King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare William Shakespeare [a] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[b] His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays,[c] 154 sonnets, two long narrative, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606. It is considered one of his greatest works. King Lear descends into madness after wrongly distributing his estate on the strength of flattery. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman The British Iron Age is a conventional name in the archaeology of Great Britain referring to the prehistoric and proto-historic phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding Ireland. The parallel phase of Irish archaeology is termed the Irish Iron Age, and similarly locally defined Iron Ages exist Celtic king. It has been widely adapted for stage and screen, with the part of Lear played by many of the world's most accomplished actors.

There are two distinct versions of the play:The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, which appeared in quarto Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block in 1608, and The Tragedy of King Lear, a more theatrical version, which appeared in the First Folio Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories. & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio in 1623. The two texts are commonly printed in a conflated version, although many modern editors have argued that each version has its individual integrity.^[1]

After the Restoration The Restoration of the monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the War of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration may apply both to the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and to the period immediately following the event the play was often modified by theatre practitioners who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century it has been regarded as one of Shakespeare's supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship.

Characters

Synopsis

Lear, who is elderly, wants to retire from power. He decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and offers the largest share to the one who loves him best. Goneril and Regan both proclaim in fulsome terms that they love him more than anything in the world, which pleases him. Cordelia speaks temperately, honestly but bluntly which annoys him. In his anger he disinherits her, and divides the kingdom between the other two. Kent objects to this unfair treatment. Lear is further enraged by Kent's protests, and banishes him from the country. Cordelia's two suitors enter. Learning that Cordelia has been disinherited, the Duke of Burgundy The Duchy of Burgundy was a feudal territory in Medieval Europe. It roughly conforms to the modern Bourgogne, although it grew to have considerable possessions in the Low Countries as well. Existing between 843 and 1477, the Duchy was ruled by a succession of dukes, whose extinction with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 led to the southern withdraws his suit, but the King of France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, is impressed by her honesty and marries her anyway.

Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands, the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall respectively. He reserves to himself a retinue of one hundred knights, to be supported by his daughters. Goneril and Regan speak privately, agreeing that Lear is old and foolish.

Edmund resents his illegitimate status, and plots to supplant his legitimate older brother Edgar. He tricks their father Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise under the name of Caius, and Lear hires him as a servant. Lear discovers that now Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to behave better and reduce his retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune. Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Gloucester is completely taken in. He disinherits Edgar and proclaims him outlaw.

Kent meets Oswald at Gloucester's home, quarrels with him, and is put in the stocks by Regan and her husband Cornwall. When Lear arrives, he objects, but Regan takes the same line as Goneril. Lear is enraged but impotent. Goneril arrives and echoes Regan. Lear yields completely to his rage. He rushes out into a storm to rant against his ungrateful daughters, accompanied by the mocking Fool. Kent later follows to protect him. Gloucester protests Lear's mistreatment. Wandering on the heath A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly infertile acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There is no clear difference between heath and moorland but moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with — especially in Great Britain — a cooler and after the storm, Lear meets Edgar, in the guise of Tom o' Bedlam, that is, a madman. Edgar babbles madly while Lear denounces his daughters. Gloucester leads them all to shelter.

Edmund betrays Gloucester to Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril. He shows a letter from his father to the King of France asking for help against them; and in fact a French army has landed in Britain. Gloucester is arrested, and Cornwall gouges out his eyes. But one of Cornwall's servants is so outraged by this that he attacks and fatally wounds Cornwall. Regan kills the mutinous servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund tricked him; then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise as Tom, meets blinded Gloucester on the heath. Gloucester begs Tom to lead him to a cliff, so that he may jump to his death.

Goneril meets Edmund and discovers that she finds him more attractive than her honest husband Albany, whom she regards as cowardly. Albany is disgusted by the sisters' treatment of Lear, and the mutilation of Gloucester, and denounces Goneril. Kent leads Lear to the French army, which is accompanied by Cordelia. But Lear is half-mad and terribly embarrassed by his earlier follies. Albany leads the British army to meet the French. Regan too is attracted to Edmund, and the two sisters become jealous. Goneril sends Oswald with letters to Edmund, and also tells Oswald to kill Gloucester if he sees him. Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to a cliff, then changes his voice and tells Gloucester he has miraculously survived a great fall. They meet Lear, who is now completely mad. Lear rants that the whole world is corrupt and runs off.

