Critical Readings & Contexts

Plot
1. The Subplot
  1. "Shakespeare has very cleverly entangled the apparent main plot and the apparent subplot" - Cedric Watts
  2. "intermingling of characters seems simply a consequence of Shakespeare's determination to organise the drama on strong thematic lines" - Cedric Watts
  3. Context: the Gloucester subplot derives from the story of the King of Paphlagonia
  4. The Text: Notice the similar insights by Lear 3:4, lines 28-36 and Gloucester 4:1, lines 63-70
  5. "Provides a means to judge the king's behaviour" - Todd
2. The ending
  1. "There was no precedent for the utterly harsh and bleak quality of Shakespeare's ending" - Cedric Watts
  2. "The last words of the play are words of the respect, not word of despair" - J. Miller
  3. "The end is woe and nakedness" - Frank Kermode
  4. Lear's last moment is "one of joy" - Bradley
Character
1. Gloucester
  1. "tardily learns, through suffering, his mistake..." - Cedric Watts
  2. "The blinding of Gloucester is notoriously horrifying" - Cedric Watts
  3. (of the gouging) "An act too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition" - Samuel Johnson
  4. "Gloucester has been a blind fool" - Hal Hambrook
2. Lear
  1. "Lear breaches the morality of the family and the laws of statecraft; the consequent suffering deranges him" - Cedric Watts
  2. "Lear is a victim of a violent society" - Foakes
  3. "It is not uncommon to hear comments on the 'incredible stupidity' of Lear in choosing a daughter, whose only fault is honesty, as the object of hatred and rejection, while he accepts the glib praises of her elders who are manifestly false." - John Cunningham
  4. "Lear's words are monstrously unjust" - A.C. Bradley
  5. "To see Lear acted, to see an old man tottering about the stage with a walking stick, turned out of doors by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting" -Charles Lamb
  6. "Lear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage" - Charles Lamb
  7. "The paranoia of age is stalking him" - Hal Hambrook
  8. "He has clung steadfastly to the conviction that he is a loving father, despite all evidence of the contrary" - Hal Holbrook
  9. "Lear is responsible for his tragedy" - J. Miller
  10. "Lear is a passive character" - Walton
  11. Lear's error in judgement is a "tragic flaw" - Bradley
3. Edmund
  1. "The particular of 'nature' that he's choosing to serve is the 'appetitive' kind. red in tooth and claw" - Cedric Watts
  2. "It is the absence of this detestable quality [hypocrisy] that is the only relief in the character of Edmund the Bastard, and at times that reconciles us to him." - William Hazlitt
  3. "Bastards are evil in renaissance drama, because, being on the margins of aristocracy, half connected with it, half a product of another world, they have a clear motive to contest the dominant (or 'hegemonic' ideology..." - Susan Bruce
  4. "The disadvantages suffered by bastards who survived as object lessons were similar to those endured by woman... Bastards were dispossessed of legal identity and lack of family name excluded them of any right to inherit..." - Alison Findlay
  5. "Active, intelligent and ruthless" - A. Kettle
  6. Edmund assures "his father of his trust the moment he betrays him" - Jardine/O'Toole
4. Cordelia
  1. "The obsession with the tragic flaw has even made some commentators go as far as to give one to Cordelia, to sow seeds of her own destruction in her foolish refusal to play the game." - Fintan O'Toole
  2. "Her words "Nothing my lord" in the first scene of the play made her nothing in Lear's eyes, but it is precisely as nothing, as an absence, that she is most powerful in the play..." Fintan O'Toole
  3. "Cordelia for Shakespeare is virtue" - Danby
  4. "Ideal woman" - Hopkins
  5. "A symbol of goodness" - Todd
  6. Cordelia's name means 'heart'
5. Edgar
  1. "...is liable to seem bumbling, even stupid, in being so readily tricked" - Foakes
  2. "colourless Edgar" - A. Kettle
6. Goneril & Regan
  1. "The horror of Lear's story is the unnatural behavious or Goneril and Regan...not only personal sins but an upsetting of civilised values" - Helen Norris
  2. "Inhuman sisters" - Thornedyke
  3. "Terrible common sense" - A. Kettle
