J
K ING L EAR
Adapted from Geoff Sheehan (2011)

J OURNEYS IN K ING L EAR
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‘homo viator’ = Man the traveller, between two worlds, on the way
Physical & Mental travellers = Gloucester &
Lear
Undertake a journey toward establishing a sense of redemption / self-realisation

L EAR ’ S J OURNEYS
KL: Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Fool: Lear’s shadow (nothing)
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Castle – Hovel - Tent
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Finery – nakedness – simple white garment
Arrogance – humility – love
Crown – clothes – flowers (clothes of justice, judge’s hat)
Grand blank verse – prose – natural blank verse
(crawl towards death - pray do not mock me
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Self-ignorance – madness - understanding

LEAR’S J OURNEY T HROUGH I MAGERY
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Knows nothing but thinks he knows everything
‘thou art an O without a figure’
Appearance of everything but in fact nothing – false knowledge.
‘image of crown’
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Becomes nothing
Clothing & poor naked wretches
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Dies at beginning of understanding of perfection that is love

G LOUCESTER ’ S J OURNEY
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Castle – Dover – Tent
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Blind – blinded – ‘sees feelingly’ (off stage violence)
‘dies in bed’ - symbolic suicide – ‘redeemed through rebirth

S TORM SCENE
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We see in this scene the world reduced to the basic elements of
Earth - humus
Air – wind
Fire – lightening
Water – rain
Be being reduced to the essence of nature, Lear learns concern for others – in other words, he learns what really ‘matters.’ (pun very much intended)

PATIENCE
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Patior (to suffer)
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Sustained through metaphor of the body: strained, twisted, pierced, buffeted, strain, strife, stretched