King Lear
Reading Classics of Humanities (I)
Week 6 & Week 8
Iris Tuan
莎士比亞
• William Shakespeare
(26 April 1564 – 23
April 1616)
• an English poet and
playwright
莎士比亞
• England's national poet and the "Bard of
Avon" (or simply "The Bard").
• His surviving works consist of 38 plays,
154 sonnets, two long narrative poems,
and several other poems.
• His plays have been translated into every
major living language and are performed
more often than those of any other
playwright.
莎士比亞
• Between 1585 and 1592 he began a
successful career in London as an actor,
writer, and part-owner of the playing
company the Lord Chamberlain's Men,
later known as the King's Men.
• He appears to have retired to Stratford
around 1613, where he died three years
later.
莎士比亞
• Few records of Shakespeare's private life
survive and considerable speculation has
been poured into this void, including
questions concerning his sexuality,
religious beliefs, and whether the works
attributed to him were written by others.
莎士比亞
• Shakespeare produced most of his known work
between 1590 and 1613.
• His early plays were mainly comedies and
histories.
• By the end of the sixteenth century, he wrote
mainly tragedies until about 1608, producing
plays, such as Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.
• In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies and
collaborated with other playwrights.
莎士比亞
• Many of his plays were published in
editions of varying quality and accuracy
during his lifetime.
• In 1623, two of his former theatrical
colleagues published the First Folio, a
collected edition of his dramatic works that
included all but two of the plays now
recognised as Shakespeare's.
莎士比亞
• Title page of the First
Folio, 1623. Copper
engraving of
Shakespeare by Martin
Droeshout
莎士比亞
• Shakespeare’s reputation did not rise to its
present heights until the nineteenth
century.
• The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed
Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians
hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a
reverence that George Bernard Shaw
called "bardolatry".
King Lear
• "King
Lear and
the Fool
in the
Storm" by
William
Dyce
King Lear
• One of Shakespeare greatest tragedies.
• 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 in 1608, and The
Tragedy of King Lear, which appeared in the
First Folio in 1623, a more theatrical version.
• The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing
observations on the nature of human suffering
and kinship on a cosmic scale.
King Lear
Sources
• The most important source is thought to be the
second edition of The Chronicles of England,
Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed,
published in 1587.
• Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier
Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, which was written in the 12th century.
• The name of Cordelia was probably taken from
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene,
published in 1590.
Other possible sources
•
•
•
•
•
A Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by John Higgins.
The Malcontent (1604), by John Marston;
Arcadia (1580-1590), by Sir Philip Sidney.
Albion's England, by William Warner, (1589);
and A Declaration of egregious Popish
Impostures, by Samuel Harsnett (1603).
• Common fairy tale, where a father rejects his
youngest daughter on the basis of a statement
of her love that does not please him.
Main Characters
• King Lear is ruler of Britain.
• Goneril (sometimes written Gonerill) is
Lear's eldest daughter.
• Regan is Lear's second daughter.
• Cordelia (poss. "heart of a lion" ) is Lear's
youngest daughter.
• The Fool is a jester who is devoted to
Lear and Cordelia. He has a privileged
relationship with Lear.
Characters
• The Duke of Albany is Goneril's husband.
• The Duke of Cornwall is Regan's husband.
• The Earl of Gloucester is Edgar's father, and
the father of the illegitimate son, Edmund.
• The Earl of Kent is always faithful to Lear.
• Edmund (sometimes written Edmond) is
Gloucester's illegitimate son. He works with
Goneril and Regan.
• Edgar is the legitimate son of the Earl of
Gloucester.
• Oswald is Goneril's servant, and is described as
"a serviceable villain".
Lear and Cordelia
by Ford Madox Brown
Synopsis
• The play begins with King Lear taking the
decision to abdicate the throne and divide his
kingdom among his three daughters.
• The eldest two are already married, while
Cordelia is much sought after as a bride, partly
because she is her father's favourite.
• In a fit of senile vanity, king suggests a
contest — each daughter shall be accorded
lands according to how much they demonstrate
their love for him in speech.
Synopsis
• Cordelia refuses to outdo the flattery of her elder
sisters, as she feels it would only cheapen her
true feelings to flatter him purely for profit.
• Lear, in a fit of pique, divides her share of the
kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and
Cordelia is banished.
• The King of France marries Cordelia, even after
she has been disinherited, since he sees value
in her honesty.
Synopsis
• Soon after Lear abdicates the throne, he finds
that Goneril and Regan's feelings for him have
turned cold, and arguments ensue.
• The Earl of Kent, who has spoken up for
Cordelia and been banished for his pains,
returns disguised as the servant Caius, who will
"eat no fish" (that is to say, he is a Protestant), in
order to protect the king, to whom he remains
loyal.