  4. Their behaviour is "too diabolical to be creditable" - Wharton
Theme
1. Nature
  1. "Shakespeare emphasises that nature has two contrasting aspects. On one hand, there is benign or "green" nature: the creative process at large when it appears to be cooperative with decent humanity...On the other hand, there is malign or "red" nature...violent and predatory...Shakespeare sees corresponding forces in human nature." - Cedric Watts
    1. "Those who serve this malign nature can be seen as 'unnatural', in the sense that they thereby deny benign nature and the traditional, loving aspects of human nature" - Cedric Watts
  2. "In 1:2...we get two world views...Gloucester...gives his version of the world in which man is governed by the state of the universe, in which human nature and emotion...are governed by "these late eclipses in the sun and moon"...Edmund immediately gives us a different version of the way the world works. His is the world of the self-made man, in which we have no one but ourselves to blame for our sins..." - Fintan O'Toole
  3. Nature "is invoked most literally during the storm scene...as a descriptor of ethical human action; as a detonation of proper order in the world..." - Susan Bruce
  4. "Man vs nature, we're more concerned by the struggle of man vs society" - J. Miller
  5. The Storm
    1. "exposure to the storm starts what ingratitude began" - Kenneth Muir
  6. "To Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Cornwall, nature is a force encouraging the individual to think only of the fulfilment of their own desire" - Wilson
2. Divine Justice
  1. "the wicked prosper and the virtuous miscarry" - Samuel Johnson
  2. "we get the impression that divine powers have acted to punish but also enlighten these erring noblemen" - Cedric Watts
  3. "There is no supernatural justice - only human natural justice" - S.L. Goldburg
3. Disorder
  1. "If people deny the established order, then chaos and destruction ensue" - Cedric Watts
  2. "King Lear is a wild, violent and volcanic text" - Cedric Watts
  3. "Lear breaks the bonds, bringing his kingdom and all the fixed relationships within it tumbling down with his question 'Which of you shall say doth love me most?" - Fintan O'Toole
4. Fathers
  1. The play seems "overwhelmingly about fathers and their paternity" - Janet Adelman
  2. "in renaissance social and political discourse, the relation of a child to parent was an essential part of the general nexus of hierarchical subordination" - Richard Strier
  3. "It is interesting there is no literal mother in King Lear" - Coppelia Khan
5. Power
  1. "[King Lear] is a play about power, property and inheritance" - Jonathan Dollimore
6. Masculinity Vs Femininity
  1. "In this patriarchal world, masculinity depends upon repressing the vulnerability, dependency and capacity for feeling which are called "feminine"." - Coppelia Kahn
  2. "Lear goes mad because he is unable to accept his dependence on the feminine, his daughters" - Coppelia Khan
  3. "Women are made to submit - Cordelia - or be destroyed - Goneril and Regan" - Kathleen McKluskie
7. Religion
  1. "Slowly, painfully...we see a religion born of disillusionment, suffering and sympathy, a purely spontaneous, natural growth of human spirit, developing from nature, magic to God"-G. Wilson Knight
8. Suffering
  1. "Lear suffers so many sufferings he can only die" - Schlegal
9. Age
  1. "Lear explores the powerlessness of old age" - Bruce
10. Madness
  1. "Lear's madness is not so much a breakdown as a breakthrough" - A. Kettle
Language
1. "prose can also signal reverses in character, indicating the onset of madness or loss of control" - Russ McDonald
General
1. "King Lear is too huge for the stage" - A.C. Bradley
2. "King Lear is a play about the disintegration of the world" - Jan Kott
3. "The journey of a poor king to absolution and self-discovery" A . Hopkins
4. "Lear shows the breakdown not only of society but of humanity itself" - M. Bragg
5. "cruelest play" - Frank Kermode
6. "No other of Shakespeare's plays involves an audience so directly and deeply with its characters" - E. Petcher

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	Created by Sophie Dickinson almost 9 years ago