Oswald tries to kill Gloucester, but is slain by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds a letter from Goneril to Edmund suggesting the murder of Albany. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness largely passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight the French invaders, but not harm Lear or Cordelia. The two sisters lust for Edmund, who has made promises to both. He considers the dilemma, and plots the deaths of Albany, Lear, and Cordelia. Edgar gives Goneril's letter to Albany. The armies meet in battle, the British defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Edmund sends them off with secret orders for execution.

The victorious British leaders meet, and Regan now declares she will marry Edmund. But Albany exposes the intrigues of Edmund and Goneril, and proclaims Edmund a traitor. Regan collapses; Goneril has poisoned her. Edmund defies Albany, who calls for a trial by combat. Edgar appears to fight Edmund, and fatally stabs him in a duel. Albany shows Goneril's letter to her; she flees in shame and rage. Edgar reveals himself; Gloucester dies offstage from the overwhelming shock and joy of this revelation.

Offstage, Goneril stabs herself, and confesses to poisoning Regan. Edmund, dying, reveals his order to kill Lear and Cordelia. But it is too late: Cordelia is dead, though Lear slew the killer. Lear recognizes Kent. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but Lear is too far gone in grief and hardship. He collapses and dies. Albany offers to share power between Kent and Edgar but Kent, overwhelmed with sadness, refuses. At the end, either Albany or Edgar (depending on whether one reads the Quarto or the Folio version^[4]) is crowned King.

Sources

Shakespeare's play is based on various accounts of the semi-legendary Celtic figure Leir of Britain, whose name may derive from the Celtic god Lir/Llŷr. Shakespeare's most important source is probably the second edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of his plays, published in 1587. Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier Historia Regum Britanniae The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control by Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100 – c. 1155) was a British cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British history and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), widely popular in its day and translated to various other, which was written in the 12th century. Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language's The Faerie Queene The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English language. It is an allegorical work, written in, published 1590, also contains a character named Cordelia, who also dies from hanging Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging", as in King Lear.

Other possible sources are the anonymous play King Leir (published in 1605); A Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by John Higgins; The Malcontent (1604), by John Marston John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist (one who uses irony and sarcasm) during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Although his career as a writer lasted only a decade, his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and; The London Prodigal (1605); Arcadia (1580–1590), by Sir Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures. Famous in his day in England as a poet, courtier and soldier, he remains known as the author of Astrophel and Stella (1581, pub. 1591), The Defence of Poetry (or An Apology for Poetry, 1581, pub. 1595), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580, pub. 1590), from which Shakespeare took the main outline of the Gloucester subplot; Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with's Essays, which were translated into English by John Florio John Florio , known in Italian as Giovanni Florio, was a linguist and lexicographer, a royal language tutor at the Court of James I, and a possible friend and influence on William Shakespeare. He was also the translator of Montaigne into English in 1603; An Historical Description of Iland of Britaine, by William Harrison William Harrison was an English clergyman, whose Description of England was produced as part of the publishing venture of a group of London stationers who produced Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (London 1577). His contribution to Holinshed's work drew heavily on the earlier work of John Leland; Remaines Concerning Britaine, by William Camden William Camden was an English antiquarian, historian, and officer of arms. He wrote the first topographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1606); Albion Albion is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. It is thought to derive from the White Cliffs of Dover. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the country of England in particular. It is also the basis of the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba. New Albion and Albionoria ("Albion of the North") were's England, by William Warner, (1589); and A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, by Samuel Harsnett (1603), which provided some of the language used by Edgar while he feigns madness. King Lear is also a literary variant of a common fairy tale Fairy tale is an English language term for a type of short narrative corresponding to the French phrase conte de fée, the German term Märchen, the Italian fiaba, the Polish baśń or the Swedish saga. Only a small number of the stories thus designated explicitly refer to fairies. Nonetheless, the stories may be distinguished from other folk, Love Like Salt, Aarne-Thompson Antti Aarne was the student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn. He further developed their historic-geographic method of comparative folkloristics, and developed the initial version of what became the Aarne-Thompson classification system of classifying folktales, first published in 1910. The American folklorist Stith Thompson, in translating type 923, in which a father rejects his youngest daughter for a statement of her love that does not please him.^[5]

The source of the subplot involving Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund is a tale in Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures. Famous in his day in England as a poet, courtier and soldier, he remains known as the author of Astrophel and Stella (1581, pub. 1591), The Defence of Poetry (or An Apology for Poetry, 1581, pub. 1595), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580, pub. 1590)'s Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, with a blind Paphlagonian Paphlagonia was an ancient area on the Black Sea coast of north central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east, and separated from Phrygia by a prolongation to the east of the Bithynian Olympus. According to Strabo, the river Parthenius formed the western limit of the region, and it was bounded on the east by the king and his two sons, Leonatus and Plexitrus.^[6]

Changes from source material

Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his sons, the principal innovation Shakespeare made to this story was the death of Cordelia and Lear at the end. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this tragic ending was much criticised, and alternative versions were written and performed, in which the leading characters survived and Edgar and Cordelia were married (despite the fact that Cordelia was already married to the King of France.)