Synopsis
• Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan fall out
with one another over their attraction to
Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl of
Gloucester — and are forced to deal with
an army from France, led by Cordelia, sent
to restore Lear to his throne.
• A cataclysmic war is fought.
Synopsis
• The subplot involves the Earl of Gloucester and
his two sons, the good Edgar and the evil
Edmund.
• Edmund concocts false stories about his
legitimate half-brother, and Edgar is forced into
exile, affecting lunacy.
• Edmund engages in liaisons with Goneril and
Regan.
• Gloucester is confronted by Regan's husband,
but is saved from death by several of Cornwall's
servants, who object to the duke's treatment of
Lear.
Synopsis
• one of the servants wounds the duke (but
is killed by Regan), who throws Gloucester
into the storm in order for him to, "smell his
way to Dover" after plucking out his eyes.
• Cornwall dies of his wound shortly
thereafter.
• The storm scene is where Lear exclaims
how he is "a man more sinned against
than sinning".
Synopsis
• Edgar, still under the guise of a homeless
lunatic, finds Gloucester out in the storm.
• The earl asks him whether he knows the
way to Dover, to which Edgar replies that
he will lead him.
• Edgar, whose voice Gloucester fails to
recognise, is shaken by encountering his
blinded father and his guise is put to the
test.
Synopsis
• Lear appears in Dover, wandering about raving
and talking to mice.
• Gloucester attempts to throw himself from a cliff,
but is deceived by Edgar in order to save him
and comes off safely, encountering the king
shortly after.
• Lear and Cordelia are briefly reunited and
reconciled before the battle between Britain and
France.
• After the French lose, Lear is content at the
thought of living in prison with Cordelia, but
Edmund gives orders for them to be executed.
Synopsis
• Edgar, in disguise, then fights Edmund, fatally
wounding him.
• On seeing this, Goneril, who has already
poisoned Regan out of jealousy, kills herself.
• Edgar reveals himself to Edmund and tells him
that Gloucester has just died.
• On hearing this, and of Goneril and Regan's
deaths, Edmund tells Edgar of his order to have
Lear and Cordelia murdered and gives orders
for them to be reprieved.
Synopsis
• Unfortunately, the reprieve comes too late.
• Lear appears on stage with Cordelia's dead
body in his arms, having killed the servant who
hanged her, then dies himself.
• Besides the subplot involving the Earl of
Gloucester and his sons, the principal innovation
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.
• King Lear~2005 –
• (Center Stage Theatre,
Baltimore, MD)
Quotes
• LEAR: So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA: So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR: Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever.
King Lear, 1. 1
Quotes
• CORDELIA: It is no vicious blot, murder, or
foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonoured step,
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.
King Lear, 1. 1
Quotes
• Kent: Fortune, good night, smile once
more; turn thy wheel!
King Lear, 2. 2
• No, I'll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
King Lear, 2. 4
Quotes
• Lear:I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
King Lear, 3. 2
• Lear:Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed
sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend
you
From seasons such as these?
King Lear, 3. 4
Quotes
• Edgar: The lowest and most dejected thing of
fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter.
King Lear, 4. 1
• Albany( to Goneril ):You are not worth the dust
which the rude wind
Blows in your face.
King Lear, 4. 2
Quotes
• GLOUCESTER: O, let me kiss that hand!
LEAR: Let me wipe it first; it smells of
mortality.
GLOUCESTER: O ruin'd piece of nature!
This great world
Shall so wear out to nought.
King Lear, 4. 6
Quotes
• Lear: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire.
King Lear, 4. 7
• Lear: And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button.
King Lear, 5. 3
Quotes
• Edmund:This is the excellent foppery of the
world, that, when we are sick in fortune, -- often
the surfeit of our own behaviour, -- we make
guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the
stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced
obedience of planetary influence.
King Lear, 1. 2
Debate
• 'love test' an alternate interpretation.
• “Kent: I thought the King had more affected the
Duke of Albany than Cornwall.
Gloucester: It did always seem so to us, but now
in the division of the kingdom it appears not
which of the Dukes he values most, for
equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither
can make choice of either's moiety.”
King Lear, 1. 1
Debate
• There are only two clues on how balanced the
king's division of the kingdom.
• The first is the above quoted section where
Gloucester describes the shares as equal.
• The second is in Lear's description that while
Regan's portion of the kingdom is "No less in
space, validity, and pleasure/Than that conferred
on Goneril." (Act I/Scene 1) but for Cordelia's
"more opulent than [her] sisters" (Act I/Scene 1).
Debate
• It has been suggested that the King's "contest"
has more to do with Cordelia.
• On receiving her proclamations of devout love
and loyalty, he plans to force her into a marriage
which she could not possibly object to after
claiming such stolid obedience.
