Act Scene Notes Flashcards
When we are introduced to Albany and Cornwall in the beginning of Act 1, we don’t hear who they are
Married to
Link to women/independence of men from bonds?
Why is Gloucesters adultery made more sinister, especially due to its positioning as soon as the play commences?
It was only a short time after the birth of Edgar
What did Tolstoy say about Gloucester’s first words? When?
1906: “The coarseness of these words of Gloucester is so out of place in the mouth of a person intended to represent a noble character”— own assumptions about how noble characters ought to speak
What does Gloucester reveal to Kent in the opening scene, that some critics believe is the reason for his subsequent behaviour?
Tells Kent he will send him away again-
“second banishment”—
Coleridge 1907 believed Edmund outraged by the light way G had spoken of his mother
Illegitimacy rages were RISING during Shakespeare’s lifetime. How were notions of illegitimacy complex?
Officially, English Common Law: illegitimates could not inherit
Civil Law: they could inherit
Edmund is a ‘filius nullius’ (‘nothing son’ BUT effectively legitimised when Gloucester later banishes Edgar
Richer families, illegitimacy not an insurmountable hurdle
Which character in Othello does Cordelia echo?
Desdemona: perceives a “divided duty”
Many fathers more reasonable than Lear feel a pang when they realise they are no longer first in their daughters affections
BUT Lear v far
What does France say of Cordelia?
She “is herself a dowry”
Arguably Shakespeare condemns division, but Lear is over 80 and has no male heir: natural to settle succession.
How do the virtuous characters deal with the reality of lears abdication?
They never accept it
Regard him as king throughout— maybe this shows their opinion on the schemes inauthenticity— the ambivalence of Lears role after the abdication is one of the pivotal points of the tragedy
In the first scene, when does the shift from prose to verse occur?
The entrance of Lear it shifts to prose
Ritual, ceremony
What does gonerill compain of in relation to her father in scene 1?
“how full of changes his age is”
Most directors make use of a prop (map) to show visually his most recent plan
The idea of a love test is doubtless a symbol of Lear’s VANITY. How does is also contain a element of cruelty?
What literary tradition does this dramatise?
He has already decided that the “third more opulent” should go to Cordelia (whom he loves most)
Gonerill and Regan know where they stand in fathers affections
A FABLE: kind of parable with obvious moral attached— Lear makes catastrophic error of judgement; no tragedy without the flaw
What is a hamartia?
Weakness or deficiency in character’s nature that brings about his downfall & eventual death.
‘to err’
Broad spectrum
Some critics talk about how Lear and Cordelia are similar like she’s his daughter obviously etc
Find those notes
Learn some more
It’s good
What is Cordelia’s tragic flaw that relates to Lear’s S1?
She could had been tactful, have humoured her father, not understated her genuine love
BUT not natural to her; she will not lie.
Kent (DIRECTS our RESPONSES throughout play) sees truth : “Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least”
How, in scene one, is it revealed that the sisters are materialistic?
The imagery they use to describe their “love” for their father
Goneril’s stress on words of valuation: “dearer”, “rich”, “rare” is echoed by Regan.
Shakespeare’s cleverly introduces the words “true” and “sense” into Regan’s vocab; true is ironic but Regan is a creature of appetite that will be governed by her base SENSES as play develops.
As with the introduction of the word “nothing” in scene one, which theme does Gonerill introduce?
The idea of sight: “dearer than eyesight”
Cordelia has fewer lines than
Almost any other important character in all of Shakespeare
Why give Cordelia asides?
We are left in no doubt of her motives
Cordelia- how does she define her love in a way that would satisfy a reasonable father?
According to my bond, no more nor less
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”
Tolstoy
Argues that Cordelia refuses to quantify her love “on purpose to irritate her father”
Some psychological motivation beyond the need for honesty?
Lear’s fury is caused by bitter disappointment—
He had hoped to set his “rest / On her kind nursery”
- suggests a ‘second childhood’; premonition of what happen in later acts
Lear gives up power and is utterly dependent on his favoured daughters and the gratitude of their husbands.
