SOURCE: Crumley, J. Clinton. “Questioning History in Cymbeline.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 41, no. 2 (spring 2001): 297-315.

In the following essay, Crumley evaluates Cymbeline as history and romance, concentrating on themes of historiography, epistemology, and the uncertainty of textual interpretation in the drama.

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...