Date and text

Although a date of composition cannot be given, many editions of the play date King Lear between 1603 and 1606. The latest it could have been written is 1606, because the Stationers' Register notes a performance on December 26, 1606. The 1603 date originates from words in Edgar's speeches which may derive from Samuel Harsnett's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603).^[7] In his Arden edition, R.A. Foakes argues for a date of 1605–6, because one of Shakespeare's sources, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, was not published until 1605; close correspondences between that play and Shakespeare's suggest that he may have been working from a text (rather than from recollections of a performance).^[8] On the contrary, Frank Kermode, in the Riverside Shakespeare, considers the publication of Leir to have been a response to performances of Shakespeare's already-written play; noting a sonnet by William Strachey William Strachey was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonization of North America. He is best remembered today as the eye-witness reporter of the 1609 shipwreck on the uninhabited island of Bermuda of the colonial ship Sea Venture, which was caught in a hurricane while sailing to that may have verbal resemblances with Lear, Kermode concludes that "1604-5 seems the best compromise".^[9]

The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, published in 1608 (Q₁) and 1619 (Q₂) ^[10] respectively, and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F₁). The differences between these versions are significant. Q₁ contains 285 lines not in F₁; F₁ contains around 100 lines not in Q₁. Also, at least a thousand individual words are changed between the two texts, each text has a completely different style of punctuation, and about half the verse lines in the F₁ are either printed as prose or differently divided in the Q₁. The early editors, beginning with Alexander Pope Alexander Pope was an eighteenth-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet, simply conflated the two texts, creating the modern version that has remained nearly universal for centuries. The conflated version is born from the presumption that Shakespeare wrote only one original manuscript, now unfortunately lost, and that the Quarto and Folio versions are distortions of that original.

As early as 1931, Madeleine Doran Madeleine Doran was an American literary critic and poet who taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from the early 1930s until her retirement in the 1970s. Doran's work combined historical and formalist impulses. Her most famous work, Endeavors of Art, analyzed Medieval and Renaissance aesthetic treatises as a route to understanding the suggested that the two texts had basically different provenances, and that these differences between them were critically interesting. This argument, however, was not widely discussed until the late 1970s, when it was revived, principally by Michael Warren and Gary Taylor. Their thesis, while controversial, has gained significant acceptance. It posits, essentially, that the Quarto derives from something close to Shakespeare's foul papers Foul papers is a term that refers to an author's working drafts, most often applied in the study of the plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists of English Renaissance drama. Once the composition of a play was finished, a transcript or "fair copy" of the foul papers was prepared, by the author or by a scribe, and the Folio is drawn in some way from a promptbook, prepared for production by Shakespeare's company or someone else. In short, Q₁ is "authorial"; F₁ is "theatrical." In criticism, the rise of "revision criticism" has been part of the pronounced trend away from mid-century formalism. The New Cambridge Shakespeare has published separate editions of Q and F; the most recent Pelican Shakespeare edition contains both the 1608 Quarto and the 1623 Folio text as well as a conflated version; the New Arden edition edited by R.A. Foakes is not the only recent edition to offer the traditional conflated text.

Interpretations

Since there are no literal mothers in King Lear, Coppélia Kahn^[11] provides a psychoanalytic Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it can also be applied to societies. Psychoanalysis has three applications: interpretation of the “maternal subtext” found in the play. According to Kahn, Lear in his old age regresses to an infantile disposition, and now seeks for a love that is normally satisfied by a mothering woman. Her characterization of Lear is that of a child being mothered, but without real mothers, his children become the daughter-mother figures. Lear’s contest of love serves as the binding agreement; his daughters will get their inheritance provided they care for him, especially Cordelia, whose “kind nursery” he will greatly depend on. Her refusal to love him more than a husband is often interpreted as a resistance from incest, but Kahn also inserts the image of a rejecting mother. The situation is now a reversal of parent-child roles, in which Lear’s madness is essentially a childlike rage from being deprived of maternal care. Even when Lear and Cordelia are captured together, this madness persists as Lear envisions a nursery in prison, where Cordelia’s sole existence is for him. However, it is Cordelia’s death that ultimately ends his fantasy of a daughter-mother, as the play ends with only male characters left.

