John Jones
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186885
- eISBN:
- 9780191674594
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186885.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
It has been established by textual specialists, and is now becoming widely accepted, that Shakespeare revised many of his plays, including some of the most celebrated. But how were the great ...
More
It has been established by textual specialists, and is now becoming widely accepted, that Shakespeare revised many of his plays, including some of the most celebrated. But how were the great tragedies altered and with what effect? This book looks at the implications of Shakespeare's revisions for the reader and spectator alike and shows the playwright getting to grips with the problems of characterization and scene formation in such plays as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. The book carries its argument down, as it puts it, to the very tip of Shakespeare's quill pen. The book assesses recent textual scholarship on Shakespeare's revisions and illuminates the artistic impact of the revised texts and their importance for our understanding of each play's moral and metaphysical foundations.Less
It has been established by textual specialists, and is now becoming widely accepted, that Shakespeare revised many of his plays, including some of the most celebrated. But how were the great tragedies altered and with what effect? This book looks at the implications of Shakespeare's revisions for the reader and spectator alike and shows the playwright getting to grips with the problems of characterization and scene formation in such plays as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. The book carries its argument down, as it puts it, to the very tip of Shakespeare's quill pen. The book assesses recent textual scholarship on Shakespeare's revisions and illuminates the artistic impact of the revised texts and their importance for our understanding of each play's moral and metaphysical foundations.
John Jones
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186885
- eISBN:
- 9780191674594
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186885.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter distinguishes Shakespeare's working draft of King Lear in Quarto from the version which appears in the Folio. This chapter also describes Peter Blayney's study of the conditions under ...
More
This chapter distinguishes Shakespeare's working draft of King Lear in Quarto from the version which appears in the Folio. This chapter also describes Peter Blayney's study of the conditions under which King Lear in Quarto was produced. King Lear in Quarto is a memorial construction in whole or part a reported text, and so is a bad quarto more or less like the first quarto of Hamlet. Blayney established that the printer Nicholas Okes was inexperienced and ill-equipped and that King Lear was the first play he had printed. Their supply of type was limited; for example, they were short of colons and full stops. Small wonder, therefore, that the verse is often misaligned, that much of it is set out as prose, and that prose is crudely chopped up to look like verse; and that punctuation is light throughout and frequently misleading.Less
This chapter distinguishes Shakespeare's working draft of King Lear in Quarto from the version which appears in the Folio. This chapter also describes Peter Blayney's study of the conditions under which King Lear in Quarto was produced. King Lear in Quarto is a memorial construction in whole or part a reported text, and so is a bad quarto more or less like the first quarto of Hamlet. Blayney established that the printer Nicholas Okes was inexperienced and ill-equipped and that King Lear was the first play he had printed. Their supply of type was limited; for example, they were short of colons and full stops. Small wonder, therefore, that the verse is often misaligned, that much of it is set out as prose, and that prose is crudely chopped up to look like verse; and that punctuation is light throughout and frequently misleading.
Hugh Grady
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198130048
- eISBN:
- 9780191671906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198130048.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
In the 1608 Quarto version of King Lear, there is an image of a rapacious, self-destructive animal, similar to the universal wolf of Troilus and ...
More
In the 1608 Quarto version of King Lear, there is an image of a rapacious, self-destructive animal, similar to the universal wolf of Troilus and Cressida, which seems to be a metaphor for reification. Both this metaphor and the thematic logic of the play (in each of its closely related versions) describe reification as a social process seeking the ruin of traditional values, human life, and society generally in an amoral, instinctual drive to power with an inevitable Hobbesian outcome. King Lear's thematics locate the play in the terrain not only of Michel Foucault's theories of power, but also, perhaps more tellingly, in that of the recent work of Jürgen Habermas. This play enacts a logic of resistance to power troubling to Foucault's theories of subjection, but consistent with Habermas's treatment of problems of legitimation. Furthermore, it deals with the related but culturally sensitive themes of social inequality, the basis of kingly authority, and the corrosive nature of power politics.Less
In the 1608 Quarto version of King Lear, there is an image of a rapacious, self-destructive animal, similar to the universal wolf of Troilus and Cressida, which seems to be a metaphor for reification. Both this metaphor and the thematic logic of the play (in each of its closely related versions) describe reification as a social process seeking the ruin of traditional values, human life, and society generally in an amoral, instinctual drive to power with an inevitable Hobbesian outcome. King Lear's thematics locate the play in the terrain not only of Michel Foucault's theories of power, but also, perhaps more tellingly, in that of the recent work of Jürgen Habermas. This play enacts a logic of resistance to power troubling to Foucault's theories of subjection, but consistent with Habermas's treatment of problems of legitimation. Furthermore, it deals with the related but culturally sensitive themes of social inequality, the basis of kingly authority, and the corrosive nature of power politics.
