Arbieroo reviewed Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Review of 'Cymbeline' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Well that was fairly crazy! Convoluted plotting, humourous scenes reminiscent of the major comedies, preposterous coincidences reminiscent of Pericles, potions a la Romeo and Juliet or Much Ado About Nothing, girls dressed as boys like...almost every other Shakespeare play...reversals of fortune, repentant confessions, name a non-Tragic Shakespeare trope it's probably in here and it's all pretty daft. Nevertheless the last two Acts are fun if you can tolerate the silliness and just see how Shakespeare manages to resolve all the disparate and knottily tangled plot threads.
I have the feeling Shakespeare was in a hurry to get some of the late romances down on paper and up on stage and less concerned with deep characterisation or even witticism or puns than in most of the earlier work. He was probably a very busy man, by then, not just a playwright and bit-part player but a shareholder in a Royally sponsored …
Well that was fairly crazy! Convoluted plotting, humourous scenes reminiscent of the major comedies, preposterous coincidences reminiscent of Pericles, potions a la Romeo and Juliet or Much Ado About Nothing, girls dressed as boys like...almost every other Shakespeare play...reversals of fortune, repentant confessions, name a non-Tragic Shakespeare trope it's probably in here and it's all pretty daft. Nevertheless the last two Acts are fun if you can tolerate the silliness and just see how Shakespeare manages to resolve all the disparate and knottily tangled plot threads.
I have the feeling Shakespeare was in a hurry to get some of the late romances down on paper and up on stage and less concerned with deep characterisation or even witticism or puns than in most of the earlier work. He was probably a very busy man, by then, not just a playwright and bit-part player but a shareholder in a Royally sponsored stage company, with all that entailed.