Who is the only one of the four with decent instincts? What happens?
Albany
Dominated by Gonerill
The love and honour of Kent shows that LEAR was NOT ALWAYS so foolish as he now appears.
Kent as a model of plain speaking honesty.
Calls king “mad”, guilty of “folly”, “hideous rashness”, “evil”
Farewell speech commends Cordelia to gods and reminds Gonerill and Regan of their promises.
It is in RHYMED COUPLETS: formality rings the importance of their choric function.
How are the reactions of the rivals to Cordelia’s love carefully delineated?
Burgundy: wealth > love
France: love increased by her outcast state.
Frances words have additional resonance because of their echoes of St. Paul
Dismisses rival with one adjective “waterish”
Twice gives the impartial observers view of lears actions as “strange”
Rhymed verse, like Kent, is choric.
So is Cordelia’s
Which three character’s rhyming speech implies a choric function in Act 1?
- Cordelia; “stood I within his grace / I would prefer him to a better place”
- Kent
- France
In Act 1 scene 1, who emerges as the dominant sister?
Gonerill ; Regan merely agrees
Regan proposed to “further think of it”
Whereas
Gonerill is determined to act “i’ the heat”
Lack of filial affection prepares us for horrors to follow
Already plotting to overturn the conditions of Lear’s abdication. (Chilling.)
Which line from Cordelia, in Act 1, is reminiscent of which proverb?
“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, /
Who covert faults, at last with shame derides”
That truth is the daughter of time;
Here linked with a verse from the Old Testament (PROVERBS 28:13):
“He that hideth his sins, shall not prosper”
The chapter was appointed to be read on St. Stephen’s Day, the day on which King Lear was performed before James I in 1606
What reinforces Edmunds skills at deception?
Both his brother and his father agree to his Machiavellian suggestions easily
Can be comic on stage
“if not by birth”
“have lands by wit”
“Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law/
My services are bound”
Very different from “Nature” Lear later addresses as “dear goddess”
What does Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature argue with regards to nature?
John Danby
1949
The virtuous characters look on nature as kindly, the evil characters regard nature as a mere justification for their unscrupulous impulses
Arguable, though: analyse the outcomes the dramatist constructs for the characters— whatever the character’s interpretation of it, nature merely exists;
Does not chose to save those who believe it to e beneficent, nor does it choose to punish those who see it as a conduit of asbo
Generally Shakespeare’s evil characters who deride the influence of the stars:
Julius Caesar- Cassius, in temptation of the nobler Brutus, tells him that the fault “is not in our stars, but in ourselves”
Defend Danby
With relation to the thrillingly shocking notion of Edmund boasting of his bastardy, which source does Shakespeare closely follow?
What he read it Ortensio Lando’s Paradossi (1543):
“The Bastard is more worthy to be esteemed than he that is lawfully born or legitimate”
Most editors acknowledged he uses Lando, but a few acknowledge Lando was a humorist and that the tract was a series of parodies and amusing paradoxes
Which quote by Edmund displays his philosophy that the ends justify the means, that he is determined to rise and his ambition will subordinate all?
“All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit”
When was The Prince published?
what does it argue?
1532;
all means may be utilised for the establishment and preservation of authority
The worst acts of the ruler are justified by the wickedness and treachery of the governed
condemned by Pope Clement VIII
Which quip of Gloucester’s echoes ‘Nothing will come of nothing’?
‘If it be nothing I shall not need spectacles’ (SIGHT IMAGERY)
How does Shakespeare drive home the dominant nature of Edmund’s character in Act 1 Scene 2?
drum-like alliterative repetitions of ‘d’ sounds: ‘death’, ‘dearth’, ‘dissolutions’, ‘divisions’, ‘diffidences’, ‘dissipation’
The view that sons should manage the revenue of their aged fathers echoes what happens in the main plot .
Place the idea in context?
