king lear contexts and critics

Senecan tragedies

Oedipus - one of them

Influenced Shakespeare’s other plays like Titus Andronicus

The play gives us a ____ about our _______ - Schropenhauer

hint / reality

Joe Biden and his son or Trump

Biden pardoned his son for unregistered firearms - corrupt leader

Trump and his corruption & desire to control women - corrupt leader

James I

He was a negligent king, infamous for his material profligacy and ignorance to the suffering of his kingdom. He said ‘kings are rightly called Gods’. Rober Carr. Sat in the audience for the first performance.

Paganism

Largely fearful of other religions based on the creation of the protestant state in the 1530s by Henry VIII, which created a deep suspicion of Cathoicism (reinforced by 1605 gunpowder plot). This fear of other religions is therefore dramatised by the Pagan setting.

Madness

Seen as divine englightenment in Hinduism and Ancient Greece; however, in Jacobean England there was a culture devoid of sympathy for the mad.

Our laughter for the ___ must be stiffed when ‘we think about the great loss of his ______ and ____________ he has suffered’ - Laurent Joubert - french physisican

mad / senses / understanding

Body Politic

Monarchs headed the whole state, with their problems affecting everyone. Sir Edmund Plowden said the King is made of two entities - their physical body and the ‘metaphysical entity consisting of govt and policy’

The Poor

Social comentators noted ‘swarms of beggars’ in the 1590s where there was a famine and serious riots in London from 1595-1597. Bubonic plague was in 1603. Food prices raised 5 fold in 1600.

Primogeniture

Derived from feudal law - the 1st son is the legitimate heir, the ‘bastards’ can never be legitimate, which was to seek the control of property under a small number of people - the aristocracy. Bastard were seen as evil in Renaissance drama, with a clear motive to contest the machiavellian attitude.

Tragedy

Classical: ptiy and fear through catharsis, central protagonist, inevitability and a moral element.

Jacobean: revenge, brutality, corruption, religious and moral hypocrisy, malcontent, women who are confident and assertive die

The True Chronicle of King Leir

Stage version of the 1590s, which had a happy ending, with Leir restored to the throne. Lear’s madness and Cordelia’s death are unique to Shakespeare’s version, which explore the darker impulses and concerns of Jacobean era.

Patrairchy

Fathers ownder their daughters, then husbands did. Modern psychoanalysis: women are either the Madonna or the Whore - either subservient or the whore and punished by men.

‘unnatural, ______, ____’ - Tolstoy

immoral / evil

Orwell

The true test of great art is longievity

‘latent __________ orientation’ - Kahn

incestuous

• odeipal complex where Lear needs Cordelia in a mother-daughter way - subconscious suppressed desire for what has been lost

Samuel Johnson

dislikes the injustice as the end of the play

‘humanity is stripped of all ________ and ________ __________’ - Wilhelm

external / internal advantages

‘_________ of the human race’ - LC Knights

microcosm

‘nature ________ every ____’ - Doncaster

permeates / line

‘actions of an ______-____ providence in an apparently _________ universe’ Elton

upside-down / derranged

‘Lear is _________, _____ and ______’ - Kott

ridiculius / naive / stupid

‘The last act ________ the foundations of _____ itself’ - Elton

shatters / faith

‘society in _______’ - Kettle

turmoil

‘conflict between ____ and _____’ - AC Bradley

love / power

Divine Right of Kings

………

Great Chain of Being

……………….

Dragon

symbol of intense evil, yet the symbol that stems from ancient Chinese mythology like the Dragon King, symbolic of storms, often represents great power and benevolence - IRONY