Paul Hammond
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199572601
- eISBN:
- 9780191702099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572601.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
In King Lear, characters exist in an uncertain, displaced, relationship to language. The play is built from commonplaces, proverbs, and rhetorical formulae, and from quotations of fable and song, as ...
More
In King Lear, characters exist in an uncertain, displaced, relationship to language. The play is built from commonplaces, proverbs, and rhetorical formulae, and from quotations of fable and song, as if many voices, many generations of experience inhabit each phrase. The play of quotation and commonplace in King Lear dissolves coherence, displaces the individual characters, prising apart the relationship between self and utterance. A decomposition of language decomposes its speakers. It is Lear who begins to make language the subject as well as the medium of the tragedy. Lear uses emblems to give himself stability and coherence at moments when his world seems to be dissolving. His madness takes him into strange new territory. As the play moves towards a conclusion, Shakespeare gives us several near-endings, too many near-closures: the romance ending in which Lear and Cordelia are reunited, the history-play ending in which Albany resigns the kingdom to Lear, and the tragic ending in which Lear dies.Less
In King Lear, characters exist in an uncertain, displaced, relationship to language. The play is built from commonplaces, proverbs, and rhetorical formulae, and from quotations of fable and song, as if many voices, many generations of experience inhabit each phrase. The play of quotation and commonplace in King Lear dissolves coherence, displaces the individual characters, prising apart the relationship between self and utterance. A decomposition of language decomposes its speakers. It is Lear who begins to make language the subject as well as the medium of the tragedy. Lear uses emblems to give himself stability and coherence at moments when his world seems to be dissolving. His madness takes him into strange new territory. As the play moves towards a conclusion, Shakespeare gives us several near-endings, too many near-closures: the romance ending in which Lear and Cordelia are reunited, the history-play ending in which Albany resigns the kingdom to Lear, and the tragic ending in which Lear dies.
Robert S. Miola
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112648
- eISBN:
- 9780191670831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112648.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Cooper's Thesaurus explains how furor is used to refer to ‘a vehement concitation or sturrynge of the minde,’ and it is observable that both Tyrant and Revenge tragedies exude this theme. Furor, in ...
More
Cooper's Thesaurus explains how furor is used to refer to ‘a vehement concitation or sturrynge of the minde,’ and it is observable that both Tyrant and Revenge tragedies exude this theme. Furor, in such tragedies, is what drives certain characters to eventful scelus and even instances of self-exaltation. Renaissance authors have made use of this concept in the two subgenres of Senecan plays since these can effectively, and even perhaps simultaneously, express a character's great passions through either heroism or delusion. Furor, as expressed by a third Renaissance genre, illustrates a code of feeling and the articulation of ideas. This chapter carefully looks into two of Shakespeare's famous works — Othello and King Lear — and how these concentrate on the issue of Senecan furor.Less
Cooper's Thesaurus explains how furor is used to refer to ‘a vehement concitation or sturrynge of the minde,’ and it is observable that both Tyrant and Revenge tragedies exude this theme. Furor, in such tragedies, is what drives certain characters to eventful scelus and even instances of self-exaltation. Renaissance authors have made use of this concept in the two subgenres of Senecan plays since these can effectively, and even perhaps simultaneously, express a character's great passions through either heroism or delusion. Furor, as expressed by a third Renaissance genre, illustrates a code of feeling and the articulation of ideas. This chapter carefully looks into two of Shakespeare's famous works — Othello and King Lear — and how these concentrate on the issue of Senecan furor.
Andreas Höfele
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199567645
- eISBN:
- 9780191731075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567645.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Shakespeare’s arguably most searching investigation into the nature of the human, King Lear, also offers his most varied and polysemous zoology. Older interpretations that see in the play a telos of ...