Freud asserted that Cordelia symbolizes Death. Therefore, when the play begins with Lear rejecting his daughter, it can be interpreted as him rejecting death; Lear is unwilling to face the finitude of his being. The play’s poignant ending scene, wherein Lear carries the body of his beloved Cordelia, was of great importance to Freud. In this scene, she causes in Lear a realization of his finitude, or as Freud put it, she causes him to “make friends with the necessity of dying”^[12]. It is logical to infer that Shakespeare had special intentions with Cordelia’s death, as he was the only writer to have Cordelia killed (in the version by the anonymous author, she continues to live happily, and in Holinshed’s, she restores her father and succeeds him).^{[citation needed]}

Performance history

The first recorded performance on December 26, 1606 is the only one known with certainty from Shakespeare's era. The play was revived soon after the theatres re-opened after the 1660 Restoration, and was played in its original form as late as 1675. But the urge to adapt and change that was so liberally applied to Shakespeare's plays in that period eventually settled on Lear as on other works. Nahum Tate produced an adaptation in 1681: he gave the play a happy ending, with Edgar and Cordelia marrying, and Lear restored to kingship. The Fool was eliminated altogether, and Arante, a confidant for Cordelia, was added.^[13] This was the version acted by Thomas Betterton Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London, David Garrick David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson. He appeared in a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III audiences and, and Edmund Kean Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever. For many years he lived at Keydell House, Horndean, and praised by Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr Johnson, was a British author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English. The play was suppressed in the late 18th and early 19th century by the British government, which disliked the dramatization of a mad monarch at a time when George III George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. He was concurrently Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until his was suffering mental impairment.^[14] The original text did not return to the London stage until William Charles Macready's production of 1838.^[15] Other actors who were famous as King Lear in the nineteenth century were Samuel Phelps and Edwin Booth Edwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor. He was born near Bel Air, Maryland into the English American theatrical Booth family. Booth toured throughout America and to the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespeare; in 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time.

20th Century

The play is among the most popular of Shakespeare’s works to be staged in the 20th century. The most famous staging may be the 1962 production directed by Peter Brook Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English and French theatre and film director and innovator, with Paul Scofield as Lear and Alec McCowen as The Fool. In a 2004 opinion poll of members of the Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company. Located primarily at Stratford-upon-Avon, with bases also in London and Newcastle upon Tyne, it is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly-funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal National Theatre, Scofield's Lear was voted as the greatest performance in a Shakespearean play in the history of the RSC .^[16] and immortalized on film in 1971. The longest Broadway Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 large professional theatres with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of run of King Lear was the 1968 production with Lee J. Cobb Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He created the role of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman under the direction of Elia Kazan as Lear, Stacy Keach as Edmund, Philip Bosco as Kent, and Rene Auberjonois as the Fool. It ran for 72 performances: no other Broadway production of the play has run for as many as 50 performances. A Soviet film adaptation was done by Mosfilm in 1971, directed by Grigori Kozintsev, with black-and-white photography and a score by Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (Russian: Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович​ ; 25 September [O.S. September 12] 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Russian composer of the Soviet period and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The script was based on a translation by Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (10 February 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet, novelist and translator of Goethe and Shakespeare. In Russia, Pasternak is most celebrated as a poet. My Sister Life, written in 1917, is arguably the most influential collection of poetry published in the Russian language in the 20th century. In, and Estonian Estonia /ɛsˈtoʊniə/ (Estonian: Eesti), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic Region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by the Russian Federation (338.6 km). The territory of actor Jüri Järvet played the mad king.

Other famous actors played Lear in the twentieth century.

• Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered British actors of the 20th century. He married Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright decided to tackle the role for the second time at the age of 75 in a television Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin production in 1983 with an all-star cast that included Diana Rigg Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, John Hurt John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor. Hurt initially came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, and has since retained a career as a lead and supporting actor of many popular motion pictures, including: Watership Down, Midnight Express, Alien, The Elephant Man, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Rob Roy,^{[citation needed]}, and Colin Blakely. Olivier had played Lear previously in 1946, at the age of 39, at the Old Vic The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian Baylis assumed management and began a series of, but his performance was generally considered a disappointment and overshadowed in the production by Alec Guinness Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. Guinness later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai. His most prominent role in his later career was as' depiction of The Fool ^[17]. His 1983 Lear was telecast in the United States in 1984 as a two hour and forty minute production, which was widely acclaimed; Olivier received the last of his several Emmy Awards as Best Actor for his performance.
• John Gielgud was 26 when he first played Lear at the Old Vic in 1931, and played the part in three additional stage productions including a controversial 1955 Stratford Memorial Theatre production designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi^[18]. He was 90 when he took on the part for the final time in a 1994 radio production with a cast that included Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, and Derek Jacobi.
• Orson Welles starred in a live television version (now preserved on kinescope) in 1953 for CBS, directed by Peter Brook. This production condensed the play to ninety minutes and eliminated the Edgar-Edmund subplot. Welles played Lear again at the New York Civic Center in 1958, breaking his ankle during previews and playing most of the performances in a wheelchair.
• Donald Wolfit was considered one of the great Lears, keeping the role in his repertory for over ten years and playing it on Broadway and for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
• Ian Holm won a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance of Lear at the Royal National Theatre and an Emmy nomination for the 1997 television version. Minimalist sets put the focus on the acting.
• James Earl Jones played Lear in the New York Shakespeare Festival, with Raúl Juliá as Edmund, Paul Sorvino as Gloucester, and Rene Auberjonois as Edgar. This production was videotaped and telecast in 1974 by PBS.
• Michael Hordern played Lear in the BBC Television Shakespeare series.
• William Devlin starred in a drastically shortened live television version in 1948, directed by Royston Morley.