Not everyone in audience would have thought that to give more power and authority to young people went against nature.
Montaigne, Essays, 1580:
‘It is mere injustice to see an old, crazed, sinew-shrunken and nigh dead father… to enjoy so many goods as would suffice for the preferment and entertainment of many children,’
and in the meanwhile, for want of means, to suffer that to lose their best days and years… a father overburdened with years… ought willingly to distribute… amongst those, to whom by natural decree they belong’
What is Montaigne’s philosophy, which Shakespeare makes great use of?
Montaigne questions the place of man in the cosmos, claiming that we do not have good reason to consider ourselves superior to animals and thus arguing against traditional concepts like the Chain of Being.
Mixture of wise scepticism and humanism.
The prediction quotes by Gloucester was common for the era, but it is also similar to the prophecy of…
the end of the world in the Bible (Mark 13):
‘the brother shall deliver the brother to death, and the father the son, and the children shall rise against their parents, and shall cause them to die…
the sun shall wax dark, and the moon shall not give her light’
What does Gonerill write to Regan asking with reference to Lear being annoying at the beginning in Scene 3?
he will receive the same sort of treatment (Oswald being disrespectful) at her house: both sisters ‘hold’ the ‘very course’
A reading of Gonerill’s behaviour in Act 1 Scene 3 is that…
she will find every opportunity of quarreling with Lear in order to drive him to Regan, who will continue to humiliate him: planning, ensuring will is done.
DOESN’T want to KILL, just extricate from the uncomfortable agreement by which they would each have an unwelcome guest and his hundred companions to feed etc
What term is used to describe someone 80-89
octogenarian: strange he is out hunting! hint as to Lear’s wild nature, intrigued to see if he will continue to behave erratically on his next appearance
In Act 1 Scene 3, how do we understand Edmund and the sisters to be different?
Edmund selects his mode of behavior as an aspect of his free will
G and R gravitate slowly into depravity (that arguably becomes far sicker than Edmunds)
What does Kent do to change to Caius and further the theme of deception?
shaved off his beard (‘razed my likeness’)
Kent’s assumed name is not revealed to the audience until the final scene
What does Coppelia Kahn think about the play?
‘The absent mother in King Lear: Rewriting the Renaissance’ 1986
absence of mother, partly inspired by Freud (thought Cordelia symbolised Death)
Feminist and Psychoanalytic:
1) contends that the reason for Lear’s failure is that he fights against his own repressed need for a mother figure.
2) Goneril and Regan, having no maternal guide, have grown up selfish and heartless
How does Lear’s employment of Kent show both men at their best?
Kent (personification of loyalty)
Lear (representative of kingly authority at the outset of scene– enters to sound of horns, demands his dinner BUT behaves with initial restraint in the face of provocation: ‘I have perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather blames as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretense and purpose of unkindness’
Where does the play’s physical violence begin to develop?
Lear striking Oswald for ‘weary negligence’ (seemed more dreadful then than now)
and Kent tripping Oswald for ‘My lady’s father’
What is the first overt denial of Lear’s power in the play?
‘Who am I?’
‘My lady’s father’
What is the function of the fool in Act 1 Scene 4?
1) Cordelia’s representative, never letting Lear/us forget her
2) the ‘wise fool’: resentment of Cordelia’s treatment expressed in savage attacks– tells Lear a dozen times he is a fool
3) often argued that he is more a device/cipher than a real, well-rounded character BUT FUCTION in holding up a metaphorical mirror to Lear’s follies is vital to the play
4) reintroduces leitmotif of ‘nothing’
5) remind’s Lear he has inverted natural order: ‘thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers’
6) introduces the idea of Lear’s identity: ‘Who is it that can tell me who I am?’…. ‘Lear’s shadow’…. ‘Where are his eyes?’ (inability to see=moral blindness)
7) LEAR RECOGNIZES THE FREEDOM OF THE FOOL TO CRITICIZE
Why did Tolstoy hate the fool?
