience likely knew, the unfa-
miliar names,Tenantius and Cassibelan, could have been those of Danes or
Greeks.
9 Quoted in Nosworthy, p. xiv.
?0Nosworthy, p. xlix.
" Thomas Lanquet land Thomas Cooper], An Epitome of Cronicles (London, 1549), Fol. 89r. See John Stow, A Summarie of the Chronicles of En-
gland (London: R. Tottle and H. Binneman, 1575); and Anthony Munday, A
Brief Chronicle of the Successe of Times, from the Creation of the World, to
this Instant (London, 1611).
12 Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
3 vols. (London, 1577), 1:46.
13 See, for example, Peggy Munioz Simonds, Myth, Emblem, and Music in
Shakespeare's "Cymbeline": An Iconographic Reconstruction (Newark: Univ.
of Delaware Press, 1992), p. 44; Felperin, pp. 180-1; and Robin Moffet,
"Cyrnbeline and the Nativity," SQ 13, 2 (Spring 1962): 207-18.
14 For a full study of such multivocality, see Annabel Patterson, Reading
Holinshed's "Chronicles" (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994).
5 Holinshed, 1:46-7.
16 As Joan Warchol Rossi has demonstrated, Shakespeare reworks his
chronicle source to dramatic effect in Cymbeline, just as he did in the 1590s
history plays ("Cymbeline's Debt to Holinshed: The Richness of IIIJ.," in
Shakespeare's Romances Reconsidered, ed. Carol McGinnis Kay and Henry
E. Jacobs [Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 19781, pp. 104-12).
17 Constance Jordan, "Contract and Conscience in Cymbeline," RenD 25
(1994): 33-58, 42.
18 Cited by Kahn, p. 162.
l9 Homer Nearing Jr., 'The Legend of Julius Caesar's British Conquest,"
PMLA 64, 4 (Autumn 1949): 889-929.
20 Holinshed, 1:43. Kahn partially anticipates my discussion of Cymbeline
and its source in this paragraph (p. 162). While she calls attention to the
relations between notions of gender and national identity, I wish to examine
the competition between versions of history.
21Holinshed, 1:40.
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314
History
in
Cymbeline
22 G. Wilson Knight, The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of
Shakespeare's Final Plays (London: Methuen, 1948), p. 132.
23 Richard F. Hardin, "Unnoticed Contemporary Analogues of King Lear
and Cymbeline by John Ross of the Inner Temple (1606)," HumLov 44 (1995):
270-81.
24 See, for instance, Marcus, p. 122; Felperin, p. 187. Also see Jodi
Mikalachki ('The Masculine Romance of Roman Britain: Cymbeline and Early
Modern English Nationalism," SQ 46, 3 [Autumn 19951: 301-22), who explores what she calls a "hybrid nationalist response to the Roman Conquest"
(p. 309).
25 That the queen ultimately draws from Caesar's own writing is an irony
that is, for the present purposes, beside the point. I wish only to call atten-
tion to the juxtaposition of two versions of history.
26 Shakespeare, "Titus Andronicus," in Complete Works, pp. 823-54,
I.i.133.
27 Shakespeare, "Antony and Cleopatra," in Complete Works, pp. 11691211, V.ii.207-21. I thank Geraldo de Sousa for suggesting that I consider
Tamora and Cleopatra in comparison with Cymbeline's queen.
28 Phyllis Rackin, Stages of History: Shakespeare's English Chronicles
(Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990), p. 148.
29 Bergeron, "Cymbeline: Shakespeare's Last Roman Play," SQ 31, 1
(Spring 1980): 31-41.
30 Julian Martin, Francis Bacon, the State, and the Reform of Natural
Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992), p. 165. Also see B. H. G.
Wormald, Francis Bacon: History, Politics, and Science, 1561-1626 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993).
31 D. R. Woolf, "The 'Common Voice': History, Folklore, and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England," Past and Present 120 (Summer 1988): 2652.
32E. M. W. Tillyard, Shakespeare's Last Plays (1938; rprt. London: Chatto
and Windus, 1964). He discusses Cymbeline's planes on pp. 68-76.
33 Douglas L. Peterson, Tine, Tide, and Tempest: A Study of Shakespeare's
Romnances (San Marino CA: Huntington Library, 1973), p. 113.
34 Karen Cunningham, "Female Fidelities on Trial: Proof in the Howard
Attainder and Cymbeline," RenD 25 (1994): 1-32, 17.
35 Cunningham, p. 7.
36 Kristian Smidt, Unconformities in Shakespeare's Later Comedies (New
York: St. Martin's, 1993), pp. 132-3.
37 Marcus, p. 120.
38For other observations of this phenomenon, see, for example, Bergeron,
'Treacherous Reading and Writing in Shakespeare's Romances," Reading
and Writing in Shakespeare, ed. Bergeron (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press,
1996), pp. 160-77; Bergeron, Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Fam-
ily, pp. 147-57; Marcus, p. 140; Cunningham, pp. 1-31.
39 Marcus, p. 140.
40Joan Hartwig, Shakespeare's Tragicomic Vision (Baton Rouge: Louisi-
ana State Univ. Press, 1972), p. 92.
41 See note 13.
42Marcus, p. 142.
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43 Robert W. Uphaus, Beyond Tragedy: Structure and Experience in
Shakespeare's Romances (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1981), p. 50.
Also see Diana T. Childress, "Are Shakespeare's Last Plays Really Romances?"
in Shakespeare's Late Plays: Essays in Honor of Charles Crow, ed. Richard
C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod (Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 44-55.
44 Graham Holderness, Shakespeare's History (New York: St. Martin's,
1985), p. 20.
45 Holinshed, 1:46; emphasis mine.
46 Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 58, 83, and passimn
47Rackin, p.31. In 1957, Ribner made the most recent and, to my knowledge, the only attempt to codify the difference between history play and historical romance. Richard Helgerson (Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan
Writing of England [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 19921, pp. 232-9) and
Paola Pugliatti (Shakespeare the Historian [New York: St. Martin's, 19961,
pp. 35-6) have briefly discussed historical romance, placing very limited
samples in the "subversion" and "containment" camps, respectively. For studies of the presence of romance in history plays, see Paul Dean, "Shakespeare's
Henry VlTrilogy and Elizabethan 'Romance' Histories: The Origins of a Genre,"
SQ 33, 1 (Spring 1982): 34-48; and "Chronicle and Romance Modes in Henry
V," SQ 32, 1 (Spring 1981): 18-27; also Anne Barton, "The King Disguised:
Shakespeare's Henry V and the Comical History," in The Triple Bond: Plays,
Mainly Shakespearean, in Performance, ed. Joseph G. Price (University Park:
Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 92-117.
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