21st Century

The first great 21st century Lear may be Christopher Plummer, who became the first actor to receive a Tony Award nomination for playing Lear in the 2004 Broadway production at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.

Ian McKellen (who had previously appeared as Edgar and Kent, winning a Drama Desk Award for the former) was triumphant as Lear in April 2007, with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. This production was taken on a world tour with a cast that included Romola Garai as Cordelia, Sylvester McCoy as the Fool, Frances Barber as Goneril, Monica Dolan as Regan, William Gaunt as Gloucester, and Jonathan Hyde as Kent. It continued at the New London Theatre, Drury Lane, where it ended its run on 12 January 2008 and netted McKellen a Laurence Olivier Award nomination. The production, which was directed by Trevor Nunn and was alternated with The Seagull, was later videotaped and broadcast on Great Performances on PBS, garnering McKellen an Emmy Award nomination.

Other recent Lears were:

• David Warner starred as Lear in a 2005 production at Minerva Studio, Sussex, UK.
• Pete Postlethwaite as Lear at the Young Vic, London, UK. 29 January 2009–28 March 2009.
• Stacy Keach in a production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC in 2009
• Kevin Kline in a production at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
• Greg Hicks in a production at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon, UK, 2010.

Points of debate

Opening

Act I, Scene I features a ceremony in which King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters. Lear seemingly partitions his kingdom according to the verbal expressions of his daughters' love for him. If this were a test, it would make most sense for Lear to hear out all three daughters before starting to divide the kingdom. David Ball posits an alternate interpretation.^[19] He bases this analysis on the conversation between Kent and Gloucester which are the first seven lines of the play and serve to help the audience understand the context of the drama about to unfold.

Ball interprets this statement to mean that the court already knows how the King is going to divide his kingdom; that the outcome of the ceremony is already decided and publicly known.

Alternatively, it has been suggested that the King's "contest" has more to do with his control over the unmarried Cordelia.^[20]

Tragic ending

The adaptations that Shakespeare made to the legend of King Lear to produce his tragic version are quite telling of the effect they would have had on his contemporary audience. The story of King Lear was familiar to the average English Renaissance theatre goer (as were many of Shakespeare's sources) and any discrepancies between versions would have been immediately apparent.

Shakespeare's tragic conclusion gains its sting from such a discrepancy. The traditional legend and all adaptations preceding Shakespeare's have it that after Lear is restored to the throne, he remains there until "made ripe for death" (Edmund Spenser). Cordelia, her sisters also dead, takes the throne as rightful heir, but after a few years is overthrown and imprisoned by nephews, leading to her suicide.

Shakespeare shocks his audience by bringing the worn and haggard Lear onto the stage, carrying his dead youngest daughter. He taunts them with the possibility that she may live yet with Lear saying, "This feather stirs; she lives!" But Cordelia's death is soon confirmed.

This was indeed too bleak for some to take, even many years later. King Lear was at first unsuccessful on the Restoration stage, and it was only with Nahum Tate's happy-ending version of 1681 that it became part of the repertory. Tate's Lear, where Lear survives and triumphs, and Edgar and Cordelia get married, held the stage until 1838. Samuel Johnson endorsed the use of Tate's version in his edition of Shakespeare's plays (1765): "Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add anything to the general suffrage, I might relate that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor."

Cordelia and the Fool

The Fool, important in the first act, disappears without explanation in the third act. He appears in Act I, scene four, and disappears in Act III, scene six. His final line, "And I'll to bed at noon," is one that many think might mean that he is to die at the highest point of his life, when he lies in prison separated from his friends.