1906 on Act 1 Scene 4 part:
‘utterly unsuited to the position and serving no purpose… calling forth… that wearisome uneasiness which one experiences when listening to jokes which are not witty’
‘The fool does not cease to interpolate his humourless jokes’
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
That it’s had it head bit off by it young’
What does Hazlitt argue about the fool?
Keats quote if you want it
1817: the contrast between Lear’s anger and the petrifying indifference of his daughters would be too painful ‘but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well-timed levity comes in to break the continuity of feeling when it can no longer be borne’
Valued role of fool unlike many critics of his time
Which real life relationship echoes that of Lear and his fool?
Henry VIII and Will Sommers (West Country hunchback; could sit at royal table, included in official royal portraits, helped precipitate the downfall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsley by jocularly informing Henry he was hoarding gold. Sommers called king ‘uncle’ (‘mine uncle’=’nuncle’)
How does Goneril provoke her argument with Lear?
her attitude to the ‘all-licensed fool’
She has no sense of humour; this is a sign of her egotism.
Her attack on the behaviour of the knights is delivered as a Puritan might deplore the behaviour of actors.
The knights we do see speak and behave properly; Lear’s claim they are ‘men of choice and rarest parts’ may appear nearer to the truth than Goneril’s ‘disordered, so debauched and bold’
What does Lear call Goneril(A1S4)?
‘degenerate bastard’
Pretends she is not his daughter: not delusional at this point but the fact he is entertaining such possibilities will eventually drive Lear towards madness
What are Lear’s curses on Goneril?
‘Into her womb convey sterility’
Hoping she has an ungrateful child so that she may feel ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child’
Some actors ascribe Goneril’s later savage treatment of Lear to her horror at the curse; shocking how much Lear loathes her
Albany enters to hear ‘Detested kite’; stands amazed- she is an animal: sea-monster, kite, wolf
Lear promises to tell Albany why he is so enraged but fails to do so in the 14 lines b4 exit— Lear’s faculties, like the verse structure Shakespeare uses to convey them, are beginning to fragment
What does Tolstoy say of Lear’s rage A1S4?
‘strange and unnatural’
How does Albany react to Goneril’s attitude to Lear?
Begins to worry;
Goneril scorns his ‘milky gentleness’ and ‘harmful mildness’; effeminate weakling-
her humiliation is undercut by the fact she calls for Oswald, who himself is weak and effeminate
Albany escapes his subservience to Goneril via growing realisation of her EVIL
Act i Scene 5: what happens…
1) Fool taunts Lear about expectation that Regan will treat him any better than Goneril
2) Lear fears he is losing his reason- plot takes on a more psychologically complex nature
3) Thought of his treatment of Cordelia destabilises him: ‘I did her wrong’
4) Haunted by spectre of ‘monster ingratitude’ towards ‘so kind a father’
5) word ‘mad’ reverberates 3 times in 2 lines: prophesying– we probably identify with his situation and sympathise with his fear
What use of setting may have been satisfying for Shakespeare?
fusing 2 plots so Gloucester’s fate is linked with Lears:
1) the success of Edmund’s plot against Edgar
2) final humiliation of Lear by Goneril and Regan
Take place at Gloucester’s castle
Why does Edmund wound himself?
Both to make Edgar appear dangerous and to earn gratitude of his father and Cornwall
How is Edmunds indictment of Edgar made more believable?
Gloucester believes “mumbling of wicked charms” and “conjuring the moon”
What is it helpful to see the impending civil war between Albany and Cornwall as?
They have grown to distinct characters with different natures
A symbol of the breakdown in law, order and well-managed civilised relationships.
His abdication released the potential for anarchy.
Now there are only two factions (Cordelia’s portion would have ensured a balance of power) the audience is aware of political as well as personal rivalries at work
Are Edmund’s reasons for forcing Edgar’s escape believable?