More
Shakespeare’s arguably most searching investigation into the nature of the human, King Lear, also offers his most varied and polysemous zoology. Older interpretations that see in the play a telos of redemption in which humanity is purified in suffering and ultimately reclaimed from the bestial must founder on the rocks of un-distinction which the play strews out in its staging of order and chaos, sovereign and savage, man and beast. From the initial eruption of Lear’s self-bestializing wrath to the two trial scenes in Act 3, the play exposes the ascendancy of brute force over human ‘kindness’, the regression into a proto-Hobbesian state of nature revealing the bestial wildness lurking in the very core of the social order. This trajectory of bestialization intersects with a perception of the animal not as an emblem of human degeneracy but as fellow creature.Less
Shakespeare’s arguably most searching investigation into the nature of the human, King Lear, also offers his most varied and polysemous zoology. Older interpretations that see in the play a telos of redemption in which humanity is purified in suffering and ultimately reclaimed from the bestial must founder on the rocks of un-distinction which the play strews out in its staging of order and chaos, sovereign and savage, man and beast. From the initial eruption of Lear’s self-bestializing wrath to the two trial scenes in Act 3, the play exposes the ascendancy of brute force over human ‘kindness’, the regression into a proto-Hobbesian state of nature revealing the bestial wildness lurking in the very core of the social order. This trajectory of bestialization intersects with a perception of the animal not as an emblem of human degeneracy but as fellow creature.
Emily Sun
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823232802
- eISBN:
- 9780823241163
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823232802.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter dedicates itself to examining the structure of this break in seeing and its relationship to an altered speech. Suffice it to say preliminarily that the task of the spectator — which is ...
More
This chapter dedicates itself to examining the structure of this break in seeing and its relationship to an altered speech. Suffice it to say preliminarily that the task of the spectator — which is the task of succeeding King Lear — is not to repeat again what has happened in the play, but to make a new beginning that breaks with the cycle of tragic repetition. The plot of King Lear is well-known. Writing the play sometime after 1603, between Othello and Macbeth, Shakespeare drew on accounts of a historical Lear with three daughters who reigned in Britain. Intertwined with this plot is a subplot involving Gloucester and his sons. In Lear Shakespeare explores the vexed nature of kingship by turning to a mythical king in the distant past, a “prehistoric” figure whose doings predate the practice of historical record keeping.Less
This chapter dedicates itself to examining the structure of this break in seeing and its relationship to an altered speech. Suffice it to say preliminarily that the task of the spectator — which is the task of succeeding King Lear — is not to repeat again what has happened in the play, but to make a new beginning that breaks with the cycle of tragic repetition. The plot of King Lear is well-known. Writing the play sometime after 1603, between Othello and Macbeth, Shakespeare drew on accounts of a historical Lear with three daughters who reigned in Britain. Intertwined with this plot is a subplot involving Gloucester and his sons. In Lear Shakespeare explores the vexed nature of kingship by turning to a mythical king in the distant past, a “prehistoric” figure whose doings predate the practice of historical record keeping.
Stewart Alan
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199549276
- eISBN:
- 9780191701504
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199549276.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
King Lear is a play riddled with letters — letters written, letters delivered, letters read, letters forged, letters recalled, and letters denied. Since the time of A. C. Bradley ...
More
King Lear is a play riddled with letters — letters written, letters delivered, letters read, letters forged, letters recalled, and letters denied. Since the time of A. C. Bradley at the turn of the 12th century, critics have drawn attention to the play's letter communications, and especially to how perverse they are. However, far from being an inconsistent mess, as some critics have alleged, the epistolary transactions are more firmly and particularly plotted in this play than in any other William Shakespeare drama. By tracing the play through its letters one can find a consistent attempt to reconceptualize the relationships between individuals, and the letters and messengers that facilitate and maintain them. This chapter suggests that it is in conflicting ways of being messengers that one finds the central opposition of the play.Less
King Lear is a play riddled with letters — letters written, letters delivered, letters read, letters forged, letters recalled, and letters denied. Since the time of A. C. Bradley at the turn of the 12th century, critics have drawn attention to the play's letter communications, and especially to how perverse they are. However, far from being an inconsistent mess, as some critics have alleged, the epistolary transactions are more firmly and particularly plotted in this play than in any other William Shakespeare drama. By tracing the play through its letters one can find a consistent attempt to reconceptualize the relationships between individuals, and the letters and messengers that facilitate and maintain them. This chapter suggests that it is in conflicting ways of being messengers that one finds the central opposition of the play.