A popular explanation for the Fool's disappearance is that the actor playing the Fool also played Cordelia. The two characters are never on stage simultaneously, and dual-roling was common in Shakespeare's time. However, the Fool would have been played by Robert Armin, the regular clown actor of Shakespeare's company, who is unlikely to have been cast as a tragic heroine. Even so, the play does ask us to at least compare the two; Lear chides Cordelia for foolishness in Act I; chides himself as equal in folly in Act V; and as he holds the dead Cordelia in the final scene, says, "And my poor fool is hanged" ("fool" could be taken as either a direct reference to the Fool, or an affectionate reference to Cordelia herself, or it could refer to both the fool and Cordelia).

In the Trevor Nunn production of King Lear, which was shown on PBS and stars Ian McKellen, the play is slightly revised so that the Fool (portrayed by Sylvester McCoy) is hanged on stage, just after Gloucester is captured by Cornwall's men.^[21]

In Elizabethan English, "fool" was a term used to mean "child" (cf. foal).^{[dubious – discuss]} For example, in Hamlet, Polonius warns Ophelia that if she does not keep her distance from Hamlet, she'll "tender me a fool," i.e. present him with a child. As Lear holds the dead body of Cordelia, he remembers holding her in his arms as a baby.

Adaptations and cultural references

• Portions of a radio performance of the play on BBC Radio 3 in the UK were used by John Lennon in The Beatles' song "I Am the Walrus", starting at about the halfway point, but most audible towards the end and during the long fadeout. Lennon added the BBC audio (live as it was being broadcast) during mixing of the track. The character Oswald's exhortation, "bury my body", as well as his lament, "O, untimely death!" (Act IV, Scene VI) were interpreted by fans as further pieces of evidence that band member Paul McCartney was dead.
• A lake in Watermead Country Park, Leicestershire is named King Lear's Lake, owing to its proximity of the legendary burial tomb of King Leir. A statue in the lake depicts the final scene of Shakespeare's play.
• The Liverpool based band The Wombats make reference to the play in their song "Lost in the Post."
• At the beginning of the video game Final Fantasy IX, the play 'I Want To Be Your Canary' played in front of Queen Brahne is heavily inspired from King Lear (the two plays share both the characters' names and the plot).
• Canadian band The Tragically Hip have a song called "Cordelia" inspired by King Lear on their album Road Apples
• In the film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Mr. Magorium attempts to explain his death to Mahoney by using the words "He dies" from act five.

Adaptations

A number of significant and diverse readings have emerged from eras and societies since the play was first written; evidence of the ability of Shakespeare to encompass many human experiences. The play was poorly received in the 17th century because the theme of fallen royalty was too close to the events of the period; the exile of the court to France. In 1681 Nahum Tate rewrote King Lear to suit a 17th century audience: Tate's The History of King Lear changed Shakespeare's tragedy into a love story with a happy ending. The King of France and the Fool are omitted; Edgar saves Cordelia from ruffians on the heath; Lear defeats the assassins sent to kill him and Cordelia, and Edgar and Cordelia are betrothed in a final scene, where Edgar declares that "Truth and Virtue shall at last succeed."^[22]

As society and time changed, especially in the nineteenth century, Shakespeare's tragic ending was reinstalled, first, briefly, by Edmund Kean in 1823, then by William Charles Macready in 1834. Macready removed all traces of Tate in an abridged version of Shakespeare's text in 1838, and Samuel Phelps restored the complete Shakespearean version in 1845.

The only recent production of Tate's version was staged by the Riverside Shakespeare Company in 1985, directed by W. Stuart McDowell, at The Shakespeare Center in New York City.^[23]

Critical analysis

The twentieth century saw a number of diverse and rich readings of the play emerge as a result of the turbulent social changes of the century. A. C. Bradley saw this play as an individual coming to terms with his personality; that Lear was a great man and therefore the play is almost unfathomable.

The Family Drama reading has also become prevalent in the 20th century. King Lear can be read as being about the dynamics in the relationship between parent and children.^[24] Key issues include the relationship between Lear and Goneril/Regan, between Lear and Cordelia and the relationship between Gloucester and his sons.

The play has been interpreted by many societies. Communist Russia emphasised the suffering of the common people and the oppressive nature of the monarch in the film Korol Lear (Король Лир 1970).

Lear's suffering as a form of purgatory, within a shifting religious landscape in contemporary England, has also been put forward and has been extended onto other Shakespeare dramas like Hamlet.^[25]

Reworkings

Since the 1950s, there have been various "reworkings" of King Lear. These include:

Novels

• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, set on a large American farm
• Fool by Christopher Moore, a reworking of the story told from the fool's point of view.

