‘Cymbeline’ is a late Shakespeare play where he brings some of his most persistent ideas on to the stage. Appearance and reality in the form of deceit is strong in this play.
Cymbeline is the King of Britain. He marries an unpleasant woman who has an arrogant son called Cloten. Cymbeline arranges the marriage of his beautiful daughter, Imogen, to Cloten but she defies him and marries the poor but worthy Posthumus Leonatus in secret.
‘Cymbeline’ is built on such themes as love, lies and deceit, society and class, mortality, supernatural intervention, suffering, women and femininity, and patriotism. Some of the themes found in ‘Cymbeline’ mirror Shakespeare’s other late romances, such as ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and ‘The Tempest’.
