Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare's Cymbeline: An Iconographic Reconstruction

ISBN-10: 0874134293
ISBN-13: 9780874134292
Category: Art and literature
Pages: 393
Language: English
Published: 1992
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
Author: Peggy Muñoz Simonds

Description

"Winner of the University of Delaware Press Award for the best manuscript in Shakespearean Studies, this study clarifies and revitalizes Shakespeare's Cymbeline for the modern reader through a rediscovery of the poet's artistic use of Renaissance myths, symbols, and emblematic topoi that give meaning to the play. Although mainly concerned with the rich classical and Christian iconography of Cymbeline, the book also rages widely over Shakespeare's dramatic and nondramatic works and beyond to the work of his contemporaries in Renaissance poetry, drama, art, theology, philosophy, emblems, and myths to show parallels between the mysteries of this tragicomedy and other examples of Renaissance thought and expression. It uncovers actual representations in the visual arts of parallels to the play's descriptive and theatrical moments. These iconographic parallels are lavishly illustrated in the book through photographs of Renaissance plaster work, embroidery, metalwork, oil paintings, and sculpture, but primarily through woodcuts and engravings from English and Continental emblem books of the period. The visual imagery is carefully related to an intellectual explanation of Cymbeline's complex Neoplatonic and Reformation themes." "The author begins with a extended definition of the genre of Renaissance tragicomedy, a form developed for Christian artistic purposes in Italy by Tasso and Guarini. Aside from the obviously similar characteristics of a happy ending and the presence of an oracle, Cymbeline shares nine other artistic aspects with the pioneer Italian tragicomedies Aminta and Il pastor fido, including the celebration of an Orphic ritual of death and resurrection. After a discussion of the Neoplatonic and Ovidian mythology embedded in the play, the book considers in detail the iconography of Imogen's elaborately decorated bedroom as a reconciliation of opposites, the iconography of primitivism and Wild Men versus courtier as a satire of the British court, and the iconography of birds, animals, vegetation, and minerals as evocative of the major themes of doubt, repentance, reformation, reunion, and regeneration in Cymbeline. The final objective of the dramatic conflict is mutual forgiveness and a happy marriage, all of which is achieved through temperance or the attainment of musical concord within the individual, the state, and the world. Although Shakespeare shows the five senses to be an inadequate means for his characters to recognize true virtue in a deceitful world, the sense of hearing is the most important in the play, since it allows participation in the four redemptive functions of sound, which ultimately leads to psychological harmony with the music of the spheres." "Simonds also demonstrates that because Cymbeline is essentially an Orphic tragicomedy designed to liberate the audience from melancholy, the play strives to bring delight through its theatrical reenactment of the initially painful Platonic journey from Eros to Anteros, from blindness to a vision of divinity, from discord to musical harmony, from spiritual confusion to joyful enlightenment."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Get the book

Similar books

Shakespeare and Wales: From the Marches to the Assembly
By Willy Maley
... Cymbeline', p. 34. 36. Curran, Roman Invasions, p. 215. 37. R.A. Foakes, 'Shakespeare's Other Historical Plays', in ... Music, p. 22. 39. Ibid., pp. 22–5 [sic]. 40. Floyd-Wilson, 'Delving to the Root', p. 102. 41. Willy Maley ...
Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: A Dictionary of Allegorical Meanings
By H. David Brumble
(Countesse of Pembrokes Yvychurch: 21v-22r: see Appendix B, “Bestialization”) One part of Fraunce's interpretation of ... example suffice any for whom grace reserves that experience” (1.67-71; see Hollander 1969: 216-220; Brownlee 1993: ...
Shakespeare's Musical Imagery
By Christopher R. Wilson
Sir Andrew 'What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?' (1.3.100). The 'foolish knight' replies 'Faith, I can cut a caper.' (1.3.101) and continuing the dance theme, 'I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in ...
Cymbeline: Constructions of Britain
By Ros King
... Music for Shakespeare's Company (dir. Peter Holman, London: Hyperion Records, 1997) contains suitable ornamentation ... Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, pp. 95–135. 31 'Wrying but a little', in Essays, mainly ...
Killing Physicians: Shakespeare's Blind Heroes and Reformation Saints
By John J. Norton
... Myth , Emblem , and Music in Shakespeare's Cymbeline : An Iconographic Reconstruction ( Newark : University of Delaware Press , 1992 ) . 4 Moffet , Robin , " Cymbeline and the Nativity , " Shakespeare Quarterly 13 , no . 2 ( 1962 ) ...
Cymbeline
By William Shakespeare
J. Pearson, 1874 G. Hill, “'The true conduct of human judgment”: some observations on Cymbeline', in The Morality ofArt, ed. D. Jefferson, 1969, 18—32 M. Hunt, 'Fourteeners in Shakespeare's Cymbeline', N&Q, (2000), 458—61 G. K. Hunter, ...
Shakespeare: The Last Plays
By Kiernan Ryan
... Cymbeline', in F.C.Crews (ed.), Psychoanalysis and Literary Process. Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1970, pp. 219–283 ... emblem books in its deployment of matrimony as an allegory of political and theological beliefs. Simonds, Peggy Muñoz ...
Music in Shakespeare: A Dictionary
By Christopher R. Wilson, Michela Calore
This is a comprehensive reference guide for scholars and students with interests in the thematic and allegorical relevance of music in Shakespeare, and the history of performance.
The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet Selected Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Emblem...
By Simon McKeown
... CYMBELINE. 1. ALVAN. BREGMAN. In this article, I will look at one topical family of emblems that has its root in the fable of the oak and the reed, and show how this can help us detect an organizing theme within Shakespeare's ... Myth, Emblem ...
Shakespeare's Books: A Dictionary of Shakespeare Sources
By Stuart Gillespie
Ratcliff, Edward C. (1949). The Booke of Common Prayer of the Churche of England. ... Bourchier, John, Lord Berners See Berners, John Bourchier, Lord. Bright, Timothy (1550–1615), Physician, Clergyman and Scientific Writer Bright's ...