king lear - lit crit

king lear - shakespeare

Kastan

Shakespearean tragedy

• the absence of clear answers to these questions is central to Shakespearean tragedy

• the idea of tragedy is the fall from prosperity to wretchedness

• Shakespearean tragedy is more medieval than classical

• tragic events are ‘uncompensated’ for characters but also for the audience - don’t go away feeling the ending corrected or better

Nutall

pleasure of tragedy

• pleasure comes from others’ suffering (catharsis) - Aristotle

• brings joy about their own lives - Nietzsche

• the nature of art is that it causes pleasure, the fact that it’s high art makes it pleasurable - Dr Johnson

• if people didn’t like it, they wouldn’t watch it

• people don’t find tragedy pleasurable but rather enjoy being emersed in the story without consciously thinking “this is pleasurable”

Bradley

tragic hero

• high class

• end with death of central character

• extreme suffering

• death has to be unexpected, not natural

• one central hero

• pity is the most important factor

• total reversal of fortune for the hero

• hero can’t relinquish their power, it must be taken from them against their will

• cause must be unclear - ‘fate’ or ‘flaw’

Mack

tragedy and madness

• for Shakespeare to criticize society without directly criticizing it - can’t be punished

• those who are mad are being punished by god/gods - Seneca

• reflects true wisdom or enlightenment (dramatic irony)

Rutter

language and female power

• female characters are not as important as male characters - Gloucester ridiculing Edmund’s illegitimacy in ’banter’

• motherhood looked at as ‘reviled’ - Lear’s madness causing him to curse his daughters to have bad children

• women are either ‘monsters’ or ‘monstered’ - Cordelia vs Goneril and Regan

• Lear’s rage makes him womanly

• Shakespeare ties silence to audience’s expectations that good women keep quiet

Kermode

ways of speaking

• humans are naturally bad - suffering brings people to their natural, animalistic state

• the lack of justice in Lear makes audience want to believe in judgement after death - perpetuates Christian beliefs?

• most characters speak literally except for fool, Poor Tom and mad Lear

• the love ceremony is done out of arrogance, not how to split the kingdom

• Gloucester’s treatment and Edmund’s natural wickedness cause the problems, not one or the other

• Goneril’s profession talks of how she can’t describe how much she loves her father. Regan talks of how she loves him more than Goneril. Cordelia, last and disadvantaged, refuses to play their game, preferring to stay honest even if it means she is punished

• Lear is angered when he is given a different kind of love to the one he wants - ceremonial praise > genuine honesty

• use of pronouns: Lear switches from the royal we to “I” when he is angry. Kent improperly addresses Lear as “thou“

O’Toole

morality

• the point of Lear is to have no satisfying ending

• the actual ending to the play is the second ending, the first ending being Edgar and Edmund’s duel, where the good defeats evil and all the story lines tie up together

• the ending continues as Kent reenters after the audience assume he is dead. his searching for Lear reminds the audience of his suffering, breaking the comforting ending we thought we were having

• the play appears to have no moral message, simple virtues like loyalty are questioned - Kent is a conventionally loyal character, seen as virtuous and good, but Oswald is loyal to Goneril, but morally bad. this compares to servant 1, who stabs his master, Cornwall, displaying disloyalty, but he is a more moral character than the loyal Oswald