Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Shakespeare, William, --1564-1616--Cymbeline; Cymbeline (Shakespeare, William); Nature in literature;
Abstract
Shakespeare's Cymbeline reveals throughout, in its characters, plot and imagery, the reintegrating and regenerating influences of Nature. The entire play is dominated by Nature--birds, trees, flowers, mountains, streams and other natural elements. The characters are either naturally good or naturally bad; and while the good characters survive and repent of their erring, the bad characters die, as a result of their own evil, absolutely unregenerate. Nature in the play is thus seen as an active force which works both on and through the characters, who at times seem quite passive. In order to illustrate the manifestations of Nature, the poet first introduces us to an artificial court-life where evil and corruption are seen to suppress that which is good. This morally corrupted and sophisticated court is brilliantly contrasted with the simplicity and natural freshness of the Welsh mountains, where the inhabitants are free and natural and need fear no adversaries. The author's conception of the heroine, Imogen, is quite central here. It is her natural loving fidelity, unflawed by any resentment of her wrongs, that makes reconciliation possible. Moreover, this calls forth a natural response in others. Through all her sufferings and tribulations she is subjected to by human frailty and wickedness, she is befriended by the naturally good mountain folk and sustained by this uncorrupted life whose virtues she shares. The whole court and its history, the ludicrous Queen and her son, and indeed Posthumus himself, are all means of bringing out the inherently perfect redemptive love of Imogen, which finally warms and moves the hearts of the surviving characters and prompts them to seek forgiveness and regeneration. Even the gory war--one of Nature's most crude and violent catastrophes--is used, along with the wanderings of the heroine, to further and heighten the reintegrating process. And so is the eventual and ardent longing 2 of the princes to leave their mountain , refuge and go out to defend the good in the world of hostile men. Through all these conflicts, whatever is evil is at last destroyed either by itself or by others, and whatever is naturally good finally triumphs. The play is thus overtly concerned not only with the goodness of human beings but with the deepest realities of their order-disorder conflicts, and with Nature as the supreme and intrinsic manipulator of things, the working of Providential will which in time unravels our human complexities to make all things work together for good.
Year of Submission
1973
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of English Language and Literature
First Advisor
Louise Forest
Second Advisor
Josef W. Fox
Third Advisor
Keith McKean
Date Original
1973
Object Description
1 PDF file (75 leaves)
Copyright
©1973 Sydney M. Harrison
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Harrison, Sydney M., "Nature as a Reintegrating Force in Shakespeare's Cymbeline" (1973). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2851.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2851
Comments
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