Context
in King James I’s court corruption filtered down to authority figures
illegitimate sons had no automatic right of inheritance thus had to work hard to maintain close trusting relationships with their fathers in order to inherit anything - Edmund
Renaissance Platonic images of the self as a shadowing substance given form by reason and intellect - Lear is fast losing these 2 human abilities as his madness sets in and the ‘shadow’ becomes an image of the idenitty under threat in a changing world '(‘Lear’s shadow’ - Fool 1.4)
Bedlam beggars
a ‘natural fool’ - Lear 4.6 was someone with a mental disability who was used to entertain royalty/nobles
dissonance between the ‘new man’ and the old order
Orthodox Christian emphasis on the afterlife being the most important - ‘men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither; ripeness is all’ - Edgar 5.2
theologian John Knox believed women were ‘weak, frial, impatient, feeble and foolish’. he wrote a pamphlet saying ‘women should have no mastery over men save only for her natural one of motherhood’
King James was obsessed with the supernatural and even wrote a book on the subject called Daemonologie (1597), which detailed his views on how to identify and prosecute witches. His reign saw a new, stricter Witchcraft Act in 1604, making the practice punishable by death.
‘mother’ means hysteria (Latin word for womb) so only women were though to suffer from hysteria
Jacobean audiences would have been disturbed by the sisters’ callousness since women, as outlined by Elyot’s The Book Named the Governor, were supposed to be ‘mild, timorous, tractable, [and] benign.’
homilies of obedience stated children should unquestioningly obey their parents. read twice annually in church.
Although censorship meant that Shakespeare could not directly criticise the monarchy, by setting his play in a pre-Christian period, he explores the consequences of corrupt leaders and the conflict between the body natural and body politic. Indeed, perhaps the Jacobean audience at times would have felt “all is cheerless, dark and deadly” as they lived in a time of high poverty, famine, corruption and plague.
laws of primogeniture meant that land was passed down to the first bron leigtimate son
the divine right of kings suggested the monarch was appointed by god
the great chain of being placed the king closest to god of all humanity - lear violates through abdication
body natural vs body politic
the wheel of fortune
the madonna whore dichotomy
Under James I, the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland and James strongly opposed division of sovereignty. Lear’s decision directly contradicts James’ ideology suggesting the dangers of fragmenting authority.
According to McEvoy, dramatic tragedy down the ages allows us to bear witness to the worst and most exemplary moments of sorrow and desperation that face us as human beings.
Robert Burton, who had experience of severe depression, gave a list of triggers for melancholy, some of them highly traumatic. But he also argued that the grim state of world affairs in general was enough to drive him to maddened despair.
Serious riots in London in 1595, and regional famines in 1596+ 1597. James I handed the 'Poor Man's Petition' in 1600. One of the most visible signs of all this was a sharp upturn in the number of people on the streets.
The plague in Britain was a recurring threat but in 1603, in Shakespeare’s time and the year of James I’s coronation, this bubonic epidemic killed around 34,000 Londoners alone and was so severe the king’s royal entry was delayed.
In 1681 Nahum Tate rewrote King Lear, leaving him alive and restored to the throne while Cordelia and Edgar marry- people were not comfortable with such a miserable play after Oliver Cromwell’s commonwealth and so in the restoration period many of Shakespeare’s plays were reimagined to suit the political and aesthetics of the new age.
anagnorsis as key feature of tragedy
Despite the fact that the Jacobean period was one of turbulent change when old absolutes and binary oppositions were under threat from a new emerging social order, Albany’s shock at Gonerill reflects a more traditional view of women that expected them to be subservient and nurturing
Shakespeare explored age-related dementia through Lear. Early modern people understood that the elderly often became ‘frantic’ with age.
In the 1600s there were thousands of homeless people on the streets around the country and many vagrancy laws existed stating that if people were caught on the streets twice they would be executed. These harsh laws reflected in King Lear mean Edgar experiences abject poverty for a time and he learns the suffering of his people, thus enabling him to become the best king because he can empathise with the struggles of his people.
This is the Anthropocene-reflecting the anxieties and political tensions of the time, particularly the consequences of monarchy and power dynamics as Lear abdicates and divides his kingdom causing the disruption of the natural order.
The use of theatre production would have been evident in moments like this as in this era they would have rolled barrels to imitate the sound of thunder.
The feudal system vs new age individualism allowed for a contentious debate in removing an old order full of legitimacy and class to a new order which encouraged social cohesion and a lack of emphasis on a ‘natural order’. An individualistic renaissance period encouraged men who were illegitimate to demand the same rights as those who were legitimate children of nobility in the interest of inheritance.
Despite Edmund trying to conceal his Machiavellian nature, he intends to betray Gloucester. In James I’s 1598 essay: The True Lawe of Free Monarchies, he describes the act of a son revolting against his father, controlling, killing or cutting him off as ‘monstrous and unnatural’.
The ’Little Ice Age’ was a period during Shakespeare’s lifetime marked by especially harsh winters and extreme weather which most likely influenced his portrayal of the storm.
Litigation, which was the process of taking someone to court, was a common feature of life in Jacobean society and sparked a passionate interest in justice and the processes of law
The sovereign could not be brought to trial, primarily due to the Divine Right of Kings which stated that the king was appointed by God and could do no wrong.
Although Kent is a noble man he fulfils the role of the archetypal servant, someone who would have been like a member of the family. Observe how close he is to Cordelia.
The act of blinding someone was a punishment for adultery in Jacobean England which has an ironic tone as Gloucester’s ‘blindness’ (whether that be moral or literal) are a result of his children; with Edmund tricking Gloucester into wanting to find and kill Edgar (moral blindness), and Edgar keeping his identity a secret and making Gloucester struggle through his literal blindness in keeping him alive
'Scattered Kingdom' a social comment again which would have interested and played in favour of King James 1st. Shakespeare identifies the dire catastrophic consequence of dividing a country, which emphasises the positivity in James' intention to unify the country, in which Parliament disputed.
At the time clothing was a very important indicator of one’s ranking in society. A higher class individual demonstrated this by wearing opulent and upscale clothing whereas a lack of clothing or poor clothing signified a lower class.
Bedlam beggars were wandering beggars, often feigning or genuinely experiencing mental illness, who adopted the guise of patients released from a mental hospital in Bedlam
The Renaissance unleased tensions and challenged truths that had been reliable and comforting for many years such as astrology, religion and science. This led to more humanist thinking which was less reliant on orthodoxy, dogma, the Church and the aristocracy.
King Lear is set in 800BCE, allowing Shakespeare to freely say what he wanted about religion, as it was set in a pre Christian society. Although there are several Christian ideas throughout the play, the characters repeatedly call on multiples “gods” conveying their pagan ideology.
Mental health was not fully understood in the way that it is now during Shakespeare’s lifetime, so the idea of Lear perceiving the connection between ill physical and mental health is very modern.
Animals were not particularly highly respected at the time thus Lear is suggesting the lack of value humans have.