Cymbeline
So here’s the numerical breakdown…
- 3288 total lines; longer than the average (play: 2768; romance: 2658)
- Act One, Scene Six, Act Four, Scene Two, and Act Five, Scenes Four and Five are the longest of their kinds in the Canon (210, 403, 205, and 487 lines, respectively).
- Act Two, Scene Five, and Act Three, Scene Seven are the shortest of their kinds in the Canon (35 and 16 lines, respectively).
- Act One: 727 lines; much longer than average (play: 582; romance: 572)
- Act Two: 458 lines; shorter than average (play: 567, romance: 493)
- Act Three: 739 lines; much longer than average (play: 576, romance: 451)
- Act Four: 527 lines; shorter than average (play: 560, romance: 610)
- Act Five: 837 lines; much longer than average (play: 484, romance: 533)
- 421 lines of prose (12.8% of total lines, which is less than average (play: 26.32%; romance: 19.74%); compare with The Comedy of Errors: 13.31%, Titus Andronicus: 1.39%, The Taming of the Shrew: 20.82%, 1HenryVI: 0.37%, 2HenryVI: 16.64%, 3HenryVI: 0.14%, Richard III: 2.89%, Love’s Labor’s Lost: 35.08%, The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 26.81%, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: 19.75%, Romeo and Juliet: 14.18%, King John: 0.0%, The Merchant of Venice: 21.79%, Richard II: 0%, 1HenryIV: 44.7%, 2HenryIV: 50.36%, HenryV: 40.89%, Merry Wives: 88.20%, As You Like It: 56.12%, Much Ado: 77.78%, Caesar: 7.47%, Twelfth: 64.44%, Hamlet: 27.33%, Troilus: 32.30%, All’s Well: 48.20%, Measure: 41.40%, Othello: 19.96%, King Lear: 26.28%, Macbeth: 8.19%, Antony and Cleopatra: 10.92%, Timon: 25.56%, Pericles: 25.56%, and Coriolanus: 22.96%)
- 134 rhyming lines (4.08% of total lines, which is far less than the average [play: 8.35% and romance: 8.6%]; compare with Comedy: 20.10%, Titus: 2.42%, Taming: 3.93%, 1HenryVI: 9.79%, 2HenryVI: 3.16%, 3HenryVI: 5.37%, Richard III: 7.55%, LLL: 40.86%, 2Gents: 35.08%, Midsummer: 43.5%, Romeo: 16.61%, King John: 6.19%, Merchant: 5.16%, Richard II: 18.95%, 1HenryIV: 1.04%, 2HenryIV: 2.32%, HenryV: 1.80%, Merry Wives: 3.79%, As You Like It: 10.87%, Much Ado: 2.43%, Caesar: 0.41%, Twelfth: 6.09%, Hamlet: 4.91%, and Troilus: 5.40%, All’s Well: 9.05%, Measure: 3.16%, Othello: 3.09%, King Lear: 4.02%, Macbeth: 12.58%, Antony and Cleopatra: 0.99%, Timon: 5.33%, Pericles: 19.02%, and Coriolanus: 1.17%)
- 27 scenes; more than average (plays: 21; romance: 20)
- 40 characters; many more than the average (plays: 36; romance: 35)
Check out our “by the numbers” breakdown as an infographic!
