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 the following excerpt, MacKenzie highlights the unconventional use of the mythic figures of Mars and the Hydra in 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V. He suggests that although the struggle between Hercules and the Hydra was traditionally represented as a moral contest between good and evil, allusions to the many-headed monster in the Henry IV plays confound the issue of who is virtuous and who is vicious in the competition for the throne. Similarly, MacKenzie views the references to Mars in Henry V as an inte...

In the following excerpt, MacKenzie discusses different icons of life-in-death in Shakespeare's English history plays that support the themes of renewal and heroic succession. He calls particular attention to the phoenix allusions and the idea of England as a new Troy in the Henry VI trilogy and to symbols of the nation as a new Eden in the second tetralogy.

In the following excerpt, Sanford links the Renaissance connection between women's bodies and geography—evident in the iconography of Elizabeth I—to the wager plot in Cymbeline. She compares Iachimo's cataloguing of Imogen's bedchamber and the mark on her breast (II.ii) to the work of a mapmaker and likens his improvisational report of what he observed (II.iv) to a tale told by a traveler returned from distant lands.

In the following excerpt, Hanna traces Pericles's spiritual evolution in terms of his increasing awareness of good and evil and his eventual understanding of what may be gained by patience and perseverance. She finds in the play a coherent system of emblems and spectacles developed from Christian and biblical sources that mark the hero's progress from darkness to light.

In the following essay, Doebler examines Othello's last moments within the tradition of the art of dying well, with particular reference to popular iconography and devotional books. The critic asserts that by framing the Moor's precipitous death within this tradition, Shakespeare intensified the audience's sympathy for the despairing hero.

In the following essay, Lyons discusses two emblematic episodes in Hamlet that feature Ophelia: her distribution of flowers (IV.v) and the scene where the prince encounters her as she walks about reading a book (III.i). In the first instance she is closely associated with the mythical nymph Flora, the critic points out, and in the second with figures of female piety—including the Virgin Mary—yet on both occasions the iconographic associations are deeply ambivalent and support conflicting inte...

In the following excerpt, Bowers examines the structure and style of Lucrece and Titus Andronicus, and notes that in both Lucrece and Titus the social and political ramifications are emphasized in extended speeches that serve as verbal emblems.

In the following essay, Gellert maintains that the first half of Act V, scene i of Hamlet, while the prince meditates on Yorick's skull and jests with the gravediggers, serves as an emblematic representation of melancholy as both a disorder and a sign of imaginative thinking.

In the following excerpt, Endel explicates the scatological, satanic, and melancholic associations evoked by the iconic stage image of the newly crowned Richard III meditating on his private schemes from the seat of majesty.