ABSTRACT
In some ways, Cymbeline might seem like an obvious choice for a queer analysis: its status as relatively obscure and lesser Shakespeare; its focus on disguise, on fractured families, on disobedience at various levels; its frequently tortuous language; and its almost crazily elaborate narrative, might all seem to make the play inescapably queer. The most promising potential site of homosociality is perhaps the relationship between Posthumus and Giacomo. Still, even in this case the implications of their relationship remain latent and they get very little time together on stage. Thus, Cymbeline draws our attention to representation and its potential unreliability from its beginning, establishing a perspective that informs the play’s serious issues. Identity does not only inhere in the descent and pedigree enabled by marriage, however. In a society like Shakespeare’s, with its sumptuary laws, clothing also marks—and may even establish—the rank that is a basic part of Renaissance identity.
