King Lear
King Lear is generally regarded as one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. It is believed to have been written in 1605. It is based on Lear, a legendary king of pre-Roman Britain. The part of King Lear has been played by many great actors, but is generally considered a role to be taken on only by those who have reached an advanced age.
The play begins with King Lear taking the decision to abdicate the throne and divide his kingdom equally between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The eldest two are married, but Cordelia is much sought after as a bride, partly because she is her father's favourite. However, when Lear attempts to auction off his kingdom to the most admiring bidder, the plan backfires. Cordelia refuses to outdo the flattery of her elder sisters, and Lear, in a fit of pique, divides her share of the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and Cordelia is banished -- although the King of France insists in wedding her, even after she is disinherited.
Almost as soon as Lear gives up the throne, he finds that Goneril and Regan are no longer willing to defer to him, and arguments ensue. The Earl of Kent, who has spoken up for Cordelia and been banished for his pains, returns, disguising himself as a servant in order to protect the king, to whom he remains loyal. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan fall out with one another over their attraction to Edmund -- and are forced to deal with an army from France, led by Cordelia, sent to restore Lear to his throne.
Another sub-plot involves the Earl of Gloucester, whose two sons, the good Edgar and the evil Edmund, are at loggerheads, the bastard Edmund having concocted false stories about his legitimate half-brother. Edgar is forced into exile, affecting lunacy. Edmund engages in liaisons with Goneril and Regan, and Gloucester is blinded by Regan's husband, but is saved from death by Edgar, whose voice he fails to recognise.
The plot is extremely convoluted, and Lear is generally regarded as a "difficult" play, with many incongruities. For example, the character of Lear's Fool, important in the first act, disappears without explanation. A popular explanation for this is that the actor playing the Fool also played Cordelia. The two characters are never on stage at the same time, and dual-roling was popular in Shakespeare's time. It has also been alleged that Cordelia never went to France but stayed behind disguised as Lear's Fool serving her father in much the same manner as Edgar served his father, Gloucester, in the sub-plot. It has been suggested that Cordelia was aided in this service by the King of France who was disguised as a Servant/Knight/Gentleman.
Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his two 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.
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2 Sources for King Lear 3 Movie Adaptations 4 See also 5 External links |
King Lear is ruler of Britain. He's a patriarchal figure whose misjudgement of his daughters brings about his downfall.
Goneril is Lear's eldest daughter, and wife to the Duke of Albany. After being awarded part of her father's kingdom, she betrays him in cooperation with her sister, Regan. Later, she poisons Regan because of their jealous quarrel over Edmund. After Edmund is wounded, she stabs herself.
Regan is Lear's second daughter, and wife to the Duke of Cornwall. As with Goneril, she manipulated her father with flattery into giving her part of his kingdom. Later in the play, her husband blinds the aged Gloucester while she eggs him on. She is eventually poisoned by her sister, Goneril.
Cordelia's name means "ideal heart", since "cor" means "heart" in Greek, and "delia" is an anagram of "ideal". She is Lear's youngest and most loved daughter, yet he disiniherits her at the beginning of the play when he thinks her disobedient. The King of France marries her without a dowry. SHe is hanged at the end of the play.
The Duke of Albany is Goneril's husband. Goneril scorns him for his "milky gentleness." He turns against his wife later in the play.
The Duke of Cornwall is Regan's husband. He has the Earl of Kent put in the stocks, leaves Lear out on the heath during a storm, and gouges out Gloucester's eyes. After his attack on Gloucester, one of his servants attacks and mortally wounds him.
The Earl of Gloucester is Edgar's father, and the father of the illegitimate son, Edmund. Edmund deceives him against Edgar, and Edgar flees, taking on the disguise of Tom of Bedlam.
The Earl of Kent is always faithful to Lear, but he is banished by the king after he protests his treatment of Cordelia. He takes on a disguise and serves the king without letting him know his true identity.
Edmund is Gloucester's illegitimate son. He works with Cordelia and Goneril to further his ambitions. He is one of Shakespeare's darkest, yet charismatic, villains.
Edgar is the legitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester. Disguised as Tom of Bedlam, he helps his blind father. At the end of the play, he takes rule of the kingdom.
Oswald is Goneril's servant, and is described as "a serviceable villain." He tries to murder Gloucester, but is instead murdered by Edgar.
The Fool is a jester who is devoted to Lear and Coredila. He appears in Act I, scene four, and disappears in Act III, scene six, with no suggestion of what his destiny would be. It has been suggested that Cordelia never left England but went into disguise as Lear's Fool, unbeknown to Lear, and it wasn't until after she died and Lear is holding her dead body that he realizes that she has been his Fool, pronouncing, "And my poor Fool is hanged...."
King Llyr was a semi-legendary king who reigned in Cornwall and Devonshire in present-day England. According to the semi-legendary history preserved in Nennius, Llyr may have been taken as a prisoner to Rome, and this traditional lore may be the origin of Shakespeare's play. Lear may also be Lir, a god of the sea in Celtic mythology; there, Lir's children include Bran and Mannanan, eponymous creator of the Isle of Man.
One of Shakespeare's sources was an earlier play, King Leir. In this play Cordella and the King of France serve Leir disguised as country folk. However, the ancient folk tale of Lear had existed in many versions prior to that, though, and it's likely that Shakespeare was familiar with them. One of them is the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century.
Shakespeare's most important source is thought to be the second edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed, published in 1587.
The name of Cordelia was probably taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, published in 1590. Spenser's Cordelia also dies from hanging, as in King Lear.
Other likely sources are A Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by John Higgins; The Malcontent (1604), by John Marston; The London Prodigal (1605); Arcadia (1580-1590), by Sir Philip Sidney; Montaigne's Essays, which were translated into English by John Florio in 1603; An Historical Description of Iland of Britaine, by William Harrison; Remaines Concerning Britaine, by William Camden (1606); Albion's England, by William Warner, (1589); and A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, by Samuel Harsnett (1603).
The 1915 play Hobson's Choice by Harold Brighouse is a comic version which updates the story to Manchester in the 1880s. A film version was made by David Lean in 1954.
Akira Kurosawa adapted this play for the basis of his 1985 movie Ran.
Jean-Luc Godard's 1987 version is set in a post-apocalyptic world with Burgess Meredith as gangster Don Learo and Molly Ringwald as Cordelia.
A modern retelling, set on a farm in Iowa, was the 1997 A Thousand Acres. This movie attempted to explain the elders sisters' hatred of their father.
Patrick Stewart played John Lear in a 2002 made-for-TV adaptation, The King of Texas, set in frontier Texas.
Characters in King Lear
Sources for King Lear
Movie Adaptations
Despite its difficult plot, King Lear has been made into a movie numerous times.See also
External links