King Lear
"Every new reading of "King Lear" implies a reconsideration of the ways audiences value the play and respond to it."Explore this statement with close reference to the reception/valuing of two productions.King Lear has proved one of the most controversial of all Shakespeare's tragedies. Written between late 1604 and 1605. A time of great social and political chaos within England. It is a notoriously ambiguous and 'difficult' work, as a study of its history makes clear. The feminists, in more modern times, were offended by Lear's perceived misogyny, as for instance in the 'guilded fly' speech (IV.vi), which in their opinion reeked of chauvinism, to the extent of demolishing any claim Lear had on the audience's sympathy. Existentialist critics have seen the play as demonstrating the absurdity of human existence. Christian critics have seen it as affirming the power of love and charity. Some see the comic elements (the Fool, 'Poor Tom') as misconceived while others see them as the key to the play's very meaning. Each new reading forces us to rethink what the text is saying to us. Four centuries of criticism have not resolved the key problems: they have simply added new players to the dispute. I will refer to two productions
A newly prosperous gentry and commercial class challenged the power of the king and of an aristocracy divided among itself. Society is in utter turmoil, this is seen in Gloucester's speech Act 1 Scene 2. 'Do you see this? Look at her! Look, her lips! Look there! Look there!'The presence of the absurd is exemplified throughout the course of the play. Whereas Cordelia remains in white, the old order. It is set in an amoral universe: a world without gods, with no possibility of hopeful resolution. Edmunds immediate motive is 'ligitimate Edgar, I must have your land. The love test can be read as following: drawing out its economic and historical context, placing it in relation to the transition from feudalism to capitalism that English Marxists historians believe was occuring at the time. Through tattered clothes great vices do appear: Rober and furred gowns hids all. Where no such absolutes obtain, the effect is not tragic, but grotesque. Lear's motives are accentuated where identified as economic and political. Gloucester gives Tom his purse in Act 4 scene 1 lines 64-71.
Common topics in this essay:
Gloucester Conversly,
King Lear,
Gentlemen Fool,
Regan Edmund,
Lear Gloucester,
Gloucester Tom,
Scene Edgar's,
English Marxists,
FoolAt Lear,
Edmund Cornwall,
king lear,
goneril regan,
relation transition feudalism,
final death scene,
transition feudalism,
final death,
scene 2,
death scene,
barren land,
lear ultimately,
transition feudalism capitalism,
goneril regan edmund,
critics seen,
feudalism capitalism,
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Acceptance Essays