No: ‘utterly incomprehensible’ (Tolstoy) for Edgar to run away on such scant prompting
Yes: refer to Edmunds psychological control over his half brother, as well as the panicking convergence of 3 potential enemies
How does Shakespeare demonstrate Edgar’s bewilderment in Act 2 Scene 1?
He is verbally assaulted by a bewildering array of questions, dire warnings and instructions. He manages only one sentence in reply (a half-line)
Edmunds superiority of thought, action and speech over Edgar.
As Gloucester plot mirrors Lear, so Cornwall and Regan’s flight mirrors
Lear’s flight from goneril
In terms of the era of composition, why perhaps should the audience not judge Edgar and Gloucester too harshly?
There was a stage convention of good characters believing wicked ones.
(legacy of morality plays: mendacity could not be discovered at the point the deception was enacted)
Morality plays: man begins in innocence, falls into temptation, repents and is saved)
“O madam, my old heart
is cracked, it’s cracked”
World has turned upside-down for Gloucester in a matter of days. A2S1
1) Mournful lament,
2) Reminder of imagery of cracking/breaking/shattering that infiltrates play; breakdown in family structure introduced in Act 1 continued
in Act 2 Scene 1, when Edmund belies Edgar’s condition, where is the painful irony? 2 quotes
Edmund describes Edgar’s disloyalty as ‘unnatural’
Cornwall describes Edmund’s ‘child-like office’
Gloucester praises Edmund as his ‘Loyal and natural boy’
What was the significance of the size of a retinue in Shakespeare’s day?
(not merely of monarchs but also of nobles)
Immense importance.
When Elizabeth I visited Kenilworth Castle in July 1575 on one of her Royal Progresses, arrived with such a vast entourage of people and equipment packed into almost 300 carts that the host (Robert DUDLEY) was left nearly bankrupt for the rest of his life; wanted to marry her, stopped the clock upon her arrival
The fight between Kent and Oswald represents…
Kent striking a literal and metaphorical blow against the forces of darkness; old-fashioned virtues under threat in this world of increasing madness and selfishness.
‘I have seen better faces in my time /
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant
Why do we begin to dislike Cornwall in Act 2 Scene 2?
Cornwall’s true nature emerges as he supports Oswald, insulting Lear’s age and clapping Kent in the stocks with no thought of his office; begin to dislike.
Then worsens: brushes aside Kent’s complaints and usurps Gloucester’s position in his own household
How does Shakespeare begin to add dark shades to Regan’s character in Act 2 Scene 2?
Malevolently doubles Kent’s punishment– cruelty without a reason is frightening
How is Gloucester’s character shaded more carefully in Act 2 Scene 2?
coarse and gullible he has been, but now we warm to his sympathetic treatment of Kent and are heartened by his attempts to intercede with Cornwall
Which two moments of the play are meant to be contemporaneous?
Edgar’s ‘Poor Tom’ speech and Kent being placed in the stocks.
What is the significance of Edgar’s Poor Tom speech?
frenetic and urgent; first chance we get to see him on his own.
Here we see him ACT, not react, for the first time.
The disguise of madness gives shakespeare scope for dramatic potentials later in the play: demented ravings/ prophecies/ demons make for good theatre
The final words of this speech echo theme of ‘nothing’: ‘Edgar I nothing am’- destruction of self-identity
What does Poor Tom represent?
introduces the theme of poverty, using a figure at the very bottom of the social scale.
1) Huge depression in Elizabethan England during 1590s and 1600s;
2) land enclosures were progressing rapidly- even the poor’s dwellings were being torn down
3) desperate, dispossessed rural poor
‘Unaccommodated man’; exposed, vulnerable, almost naked
His feigned madness prepared us for Lear’s genuine madness later on
How many echoes of Harsnett’s text are there in the play?
67
Shakespeare was clearly interested in the difference between genuine and assumed madness;
People who lost the capacity to reason were considered mad; painful for the audience to see the contrast between E and L
In Act 2 Scene 2, how does the Fool’s critique widen?
had, until now, been against Lear’s folly; here it begins to encompass the selfishness of humanity at large.
