The first recorded production of Cymbeline, as noted by Simon Forman, was in April 1611.[1] It was first published in the First Folio in 1623. When Cymbeline was actually written cannot be precisely dated.
The Yale edition suggests a collaborator had a hand in the authorship, and some scenes (e.g., Act III scene 7 and Act V scene 2) may strike the reader as particularly un-Shakespearean when compared with others. The play shares notable similarities in language, situation, and plot with Beaumont and Fletcher's tragicomedy Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding (c. 1609–10). Both plays concern themselves with a princess who, after disobeying her father in order to marry a lowly lover, is wrongly accused of infidelity and thus ordered to be murdered, before escaping and having her faithfulness proven. Furthermore, both were written for the same theatre company and audience.[9] Some scholars believe this supports a dating of approximately 1609, though it is not clear which play preceded the other.[10]
The first page of Cymbeline from the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623.The editors of the Oxford and Norton Shakespeare believe the name of Imogen is a misprint for Innogen—they draw several comparisons between Cymbeline and Much Ado About Nothing, in early editions of which a ghost character named Innogen was supposed to be Leonato's wife (Posthumus being also known as "Leonatus", the Latin form of the Italian name in the other play). Stanley Wells and Michael Dobson point out that Holinshed's Chronicles, which Shakespeare used as a source, mention an Innogen and that Forman's eyewitness account of the April 1611 performance refers to "Innogen" throughout.[1] In spite of these arguments, most editions of the play have continued to use the name Imogen.
Milford Haven is not known to have been used during the period (early 1st century AD) in which Cymbeline is set, and it is not known why Shakespeare used it in the play. Robert Nye noted that it was the closest seaport to Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon: "But if you marched due west from Stratford, looking neither to left nor to right, with the idea of running away to sea in your young head, then Milford Haven is the port you'd reach," a walk of about 165 miles (266 km), about six days' journey, that the young Shakespeare might well have taken, or at least dreamed of taking.[11] Marisa R. Cull notes its possible symbolism as the landing site of Henry Tudor, when he invaded England via Milford on 7 August 1485 on his way to deposing Richard III and establishing the Tudor dynasty. It may also reflect English anxiety about the loyalty of the Welsh and the possibility of future invasions at Milford.[12]