Alice Fox
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129882
- eISBN:
- 9780191671876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129882.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed ...
More
This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed his work as belonging to others, the chapter discusses the slow metamorphosis from Woolf's reluctance to Shakespeare, to a lifetime devotion of reading his plays and works. In late 1908, Woolf began reading five Shakespearian plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Her reading of the plays led her to writing critical essays on the works of Shakespeare. Woolf found in the plays the perfect expression of ideas applicable to her own life, to society, and to the lives portrayed in her fiction. Among those of her novels which were founded on Shakespearian manner are Night and Day, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves, among others.Less
This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed his work as belonging to others, the chapter discusses the slow metamorphosis from Woolf's reluctance to Shakespeare, to a lifetime devotion of reading his plays and works. In late 1908, Woolf began reading five Shakespearian plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Her reading of the plays led her to writing critical essays on the works of Shakespeare. Woolf found in the plays the perfect expression of ideas applicable to her own life, to society, and to the lives portrayed in her fiction. Among those of her novels which were founded on Shakespearian manner are Night and Day, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves, among others.
A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187660
- eISBN:
- 9780191674747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187660.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
To move in one stride from Sophocles to William Shakespeare may appear historically licentious, or else merely silly. The not-so-covert presumption of this book, that tragedy is somehow One Thing, is ...
More
To move in one stride from Sophocles to William Shakespeare may appear historically licentious, or else merely silly. The not-so-covert presumption of this book, that tragedy is somehow One Thing, is at last exposed for the absurdity it is; in fact there are Greek tragedies, Roman tragedies, Elizabethan, Jacobean, neo-classical; each of these kinds is distinct; Aristotle was talking about one of them and one only; there is no reason to suppose that his remarks will be applicable in any way to the others. Certainly the fact that they are all called ‘tragedies’ does not mean that they must share a common essence. Elizabethan tragedy differs from Greek, but Shakespearean tragedy differs from Marlovian, King Lear is utterly distinct from Othello, and the Quarto and Folio texts of King Lear actually furnish the readers with two plays, not one. In tragedy, the irresponsible pleasure of arousal is joined with bonds of iron to the responsibilities of probable knowledge and intellectual assent.Less
To move in one stride from Sophocles to William Shakespeare may appear historically licentious, or else merely silly. The not-so-covert presumption of this book, that tragedy is somehow One Thing, is at last exposed for the absurdity it is; in fact there are Greek tragedies, Roman tragedies, Elizabethan, Jacobean, neo-classical; each of these kinds is distinct; Aristotle was talking about one of them and one only; there is no reason to suppose that his remarks will be applicable in any way to the others. Certainly the fact that they are all called ‘tragedies’ does not mean that they must share a common essence. Elizabethan tragedy differs from Greek, but Shakespearean tragedy differs from Marlovian, King Lear is utterly distinct from Othello, and the Quarto and Folio texts of King Lear actually furnish the readers with two plays, not one. In tragedy, the irresponsible pleasure of arousal is joined with bonds of iron to the responsibilities of probable knowledge and intellectual assent.
John Casey
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198240037
- eISBN:
- 9780191680069
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198240037.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter discusses the history of Lear criticism. King Lear is someone who was once proud, but whose pride has, with age and flattery, degenerated into childish vanity and irascibility. It also ...