Graphic Novels

• Ian Pollock's King Lear, 1984 Black Dog & Leventhal publishing Google Books link
• Manga Shakespeare's King Lear, 2009 Amulet / SelfMadeHero. Adapted by R. Appignanesi, Illustrated by ILYA link
• Gareth Hinds' King Lear, 2008 TheComic.com link and 2009 Candlewick Press link

Plays

• The play Lear by Edward Bond
• The play Lear's Daughters by W. T. G. and Elaine Feinstein
• The play Seven Lears by Howard Barker
• The play Lear Reloaded by Scot Lahaie
• The play Aspects of Lear directed by Joseph Timko
• The Play The Fool, by Christopher Moore, retells the story of King Lear from the perspective of The Black Fool.
• The Play The History of King Lear by Nahum Tate
• The Play God's Weep by Dennis Kelly

Films

• The film The King is Alive, directed by Kristian Levring
• The film Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa, set in Sengoku period Japan
• The film The Last Lear, directed by Rituparno Ghosh, based on the life of an aging thespian, set in modern Bollywood

Film adaptations

• 1909 – A silent, black and white film directed by J. Stuart Blackton and William V. Ranous, with William V. Ranous as Lear.
• 1916 – Directed by Ernest C. Warde, with Frederick Warde as Lear.
• 1934 – Der Yidisher Kenig Lear (The Yiddish King Lear) is an adaptation of Jacob Gordin's play set in Vilna, Lithuania, directed by Harry Thomashefsky.
• 1949 – Gunasundari Katha, a Telugu film directed by Kadiri Venkata Reddy. The pivotal role of Cordelia was played by Sriranjani.
• 1954 – Broken Lance, a western adaptation by Richard Murphy (screenplay) and Philip Yordan (story).
• 1969 – Directed by Grigori Kozintsev, with Jüri Järvet as Lear. Russian version; original title Korol Lir.
• 1971 – Directed by Peter Brook, with Paul Scofield as Lear, Alan Webb as Duke of Gloucester, Irene Worth as Goneril, Susan Engel as Regan, Anne-Lise Gabold as Cordelia, Jack MacGowran as Fool. The text has been severely cut and the remainder has been reassembled. All is bleak in this black-and-white, existential experience.
• 1974 – A Thames Television production, directed by Tony Davenall, with Patrick Magee as Lear.
• 1975 – Directed by Jonathan Miller for BBC television, as part of the "Play for the Month" series, with Michael Hordern as Lear.
• 1982 – Directed by Jonathan Miller for BBC television, with Michael Hordern once again cast as Lear. Part of the Shakespeare Plays series, this version follows the text closely.
• 1984 – Directed by Michael Elliott, with Laurence Olivier as Lear. The film begins and ends at Stonehenge, and features Dorothy Tutin as Goneril, Diana Rigg as Regan, Anna Calder-Marshall as Cordelia, John Hurt as the Fool, Colin Blakely as Kent, Leo McKern as Gloucester, and Robert Lindsay as Edmund. [1]. Olivier won the Emmy Award for his performance.
• 1985 – The film Ran by Akira Kurosawa is loosely based on King Lear, setting the story in Sengoku-period Japan and replacing the three daughters with three sons.
• 1987 – Jean-Luc Godard directed his own heavily altered and re-imagined adaptation of King Lear.
• 1997 – A Thousand Acres, a film version of Jane Smiley's novel, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and starring Jason Robards, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Colin Firth.
• 1998 – Directed by Richard Eyre and starring Ian Holm as Lear. Aired on BBC television and later on PBS as a part of the Masterpiece Theatre series.
• 1999 – Directed by and starring Brian Blessed as Lear.
• 2001 – My Kingdom stars Richard Harris and Lynn Redgrave. A modern, gangland version of King Lear.
• 2002 – King of Texas, a television adaptation set in frontier Texas, directed by Uli Edel, with Patrick Stewart as John Lear.
• 2007 – Baby Cakes Sees a Play, Brad Neely's retelling of King Lear through the eyes of Baby Cakes.
• 2009 – A videotaped version of the 2007 Royal Shakespeare Company production was shown on PBS, featuring Ian McKellen as Lear.
• 2012 – King Lear – To be directed by Michael Radford, with Al Pacino as Lear.