• Of course, the trap fails disastrously for all
parties. It is not clear whether or not
Shakespeare intended his audience to be aware
of this subtext, or whether he assumed the
details of the situation were not relevant.
Debate
• 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 deceased, takes the
throne as rightful heir, but after a few years is
overthrown and imprisoned by nephews, leading
to her suicide.
Debate
• 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.
Debate
• The character of Lear's Fool, appears in
Act I, scene four, and disappears in Act III,
scene six.
• His final line is "And I'll go to bed at noon",
a line 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.
Debate
• A popular explanation for the fool's
disappearance is that the actor playing the Fool
also played Cordelia.
• However, the Fool would have been performed
by Robert Armin, the regular clown actor of his
company, who is unlikely to have been cast as a
tragic heroine.
• In Elizabethan English, "fool" was a term used to
mean "child" (cf. foal).
Reworkings
• The novel A Thousand Acres by Jane
Smiley
• The play Lear by Edward Bond
• The play Lear's Daughters by WTG and
Elaine Feinstein
• The play Seven Lears by Howard Barker
• The play Lear Reloaded by Scot Lahaie
• The film The King is Alive, directed by
Kristian Levring
Shakespeare Theater
• King Lear (Jonathan
Epstein)
Shakespeare Theater
Shakespeare Theater
• Lear (Jonathan Epstein) and Fool (Jimmy
Ireland)
Some film adaptations
• 1909 - A silent, black and white film directed by J.
Stuart Blackton and William V. Ranous, with
William V. Ranous as Lear. The first.
• 1934 - "Der Yidisher Kenig Lear," or The Yiddish
King Lear, is an adapted of Jacob Gordin's play
set in Jewish Vilna, Lithuania. The film is
directed by Harry Thomashefsky.
• 1971 - Directed by Peter Brook with Paul
Scofield as Lear.
• 1974 - A live recorded performance from the
New York Shakespeare Festival, directed by
Edwin Sherin, with James Earl Jones as Lear.
Some film adaptations
• 1974 - A Thames Television production, directed
by Tony Davenall with Patrick Magee as Lear.
• 1982 - Directed by Jonathan Miller for BBC TV
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. Olivier won the Emmy Award for
his performance.
• 1985 - The film Ran by Akira Kurosawa sets the
story in Edo-period Japan and replaces the
three daughters with three sons.
Some film adaptations
• 1987 - Jean-Luc Godard's version is set in a
post-apocalyptic world with Burgess Meredith as
gangster Don Learo and Molly Ringwald as
Cordelia.
• 1997 - A modern retelling, set on a farm in Iowa,
was Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Directed
by Jocelyn Moorhouse and starring Jason
Robards, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jessica Lange,
Michelle Pfeiffer, and Colin Firth.
• 1999 - Directed by and starring Brian Blessed as
Lear .
• 2001 - My Kingdom stars Richard Harris, Lynn
Redgrave. A modern gangland version of King
Lear.
悲劇要素
• 形象、性格、情節、言詞、歌曲與思想
• 亞里士多德：悲劇是一個嚴肅、完整、有
一定長度的行動的模仿，其效果是引起觀
眾的恐懼和憐憫，陶冶人的心靈。
• 悲劇成分中，情節最重要，人物性格居第
二，一個不好不壞的善良人是悲劇人物的
最佳選擇。
三一律
• 希臘悲劇裡，由於當時劇場與演員的諸多
限制，造成劇作家許多在寫作上所共有的
特色。
• 最早提到「三一律」的應該是羅馬時期的
理論作品《詩論》。
• 時間、空間與動作三個要素必須一致。
• Pictured from left:
Fontana Butterfield
(Regan), Trish
Mulholland (Goneril),
Zehra Berkman
(Cordelia) and
Richard Louis James
(King Lear)
Photo Credit: Fachin
Photography
• Richard Louis James
and Zehra Berkman
Photo Credit: Benjamin
Privitt.
• Directed by Trevor
Nunn
• Ian McKellen as King
Lear
• Lear (Ian McKellen)
and his Fool (Sylvester
McCoy)
• Jonathan Hyde (Earl of Kent), Ben Meyjes
(Edgar), Ian McKellen (King Lear),
Sylvester
McCoy
(Lear's Fool)
• King Lear (Ian McKellen)
• Ian McKellen (King Lear), William Gaunt
(Gloucester)
Reference
• http://en.wikipedia.org/
• http://www.nerf-herdersanonymous.net/StephenMarkle.html
• http://www.shakespearefest.org/King%20Lear.htm
• http://www.allgreatquotes.com/shakespearequotes_king
_lear.shtml
• http://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/?qid=13050918
11361
• http://www.cas.sc.edu/THEA/2003/Lear/Lear%20photos.
html
• http://www.mckellen.com/stage/lear07/photos.htm