More
This chapter discusses the history of Lear criticism. King Lear is someone who was once proud, but whose pride has, with age and flattery, degenerated into childish vanity and irascibility. It also states part of the greatness of King Lear lies in what, ethically speaking, could be regarded as confusion. It makes use, opportunistically, of some of the most potent images and emotions in our culture — the humbling of pride, the survival of love, finding oneself through losing oneself, redemption. At the same time, and even as a condition of the power to move us of such things, there is in the background a recognition of the good of ‘noble rage’, of outrage at ingratitude, of horror at the comprehensive defeat of manhood. It has been a theme implicit in this book that we inherit a confused system of values; that when we think most rigorously and realistically we are ‘pagans’ in ethics, but that our Christian inheritance only allows a fitful sincerity about this. It would therefore be wrong to assume that any thorough return to ‘pagan’ ways of thinking about ethics is being suggested.Less
This chapter discusses the history of Lear criticism. King Lear is someone who was once proud, but whose pride has, with age and flattery, degenerated into childish vanity and irascibility. It also states part of the greatness of King Lear lies in what, ethically speaking, could be regarded as confusion. It makes use, opportunistically, of some of the most potent images and emotions in our culture — the humbling of pride, the survival of love, finding oneself through losing oneself, redemption. At the same time, and even as a condition of the power to move us of such things, there is in the background a recognition of the good of ‘noble rage’, of outrage at ingratitude, of horror at the comprehensive defeat of manhood. It has been a theme implicit in this book that we inherit a confused system of values; that when we think most rigorously and realistically we are ‘pagans’ in ethics, but that our Christian inheritance only allows a fitful sincerity about this. It would therefore be wrong to assume that any thorough return to ‘pagan’ ways of thinking about ethics is being suggested.
Judith H. Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228478
- eISBN:
- 9780823241125
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823228478.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The relation of Shakespeare's King Lear to allegory has remained an elusive topic. Two of the older critics of Shakespeare, Watkins and Bradley, seem to think of allegory almost exclusively in the ...
More
The relation of Shakespeare's King Lear to allegory has remained an elusive topic. Two of the older critics of Shakespeare, Watkins and Bradley, seem to think of allegory almost exclusively in the limiting context of characterization in King Lear, rather than in terms of plot or narrative process of the play. Mack also invokes the idea of allegory to explain characterization in King Lear but does so only to distance the opprobrious word allegorical. Mack's and Bradley-Watkin's concept in describing one who is conceived allegorically, whether it is naturalistically or not, gives an insight into characterization in King Lear, and together they cast light on the various characters assembled in the play better than either does alone. Instances of both concepts can be found together in an allegory like The Faerie Queene.Less
The relation of Shakespeare's King Lear to allegory has remained an elusive topic. Two of the older critics of Shakespeare, Watkins and Bradley, seem to think of allegory almost exclusively in the limiting context of characterization in King Lear, rather than in terms of plot or narrative process of the play. Mack also invokes the idea of allegory to explain characterization in King Lear but does so only to distance the opprobrious word allegorical. Mack's and Bradley-Watkin's concept in describing one who is conceived allegorically, whether it is naturalistically or not, gives an insight into characterization in King Lear, and together they cast light on the various characters assembled in the play better than either does alone. Instances of both concepts can be found together in an allegory like The Faerie Queene.
RICHARD WILSON
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197262795
- eISBN:
- 9780191753954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262795.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Shakespeare, it has been claimed, was the first to translate into English words the laws of vanishing-point perspective. So, according to art historians, Edgar's projection in King Lear of the view ...
More
Shakespeare, it has been claimed, was the first to translate into English words the laws of vanishing-point perspective. So, according to art historians, Edgar's projection in King Lear of the view of the Channel from ‘the extreme verge’ of Dover Cliff was unprecedented in its analysis of how the planes of space diminish in proportion to distance. Decades before other writers conceptualised space as a continuum, Shakespeare had internalised the scale which determines how from a distance ‘fishermen, that walk upon the beach, / Appear like mice’, enough to define such a reductive way of seeing as ‘deficient sight’. By staging ‘the question of its own limits’ with this paradox of vision as a form of blindness, his play seems to sense something terrifying in the great unseen space which would soon surround the theatre of the baroque, and into which an exit would be the equivalent of a sentence of death.Less
Shakespeare, it has been claimed, was the first to translate into English words the laws of vanishing-point perspective. So, according to art historians, Edgar's projection in King Lear of the view of the Channel from ‘the extreme verge’ of Dover Cliff was unprecedented in its analysis of how the planes of space diminish in proportion to distance. Decades before other writers conceptualised space as a continuum, Shakespeare had internalised the scale which determines how from a distance ‘fishermen, that walk upon the beach, / Appear like mice’, enough to define such a reductive way of seeing as ‘deficient sight’. By staging ‘the question of its own limits’ with this paradox of vision as a form of blindness, his play seems to sense something terrifying in the great unseen space which would soon surround the theatre of the baroque, and into which an exit would be the equivalent of a sentence of death.
