Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Glenn Clark

Critical Essay by Glenn Clark

SOURCE: “The ‘Strange’ Geographies of Cymbeline,” in Playing the Globe: Genre and Geography in English Renaissance Drama, edited by John Gillies and Virginia Mason Vaughan, Associated University Presses, 1998, pp. 230-59.

In the following essay, Clark explores the geopolitical restructuring of England led by James I and suggests that Cymbeline served to support the king's political agenda.

At his accession to the English throne, and for years afterward, King James was determined to unify Scotland and England. This interest frequently led him to commentary on the status and meaning of the borders and border dwellers of his kingdoms, as in his “Proclamation for the Uniting of England and Scotland” issued in May, 1603. James expressed his desire “utterlie to extinguishe as well the name as substance of the bordouris, I mean the difference between them and other parts of the kingdome. For doing quhairof it is necessarie that all querrellis...
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