Imperial Imagination in Cymbeline

Abstract

Abstract-Though telling the story of the Roman conquest, Cymbeline features alliance and fraternity, instead of enmity, between ancient Briton and the Roman Empire. Cymbeline, through its appropriation of the Roman-Briton tie, gives shape to the imperial imagination of the Stuart court. Shakespeare depicts the historical King of Briton, Cymbeline, the legendary warrior raised by the Romans, as the British counterpart of Caesar Augustus and heir of the mythical Brutus. Cymbeline can also be seen as an avatar of James I, who at that time willed to become the second Brutus and was keen to conquer. Shakespeare presents a Romanized Briton as the proper heir to the Roman Empire, degrading the Empire's natural descendent Italy for their moral corruption. The sense of moral superiority caters to the burgeoning imperial practice of the Jacobean monarch.