Marguerite A. Tassi
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474414098
- eISBN:
- 9781474449502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414098.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter addresses the scarcity of avenging daughters in early modern texts, arguing that Shakespeare’s Cordelia in King Lear provides an exception to this paradigm. In scripting such an ...
More
This chapter addresses the scarcity of avenging daughters in early modern texts, arguing that Shakespeare’s Cordelia in King Lear provides an exception to this paradigm. In scripting such an unexpected part for a female character, Shakespeare subverts the traditionally male gendered role of the avenger son and reconfigures earlier versions of the legend (such as those found in accounts by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Holinshed, and John Higgins and the anonymous King Leir). The chapter demonstrates the play’s structural affinities with the revenge genre, arguing that King Lear offers ethically contrasting forms of requital that are also gendered: while Goneril and Regan correspond to negative stereotypes about vengeful women, Shakespeare’s Cordelia (particularly in the 1623 folio), resembles the ‘male-like’ Cordelia depicted in the historical chronicles. Finally, the chapter asks what commentary on injustice, filial duty, and revenge Shakespeare’s harrowing, unsentimental dramatization of the Lear legend offered its early seventeenth-century audiences.Less
This chapter addresses the scarcity of avenging daughters in early modern texts, arguing that Shakespeare’s Cordelia in King Lear provides an exception to this paradigm. In scripting such an unexpected part for a female character, Shakespeare subverts the traditionally male gendered role of the avenger son and reconfigures earlier versions of the legend (such as those found in accounts by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Holinshed, and John Higgins and the anonymous King Leir). The chapter demonstrates the play’s structural affinities with the revenge genre, arguing that King Lear offers ethically contrasting forms of requital that are also gendered: while Goneril and Regan correspond to negative stereotypes about vengeful women, Shakespeare’s Cordelia (particularly in the 1623 folio), resembles the ‘male-like’ Cordelia depicted in the historical chronicles. Finally, the chapter asks what commentary on injustice, filial duty, and revenge Shakespeare’s harrowing, unsentimental dramatization of the Lear legend offered its early seventeenth-century audiences.
Jeremy Tambling
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719082443
- eISBN:
- 9781781703168
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082443.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines two plays, King Lear and All's Well that Ends Well, in relation to García Márquez's Sonnet 106. It first looks at archival anachrony in Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold ...
More
This chapter examines two plays, King Lear and All's Well that Ends Well, in relation to García Márquez's Sonnet 106. It first looks at archival anachrony in Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold and studies some of the novel's chapters. Finally, it identifies the characters who are anachronistic in King Lear and the chronicle of a foretold death in All's Well that Ends Well.Less
This chapter examines two plays, King Lear and All's Well that Ends Well, in relation to García Márquez's Sonnet 106. It first looks at archival anachrony in Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold and studies some of the novel's chapters. Finally, it identifies the characters who are anachronistic in King Lear and the chronicle of a foretold death in All's Well that Ends Well.
Simon Palfrey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226150642
- eISBN:
- 9780226150789
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226150789.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Poor Tom offers a new model of Shakespearean life, and a new reading of King Lear. It is arranged in two interweaving modes: first, moment by moment analyses of the Edgar-part’s scenes; second, ...
