So thanks a lot for coming to this first lecture on Symboly.

So I'm lecturing this term on five slightly odd Shakespeare plays,

partly because they're the increasing number that are left from the ones I've already done.

Like the previous lectures, these will all be recorded and put on iTunes You.

So if you're wondering why I'm not lecturing on Hamlet or something, it's because I've already done it and it's already available.

So there are 27 lectures on Shakespeare's plays available on iTunes You as part of the

approach in Shakespeare series. There's also a series on other Renaissance plays called

Not Shakespeare, but you might find

interesting too. Each lecture follows the same pattern. I've tried to focus the kind of critical

history of the play via a particular insistent or self-evident question is Prospero Shakespeare,

why is false staff fact, how sad is Keeneyne?

I give a short summary of the play so you can understand the lecture,

even if you haven't read it, that might be more necessary this term than ever,

and I try to suggest some of the ways you might link it to other plays chronologically

thematically or critically so coming up this term are all's world that ends well

merry wives of Windsor two henry six two gentlemen of Verona and today simbelene so Symbaline is one of Shakespeare's last plays written in 1610.

And as we'll see, it's got a lot of thematic affinities with other plays of the same period,

most notably Inters Tale and The Tempest.

It also fits alongside romance tragic comic plays with Shakespeare co-authors

with Fletcher at the end of his career, two noble kinsman and all is true or Henry VIII.

Simon Foreman, the astrologer and Quack Doctor went to see the play in April 1611,

and he wrote a short account of it that I'm going to discuss in a minute.

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