Cymbeline (third Series)

By (author) Shakespeare, William; Edited by Wayne, Valerie
Description
In Cymbeline, Ancient Britain’s female heir to the throne is slandered by a decadent Italian while the Romans invade Britain to retain it as part of their empire. Shakespeare’s late romance is full of unpredictable conjunctions that are explored in the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition. Valerie Wayne takes a transformative look at the play’s critical and performance history by examining its attention to gender, calumny and sexuality together with nationhood, colonialism and British identities. The authoritative play text is amply annotated to clarify its language and allusions, and three appendices delineate the play’s textual history, its rich use of music and its casting. Offering students and scholars alike a wealth of insight and new research, this edition maintains the rigorous standards of the Arden Shakespeare.
Table of contents
Introduction Cymbeline Appendices Bibliography Index
Review quote
Richly detailed … a pleasure to read and [lives] up to the best Arden Shakespeare tradition.
Review quote
Valerie Wayne’s edition of Cymbeline maintains the series’ commitment to top-notch editorial apparatus, commentary, and glosses … Scholars, graduate students, and anyone wanting more advanced context for the play will welcome the magisterial work that has gone into this Arden revamp … This update to Cymbeline represents a major and long-needed step forward for one of Shakespeare’s most complicated, intriguing, and often-difficult plays. Wayne had produced a massively useful edition and another essential entry into a series that serves in many ways as the golden standard for modern editorial scholarship. Thorough editions such as this remind us all how essential scholarly editorial work is.
Review quote
Wayne’s sensitive introduction to the new Arden Cymbeline offers a complex interweaving of the mythical, historical, and national associations ... The text is well presented and justified.
Review quote
The new addition to Arden''s third series is an engaging and accessible Cymbeline that feels both fresh and grounded, notable for its sincere appreciation of, and elaboration on, an often maligned and very confusing play.
Review quote
A reliable, scholarly text with accessible and erudite apparatus and paratextual material.
Biographical note
Valerie Wayne is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in Honolulu, USA.
Promotional headline
A major new edition of one of Shakespeare''s late plays
Description for collection
The Arden Shakespeare has long set the gold standard in annotated, scholarly editions of Shakespeare''s plays. Each Arden edition in the Third Series offers a modernized text with comprehensive commentary notes glossing meanings, discussing staging issues and explaining literary allusions, together with a lengthy, illustrated introduction by a leading scholar exploring the play''s critical, theatrical and historical contexts. Praise for the series: "The gold standard for modern editorial scholarship." – Sixteenth Century Journal "One of the best regarded scholarly editions of Shakespeare''s plays." – The Times "One of the landmark publishing ventures of our time ... The care for standards, and meticulous attention to detail ... have made the Arden Shakespeare one of the great achievements of modern literary scholarship." – The New Criterion "Arden 3 stands as a book of memory and of aspiration, a record of our progress as a field and a profession, and a reminder of how much further we have to go ... Editorial practices developed in the Third Series established a precedent for innovation and discipline while producing texts that eng