More
Poor Tom offers a new model of Shakespearean life, and a new reading of King Lear. It is arranged in two interweaving modes: first, moment by moment analyses of the Edgar-part’s scenes; second, meditations upon possibilities—philosophical, theological, political—generated by the action. Edgar-Tom is a figure without conventional limits, the personification of Shakespeare’s restless, species-traversing craft: at once the distillation and explosion of Shakespearean forms. Poor Tom epitomizes this, as a non-being that possesses the most alarming reality, and in doing so pushes the possibilities of theatrical life far beyond what is customarily allowed. The part incarnates the split-and-spliced, here-not-here morphology of both playtext and playworld. It takes on historical possibility, past and coming, as its own ever-mutating burden: at once a boundary-haunter at life’s extremities, wired for alarming advents, and directly at the cultural center, suffering the world’s necessities. Edgar/Tom becomes a figure of uncanny modernity, indeed futurity, a political and existential potential brought into relief by comparison with various analogues from scripture, art, theology, and philosophy both ancient and modern. He becomes Shakespeare’s most intimate sensor of what cannot be known, and yet may exist; or what cannot exist, and yet may be known. Edgar/Tom thus heralds the limitations of conventional theater. This is a world of echoes, intervals, hauntings, telepathy, irruptiveness, to which the daily senses are never adequate. Its possibilities are discovered only through trusting to voices, and paying sleepless attention. Edgar-Tom alone knows what it means to live—and survive—King Lear.Less
Poor Tom offers a new model of Shakespearean life, and a new reading of King Lear. It is arranged in two interweaving modes: first, moment by moment analyses of the Edgar-part’s scenes; second, meditations upon possibilities—philosophical, theological, political—generated by the action. Edgar-Tom is a figure without conventional limits, the personification of Shakespeare’s restless, species-traversing craft: at once the distillation and explosion of Shakespearean forms. Poor Tom epitomizes this, as a non-being that possesses the most alarming reality, and in doing so pushes the possibilities of theatrical life far beyond what is customarily allowed. The part incarnates the split-and-spliced, here-not-here morphology of both playtext and playworld. It takes on historical possibility, past and coming, as its own ever-mutating burden: at once a boundary-haunter at life’s extremities, wired for alarming advents, and directly at the cultural center, suffering the world’s necessities. Edgar/Tom becomes a figure of uncanny modernity, indeed futurity, a political and existential potential brought into relief by comparison with various analogues from scripture, art, theology, and philosophy both ancient and modern. He becomes Shakespeare’s most intimate sensor of what cannot be known, and yet may exist; or what cannot exist, and yet may be known. Edgar/Tom thus heralds the limitations of conventional theater. This is a world of echoes, intervals, hauntings, telepathy, irruptiveness, to which the daily senses are never adequate. Its possibilities are discovered only through trusting to voices, and paying sleepless attention. Edgar-Tom alone knows what it means to live—and survive—King Lear.
Kathy Eden
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226924939
- eISBN:
- 9780226924946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226924946.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Shakespeare displayed great craftsmanship in deploying two words with complicated histories into the language of his play, King Lear. These two words are “loyal” and “royal,” and are focused upon by ...
More
Shakespeare displayed great craftsmanship in deploying two words with complicated histories into the language of his play, King Lear. These two words are “loyal” and “royal,” and are focused upon by the author as a foundation toward a philological argument. These two words Anglicize corresponding French terms, loyale and royale, as well as share meaning with another English term that corresponds to the older Latin root: legalis and regalis. In a sense, then, English preserves the synonymous alternatives of loyal and royal in legal and regal. In King Lear we see Shakespeare exploit this older meaning of loyal even as he enforces its pairing with royal. This chapter, then, explores the ways and means that Shakespeare handles the law in King Lear through this philological argument.Less
Shakespeare displayed great craftsmanship in deploying two words with complicated histories into the language of his play, King Lear. These two words are “loyal” and “royal,” and are focused upon by the author as a foundation toward a philological argument. These two words Anglicize corresponding French terms, loyale and royale, as well as share meaning with another English term that corresponds to the older Latin root: legalis and regalis. In a sense, then, English preserves the synonymous alternatives of loyal and royal in legal and regal. In King Lear we see Shakespeare exploit this older meaning of loyal even as he enforces its pairing with royal. This chapter, then, explores the ways and means that Shakespeare handles the law in King Lear through this philological argument.
David Hershinow
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439572
- eISBN:
- 9781474477017
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439572.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 3 argues that Shakespeare exposes the formal underpinnings of the fantasy of unstoppable individual critical agency through his depiction of wise fools. In Twelfth Night, Timon of Athens, and ...
