“Of Cimbalin king of England”: The controversial representation of the British past in Cymbeline”

Contemporary to the impetus of antiquarians and historiographers who were looking for sources and materials that could be interpreted and re-adapted for the present needs and aims of James I’s Britain, Cymbeline was apparently written to celebrate the new Empire of Great Britain and to perform the new identity of the “Britons” in front of the self-styled king of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. However, far from consolidating a new sense of Britishness, the staging of history in Cymbeline generates controversial and even contradictory political discourses. Taking Stuart Hall’s definition of history as a starting point (1989), the essay investigates a few notable 16th century texts which addressed the representation of the history of Roman Britain, as well as Britain’s (new) geography and contemporary history in Cymbeline. It also explores the play’s controversial interconnection between historical and geographical knowledge, and its staging of history to unpredictably engender alternative discourses on national history, imperial and colonial ambitions.