critics - lear

https://crossref-it.info/textguide/king-lear/39/2905 , https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9780802086051

martha burns

• regan and goneril are not simply femme fatales or devilish opposites of cordelia’s righteousness because shakespearean characters are complex

• they should be described as formidable, in the same way power-driven male characters are

derek cohen

• early modern drama (which includes king lear) can be seen as a secular re-enactment of a sacrifice ritual;

  • presence of a participant audience

  • visible reconstruction of human conflict

  • resolution of said conflict by the spectacle of group triumph in the death / expulsion of the ultimately vulnerable participant in the process

• the subject / victim of sacrificial ritual always perceived to be the source of discord and danger, and so their physical removal (death / exile) is necessary for the peaceful continuance of social order

• in king lear, every ‘sacrifice’ is contradictory, as someone must die for something else to be reborn and peace to be restored (i.e., the bloodshed for peace is everlasting as peace is never achieved, so bloodshed just becomes bloodshed)

edmund is the source of discord? but his death is kind irrelevant even tho his irl story is important

philip d. collington

• lear’s ‘dependency’ is not considered an issue in the play due to his advancing age and royal prerogative, instead it is his choice of companions (their character, their numbers, their morality, the activities they encourage) which is the issue

stephen greenblatt

• as the play’s tragedy develops, lear cannot have both the public deference (submission, respect) and inward love of his children

• the public deference is only as good as the legal constraints that lear’s absolute power deprives him of, and the inward love cannot be adequately represented in social discourse as its licensed by authority and performed in the public sphere (such as a court or theatre)

lear’s display of love in the courts

germaine greer

• the play has two strands;

• the strand of optimism (the belief there is a providence in the fall of a great man as in the fall of a sparrow)

• the strand of rage against the ‘dying of the light’

what

andrew hadfield

• the play warns of the danger of a monarch cutting himself off from the people he rules, thereby destroying what he has built

• lear doesn’t represent an ineffective or unimpressive king, but rather one who has not taken enough care of his kingdom

michael ignatieff

• the heath is both physical and mental;

  • it represents the human world if pity, duty, and the customs of honour stopped dictating human behaviour

  • it is the realm of natural man (beyond society and without clothes pride, respect, and retinue).

  • it is a state of equality, but one on the brink of death, and man’s identity is so terrible that no man can endure the ‘heath’

• the choice of staging the play in a small space makes it clear the play is about the intimate violence of family life

• the play creates an antithesis between home and heath, and stresses the razor-thin line in our own lives between safety and danger - between having it and having nothing

coppelia kahn

• the play’s beginning is marked by the omnipotent presence of the father and the absence of the mother

• yet when lear divides the kingdom, he acts as a child wanting to be mothered (i.e., cared for by his daughters). therefore lear wants two mutually exclusive things at once: to have absolute control over those closest to him, and to be absolutely dependent on them

paul w. kahn

• edmund is the most dangerous and treacherous of the characters. yet, he begins from a cause that we cannot identifiy as unjust

• by placing himself ahead of his brother (edgar) he is only rejecting the fate the law ha dealt him. therefore is there is no justice in edmund’s plan, neither was there any justice in edgar’s legal entitlement

alexander leggatt

• tom is a more vivid and recognisable character than edgar

• tom commits himself to the nakedness and brutality of the elements, which the fool can’t face

• tom is truly outside society as he has no family, no institution, and no system of charity

thomas p. roche

• shakespeare is a christian writer, and king lear is meant to depict the plight of man before the christian era (i.e., before the salvation of man by christ’s sacrifice was available)

kent as job?

c. j. sisson

• the idea upon which the play rests is indeed the consequence of a grave error and abuse of justice by the king within whose powers justice lies

leon h. craig - of philosophers and kings

• shakespeare should be read philosophically, as he is as great of a philosopher as he is a poet. his greatness as a poet derived even more from his power as a thinker than from his genius for linguistic expression

• relationship between politics and philosophy; a philosophical rules (plato’s republic, philosophical king)

• the play showcases the tensions between philosophy and politics, knowledge and power

• the play shows how the pursuit of an adequate understanding of certain practical issues lead to considerations that far transcend the particular circumstances in which these practical problems arise

• metaphysics, cosmology, and man’s confrontation with nature, were made dramatically manifest by shakespeare to challenge and promote philosophical activity among his audience

https://www.proquest.com/docview/195891403?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/218742