Seven Ages

Romance · c. 1611

Shakespeare’s Cymbeline

A late-period everything bagel: ancient Britain and Renaissance Italy, a wicked stepmother and a wager on a wife’s virtue, a beheaded villain mistaken for a hero, and a final scene that resolves roughly two dozen plot threads in a single dizzying sequence.

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By the Seven Ages editors2 min read

At its centre is Imogen, among the most loved of Shakespeare’s heroines.

It should not work; in performance it strangely does, and the graveside song “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” is one of the most beautiful lyrics in the language. For readers who already know the canon’s main roads and want the scenic route.

Cymbeline on screen

1Cymbeline (2014)

Film · dir. Michael Almereyda

Modern-dress, Ed Harris and Ethan Hawke

Reading Cymbeline this year?

Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.

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