King Lear Lecture 2

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