More
Chapter 3 argues that Shakespeare exposes the formal underpinnings of the fantasy of unstoppable individual critical agency through his depiction of wise fools. In Twelfth Night, Timon of Athens, and King Lear, Shakespeare’s citation of diogeneana gives form to a series of wise fools designed to provoke a collision between his period’s antithetical assessments of Cynic critical activity: one that reckons Diogenes’ freedom of speech to be singularly effective, and one that lambasts Diogenes for being inconsequential, a mere parasite-jester who has renounced all claims to seriousness. This double gesture is most evident in a passage unique to the Quarto Lear in which the Fool defines, and simultaneously performs, the critical activity of a “bitter fool.” Here, especially, Shakespeare’s composite characterization of the Cynic stance challenges viewers to comprehend that the “bitter fool” offers only the appearance of a robust critical practice—that its stridently critique-oriented posture exists in form but not in substance.Less
Chapter 3 argues that Shakespeare exposes the formal underpinnings of the fantasy of unstoppable individual critical agency through his depiction of wise fools. In Twelfth Night, Timon of Athens, and King Lear, Shakespeare’s citation of diogeneana gives form to a series of wise fools designed to provoke a collision between his period’s antithetical assessments of Cynic critical activity: one that reckons Diogenes’ freedom of speech to be singularly effective, and one that lambasts Diogenes for being inconsequential, a mere parasite-jester who has renounced all claims to seriousness. This double gesture is most evident in a passage unique to the Quarto Lear in which the Fool defines, and simultaneously performs, the critical activity of a “bitter fool.” Here, especially, Shakespeare’s composite characterization of the Cynic stance challenges viewers to comprehend that the “bitter fool” offers only the appearance of a robust critical practice—that its stridently critique-oriented posture exists in form but not in substance.
Peter Dula
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195395037
- eISBN:
- 9780199894451
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395037.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The ordinary is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the work of Cavell and Wittgenstein. This chapter provides an introduction to the ordinary in order to correct common misconceptions of the ...
More
The ordinary is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the work of Cavell and Wittgenstein. This chapter provides an introduction to the ordinary in order to correct common misconceptions of the ordinary, initiate the reader to Cavell's work, and show how his investigations of skepticism in philosophy and in literature illuminate one another. It does so by closely reading particular texts and themes in Cavell's work: narcissism (Molière's Misanthrope), tragedy (King Lear), comedy (the Hollywood comedies of remarriage).Less
The ordinary is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the work of Cavell and Wittgenstein. This chapter provides an introduction to the ordinary in order to correct common misconceptions of the ordinary, initiate the reader to Cavell's work, and show how his investigations of skepticism in philosophy and in literature illuminate one another. It does so by closely reading particular texts and themes in Cavell's work: narcissism (Molière's Misanthrope), tragedy (King Lear), comedy (the Hollywood comedies of remarriage).
Alan Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199549276
- eISBN:
- 9780191701504
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199549276.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
William Shakespeare's plays are stuffed with letters — 111 appear on stage in all but five of his dramas. But for modern actors, directors, and critics they are frequently an awkward embarrassment. ...
More
William Shakespeare's plays are stuffed with letters — 111 appear on stage in all but five of his dramas. But for modern actors, directors, and critics they are frequently an awkward embarrassment. This book shows how and why Shakespeare put letters on stage in virtually all of his plays. By reconstructing the very different uses to which letters were put in Shakespeare's time, and recapturing what it meant to write, send, receive, read, and archive a letter, this book throws new light on some of his most familiar dramas. Early modern letters were not private missives sent through an anonymous postal system, but a vital — sometimes the only — means of maintaining contact and sending news between distant locations. Penning a letter was a serious business in a period when writers made their own pen and ink; letter-writing protocols were strict; letters were dispatched by personal messengers or carriers, often received and read in public — and Shakespeare exploited all these features to dramatic effect. Surveying the vast range of letters in Shakespeare's oeuvre, the book also features sustained new readings of Hamlet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV Part One.Less
William Shakespeare's plays are stuffed with letters — 111 appear on stage in all but five of his dramas. But for modern actors, directors, and critics they are frequently an awkward embarrassment. This book shows how and why Shakespeare put letters on stage in virtually all of his plays. By reconstructing the very different uses to which letters were put in Shakespeare's time, and recapturing what it meant to write, send, receive, read, and archive a letter, this book throws new light on some of his most familiar dramas. Early modern letters were not private missives sent through an anonymous postal system, but a vital — sometimes the only — means of maintaining contact and sending news between distant locations. Penning a letter was a serious business in a period when writers made their own pen and ink; letter-writing protocols were strict; letters were dispatched by personal messengers or carriers, often received and read in public — and Shakespeare exploited all these features to dramatic effect. Surveying the vast range of letters in Shakespeare's oeuvre, the book also features sustained new readings of Hamlet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV Part One.