Opera

• Lear by Aribert Reimann (1978)
• In the 1960's Benjamin Britten intended to write a King Lear opera, but the project was abandoned. ^[26]

Notable performers as King Lear

• Brian Bedford
• John Bell, with Leah Purcell as Regan
• Fran Bennett, California Institute of the Arts
• Richard Briers, with Emma Thompson as his fool
• Richard Burbage
• Lee J. Cobb
• Brian Cox
• John Cullum
• Yehia El-Fakharany in an Arabic translation of the play.
• Michael Gambon, with Antony Sher as his fool
• John Gielgud
• Hal Holbrook
• Ian Holm
• Anthony Hopkins
• Michael Hordern in two separate television productions
• William Hutt
• James Earl Jones
• Stacey Keach
• Kevin Kline
• Ian McKellen, with Romola Garai as Cordelia, Frances Barber as Goneril, and Monica Dolan as Regan
• Tatsuya Nakadai in Akira Kurosawa's Ran
• Laurence Olivier, with Alec Guinness as the Fool in one production, and John Hurt in a televised production
• Samuel Phelps
• Christopher Plummer
• Pete Postlethwaite
• Paul Scofield
• Robert Stephens
• Orson Welles
• Donald Wolfit
• Daniel Davis
• Alfredo Alcón
• Shriram Lagoo in a Marathi translation of the play named Raja Lear (Marathi:राजा लिअर)

See also

• Illegitimacy in fiction
• Shakespearian fool

References

1. ^ Taylor, Gary and Michael Warren, ed. The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare’s Two Versions of King Lear. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983
2. ^ While it has been claimed that "Cordelia" derives from the Latin "cor" (heart) followed by "delia", an anagram of "ideal", this is questionable. A more likely etymology is that her name is a feminine form of coeur de lion,meaning "lion-hearted". Another possible source is a Welsh word of uncertain meaning; it may mean "jewel of the sea" or "lady of the sea".
3. ^ This title and the titles of nobility held by other characters are all grossly anachronistic. Their actual use did not occur till 1067–1398.
4. ^ http://www.pathguy.com/kinglear.htm
5. ^ Soula Mitakidou and Anthony L. Manna, with Melpomeni Kanatsouli, Folktales from Greece: A Treasury of Delights, p 100 ISBN 1-56308-908-4; see also D. L. Ashliman, "Love Like Salt: folktales of types 923 and 510"
6. ^ The Role of Edmund in King Lear
7. ^ Frank Kermode, 'King Lear', The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 1249.
8. ^ R.A. Foakes, ed. King Lear. London: Arden, 1997), 89–90.
9. ^ Kermode, Riverside, 1250.
10. ^ The 1619 quarto is part of William Jaggard's so-called False Folio.
11. ^ Kahn, Coppèlia. “The Absent Mother in King Lear”. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Margaret Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy Vickers. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. p. 33-49.
12. ^ Writings on Art and Literature by Sigmund Freud, Foreword by Neil Hertz, Standford University Press (page 120)
13. ^ The History of King King Lear Adapted by Nahum Tate after William Shakespeare, Edited by Jack Lynch, (Rutgers University, Newark), Act III, line 140. Tate's King Lear, 1749 edition: online text.
14. ^ Shakespeare A to Z by Charles Boyce, Dell Publishing, 1990
15. ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 265–66.
16. ^ Scofield's Lear voted the greatest Shakespeare performance, The Telegraph, 22nd August 2004
17. ^ "Olivier" by Robert Tanitch, Abbeville Press, 1985
18. ^ Gielgud: A Theatrical Life 1904–2000 by Jonathan Croall, Continuum 2001
19. ^ Ball, David; (1983). Backwards & Forwards. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-1110-0
20. ^ McLaughlin, John. "The Dynamics of Power in King Lear: An Adlerian Interpretation." Shakespeare Quarterly 29 (1978): 39.
21. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/
22. ^ Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear Act V.
23. ^ "Tate's Lear at Riverside," by Mel Gussow, The New York Times, April 5, 1985, and "King Lear for Optimists," by Howard Kissel, Women's Wear Daily, March 22, 1985.
24. ^ An Existential Examination of King Lear
25. ^ Alter, Robert (May 20, 2001), "Just Passing Through: Review of Stephen Greenblatt's 'Hamlet in Purgatory'", New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/05/20/reviews/010520.20altert.html
26. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey Benjamin Britten - a Biography. London: Faber and Faber 1992, pp 447-8.

External links

• King Lear – plaintext file at Project Gutenberg.
• King Lear – Searchable, online version of the text.
• In Our Time: KING LEAR – BBC Radio 4 programme on the Shakespeare play – streaming audio
• Photos of a production of King Lear
• King Lear study guide, themes, quotes, character analyses, multimedia, teaching guide

Categories: 1605 plays | Shakespearean tragedies | English Renaissance plays

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