Term II : Lecture 2

King Lear
Issues that must be addressed: An Introduction
Getting something out of the Lecture,
apart from 50 minutes of snooze time
 Don’t sit at the back. Fill from the front.
 Get out your text, notebook and writing
materials.
 Don’t sit back, bag closed, hands empty.
 Record the gist of each slide.
 If there’s something you don’t get ,make a note
to clarify it at the next tutorial.
 Be involved. Take some responsibility.
King Lear:
Historical Lear

 If there was ever a historical King Lear, his memory

has faded into mythology and/or been conflated with
others.
 Geoffrey of Monmouth ("History of the English
Kings", around 1140) provides oldest written
reference to King Lear (spelled "Leir") and describes
him as a pre-Christian warrior king in what is now
southwest England.
King Lear:
Lear in other cultures

 Eastern European version in which the daughter

says she loves her father as much as she loves salt
 Kurosawa made ‘Ran’
 ‘A Thousand Acres’, a recent movie with a feminist
twist
 Grigori Kozintsev's ‘Korol Lir’
Shakespeare’s Lear:

 Retells the old story to revisit ancient themes: filial

duties, kingship, loyalty, possibility of happiness,
nature of wisdom, nature of nature, despair,
courage, hope (justified/foolish), whether human
nature is fundamentally selfish or generous …
 Debate about its status: Does Lear deserve heroic
stature?
 The flawed man who learns wisdom through
suffering
 Dramatic & poetic impact
King Lear:
Images & Patterns
 Nature
 The idea of natural hierarchy
 Contrast between natural & unnatural, human nature
Vs ‘culture’
 Various ideas about the relationship between human
beings and the natural world that appear in King Lear.
(Is a big issue which we will come back to again)
King Lear:
Other Images & Patterns

 Clothing - (Clothed / naked) are you more yourself with

your culture's clothes and the dignity they confer, or
naked, owing nothing to anyone? The relationship
between disguise, clothing & Identity)
 Fortune - (Is what happens to us dumb luck,
predestined, the role of the gods/the heavens, do we
make our own destiny or whatever?) Existentialism
/Nihilism
 Justice - (What is just? many different ideas)
King Lear:
Other Images & Patterns

 Eyesight / blindness / hallucination - (a blinded character

and a hallucinating character both perceive things more
clearly; the play asks "Does human nature make us care
only for ourselves, or for others?", our natural eyes may
not give us the best answer. Relationship between
physical & moral vision.)
King Lear:
Other Images & Patterns
 Nothingness - Cordelia can add nothing to her sisters'
speeches. Lear says that "nothing" is the reward to
Cordelia. Edmund was reading "nothing", so Gloucester
says "the quality of nothing has no need to hide itself",
Asked if he can make use of nothing, Lear says again,
"nothing can come from nothing." The jester calls Lear a
zero without a preceding figure, or "nothing." Deprived of
his identity, Edgar is "nothing". The storm makes
"nothing" (should this be "knotting?") of Lear's hair etc.
King Lear:
Who is the favourite character? The dramatic
problems with vice & virtue
Edmund (for some)
 Charming, clever, clear-headed
 His father has treated him badly
 So he decides that human nature is fundamentally
selfish and decides to act accordingly
 Treats others horribly. Yet at the end, finds the
decency he thought he didn't have,
 Tries to do good "in spite of [his] own nature
 Is he a bastard in the other sense of the word?
King Lear:
Questions
 Is Cordelia virtuous? Is she more than a
goody goody character?
 Are the other sisters immediately identifiable
as villains? (Of course, later on, they are!)
 Do they have a case for behaving as they do?
King Lear:
Identity: A Reminder
 The unifying theme of the entire paper is Identity