King Lear context

Ian Mckellen on his interpretation of Lear’s character.

Lear believes that he has a direct relationship between him and the gods. ‘To understand his regression, one must pay attention to his relationship with the gods throughout the play as by the end he seems to have lost his faith yet finds his humanity.’

Violent plot incidents onstage/offstage

  ‘Lear’, in keeping with other Jacobean Tragedies such as ‘The Revengers Tragedy’ (in which a skull laced with poison used in a kiss to kill a duke; several murders take place in view of the audience.) places violent plot incidents on stage (Gloucester’s eye gouging, Cornwall’s stabbing, Edmund and Edgar’s sword fight), whereas in Classical Greek Tragedies such as ‘Oedipus’, Jocasta’s suicide and Oedipus’ eye gouging occur off stage.

The Malcontent / ‘The Prince’

• Malcontent: popular figure in Jacobean drama unsatisfied with status quo.

• Machiavelli’ ‘The Prince’ 16th century text that had great influence on Jacobean thought and showed an early example of this archetype. ‘It is far safer to be feared than loved’ Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

What is primogeniture and how is it significant in ‘King Lear’?

Developed in France in the late middle ages, Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children. Lear subverts this law by dividing his Kingdom between multiple children. The chaos brought about by this division would have certainly appeased King James as he was in favour of the Union of the Kingdom: in May 1603 he suggested a union of England and Scotland to the court which was initially opposed.

The Great Chain of Being and Edmund

    Elizabethan view of Great chain of being being questioned in Jacobean age; Edmund can be seen as a personification of this fear/ aspiration. Convention of bastards being evil: Don John the bastard in ‘Much ado about nothing’, another literary villain but in a comedy. Shakespeare uses Edmund’s first soliloquy to dramatise his anger at the laws of primogeniture and his commitment to subvert the natural order of Jacobean society.

Ian Mckellen’s 2017 Chitester production

The eye gouging scene is played out as a sexual game to Regan and Cornwall to music, stripping off their clothes.

Gunpower Plot

    The Jacobean interest in evil plots (enacted so entertainingly by Edmund the bastard’s gulling of his brother and father) might have been inspired by very real malevolence of the 1605 5th November Gunpowder plot where Catholics came very close to destroying both parliament and the King. Could also link to Goneril and Rhegan’s evil plot to ovethrow their father.

Nahum Tate’s version of Lear

     Nahum Tate ‘Lear’ first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 2 centuries later. Unlike Shakespeare's tragedy, Tate's play has a happy ending, with Lear regaining his throne, Cordelia marrying Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declaring that "truth and virtue shall at last succeed."

James 1st and Kingship

Title of play foregrounds the importance of kingship. Written at a time when monarchy was of central importance. James 1st wrote extensively on subject of notions of divine rule. "Kings are justly called gods (delivering) divine power upon earth,". Since Elizabeth 1st in the previous century, the role of the ruler was viewed as problematic; most notably because of the issue of her gender.

Philosophical wisdom accrued through suffering

Central tenet of Buddhist thought. And Christian: ‘When God’s children hurt, he can strengthen them to make wise choices’ – the apostle Peter. Modern thought: Nietzsche  ‘the great discipline of suffering’. – Lear had philosophical insight that has been brought about by his suffering.

Christianity and honesty

Proverbs 12.19 states ‘Truthful lips endure forever’. Jacobeans were a predominantly religious demographic, as well as King James 1st himself.

What did King James 1st say about a King’s heart?

‘The King’s heart should be a repository of justice, mercy, and divine wisdom’. (can contradict this with his corruption)

The Green Man

Lear, when emerging with flowers draws parallels to the pagan mythological figure ‘The Green Man’, an artistic image recognisable to the Jacobeans of a male face covered with various vines, flowers and aspects of nature said to symbolise the Cycle of Life and re-birth. This figure been described by critic Taith Lee as ‘The Breaker of Chains, a god of joy and freedom’. Whilst Lear certainly still has not been able to ‘Break’ the ‘Chains’ of madness, his connection with the natural world contrasts his previous tyrannical, control obsessed characterisation.

