SOURCE: Simonds, Peggy Muñoz. “The Iconography of Primitivism in Cymbeline.” Renaissance Drama 16 (1985): 95-120.

In the following excerpt, Simonds links Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus to the medieval myth and emblem tradition of Wild Men. The innate virtue of these three is in stark contrast to the villainy of Cymbeline's court, she contends, and they are integral to the restoration of a purified Britain.

In his recent article “The Pastoral Reckoning in ‘Cymbeline,’” Michael Taylor follows a long line of Cymbeline critics in mistaking a primitive setting in the Welsh mountains for a pastoral setting, and he finds Imogen's scene with the beheaded corpse of Cloten astonishingly “grotesque” within this ideal if “hard” pastoral world.¹ Although Shakespeare does indeed use pastoralism in a number of his plays, sheep and shepherds are notably lacking in Cymbeline, to the despair of the heroine herself. Imogen yearns for the innocence and security...