Jacobean views towards madness

In the Jacobean epoch, Lear’s state of madness would have been associated with the medieval idea of demonic possession, with many treatments centralising around the violent removal of such spirits. This included vomiting, blood letting and ‘leeching’ and various other repugnant treatments such as a ‘roasted mouse, eaten whole’ as one Pope suggested.

Lear and Absurdism

Towards the end, at the face of both imprisonment and death, Lear could in fact be said to adopt an attitude of ‘Absurdism’ at this point: the philosophy popularised by Albert Camus (predominantly through his 1942 novel ‘L’Etranger, or ‘The Outsider’) that recognises the inherent lack of meaning in life, yet implores the individual to search for their own meaning.

Edgar’s disguise in relation to Jacobean theatre

• Edgar’s mystery of not revealing himself and staying in disguise was typical feature of Jacobean and Elizabethan theatre: a feature in drama that goes back to Roman and Greek theatre. seen in comedies as well as tragedies. Portia disguised as a man in ‘Merchant of Venice’.  Rosalind disguised as a man in ‘As You Like It’.

• In Elizabethan times you could be fined for not wearing clothes that spoke of your position and place, as stated in The English Sumptuary laws of 1281.  

• Masques during festivals and carnivals was commonplace in Elizabethan/ Jacobean society both among the aristocracy and the common classes.

• Masques were also popularised through the form of theatre named ‘Comedia Dell’arte’, an Italian style which had farcical elements, most famously expressed in modern theatre in the play ‘An Accidental Death of An Anarchist’, which, like Edgar, shows examples of the protagonist using disguise to switch social class and evade punishment from a corrupt higher power.

Tolstoy VS Orwell on Lears success

Out of Shakespeare’s more than 30 plays, Tolstoy denounced ‘Lear’ as the worst, a charge that George Orwell, writing 40 years later, declared the play to be ‘not guilty’ of. Orwell claimed that one true test of great art is longevity: If, as George Orwell claimed, the true test of great art is longevity, one might say the Shakespeare’s depiction of (question focus) passes the test..

Cordelia and ‘The Marian Ideal’

-          The ‘Marian Ideal’ refers to the Virgin Mary as the ultimate symbol of female virtue in Christian tradition, particularly in Catholic and early protestant societies. It was rooted strongly in purity culture and emphasised chastity, obedience, humility, kindness, compassion and inner morality.

-          The ‘Marian ideal’ originates in Christian theology, rooted in the New Testament, particularly the Gospel of Luke – Luke 1:28 ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’. ‘The Golden Legend’ (c. 1260) by Jacobus de Voragine - Describes Mary as the Queen of Heaven and ideal woman.

-           In Shakespeare’s day, especially under Elizabeth I (1558–1603), there was an enduring tension between female rule and the Marian ideal. This tension is certainly embodied by the contrast between the sisters. Ultimately Cordelia’s virtue allows her to act as an incarnation of this ideal yet her disobedience may slightly sway this at points, making her a ‘round’ character (E.M Forster).

Goneril / Regan as ‘monstrous regiments of women’

-          This idea links to the anxiety surrounding female power at the time, and the phrase is originated from John Knox’s pamphlet ‘The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558)’ in which he argued that female sovereignty was a violation of both natural law and divine law.

-          He stated that ‘To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire (…) is repugnant to nature, contumely to God’

-          The demonisation of Goneril / Regan can certainly be seen as an incarnation of the male anxieties at the time, one that is deeply rooted in patriarchal misogyny.

The Maiden / Whore dynamic

-          If we were to take a Freudian perspective of the women, one may categorize them based on the deeply misogynistic ‘Madonna-Whore idea’ which was outlined in his ‘Contributions to the Psychology of Love” (1910–1918 collection).

-          He categorized women into the degrading archetypes of either the ‘Madonna’ (Cordelia), virtuous, pure, idealised, or the ‘Whore’, corrupt, degraded, sexual. (Regan/Goneril)