- Children are kind to their parents only in self-interest
- the Poor are always the unluckiest people
- Kent asks Lear why he travels with so small a retinue, Fool tells him he deserves to be stocked for asking so naive a question; Lear’s star is waning and only stupid people will follow a fading light
YET Fool doesn’t follow his own advice and chooses loyalty; first real glimpse of his depth of character? Can admire.
What does Tolstoy say of Act 2?
‘Such is the second act, full of unnatural events, and yet more unnatural speeches, absurdly foolish which have no relation to the subject’
Dover, mentioned for the first time in Act 3 Scene 1, is established as a symbol of hope. What else allows for hope at this point in the play?
The cracks in the ranks of Lear’s opponents are contrasted with Cordelia’s help close at hand to give a sense of hope Act 3 Scene 1
“outscorn /
The to and fro conflicting wind and rain”
Storm shows man as battling the elements
futile, but something majestic in his defiance
In Act III scene 2, how does Shakespeare ensure Lear projects a mad but mystical grandeur?
verbs of violence:
1) blow
2) crack
3) rage
4) spout
5) drenched
6) drowned
7) cleaving
8) singe
9) shaking
10) strike
11) spill
12) rumble
13) spit
Effect supplemented by nouns:
1) winds
2) cataracts
3) hurricanoes
4) fires
5) thunderbolts
6) nature
7) rain
8) wind
Adjectives intensify the violent mood:
1) sulphurous
2) executing
3) horrible
4) foul
Adjectives of age remind the audience of Lear’s advanced years:
1) white
2) old
3) infirm
4) weak
CUMULATIVE EFFECT: Lear is caught in worst storm but also become a storm of emotions that changes direction with violent ferocity
In Act III Scene 2, what are some of the nightmarish visions Shakespeare creates?
1) whole churches underwater
2) oak trees split
3) old man’s head being scorched
4) nature pillaged of seed stock.
Lear wants to destroy mankind and punish its ingratitude by destroying all future means of germination
In Act II scene 2, Lear berates the ‘elements’ for
being the ‘servile ministers’ of his daughters
How does Lear undergo dramatic changes and thus reveal his madness/inner storm in Act III scene 2?
For example, upon Kent’s arrival, he attempts patience but then asks the gods to use the storm to terrify sinners into confessing their wickedness
How does Lear’s outlook change in Act III scene 2?
1) He is no longer solely obsessed with the ingratitude of his daughters but begins to question sin in general;
2) He acknowledges his own sin (the first stage in Catholic confession) BUT claims: ‘I am a man / More sinned against than sinning’
3) Acknowledges the Fool’s suffering (‘I have one part in my heart / That’s sorry yet for thee’), showing he is aware of the poor and outcast
4) aware of foul realities of lives of dispossessed, and this inspires sympathy: He can see things MORE CLEARLY on the edge of madness than as king (‘The art of our necessities is strange, / And can make vile things precious’)
What song does the Fool adapt in Act III scene 2?
the final song in Twelfth Night: the man like Lear who has ‘tiny wit’ must be contented with what Fortune throws his way.
STAGE TRICK: sung by Robert Armin (enjoyed success in 12th as Feste)– the reprisal allows the first audiences of King Lear to be as aware as Armin the entertainer as they were of the fool,
thus rendering the anachronistic prophecy spoken by the Fool both timeless and contemporaneous.
What is the Fool’s prophecy of Act III scene 2 based on?
George Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie (1589)
Tolstoy: prophecy was ‘still more senseless words’, ‘in no wise related to the situation’
The prophecy can be very eerie, though, as it deals with unnatural elements described in Lear and also in 17thC britain: injustice, decline of faith, corruption, sexual mayhem
The Fool is timeless (+TAROT)
What does the Fool’s tarot card stand for?
used from mid-fifteenth century:
the perfect circle, zero, ‘nothing’; bold enough to explore creation and step towards unknown, often the edge of a precipice
Why is the Fool’s prophecy’s being in all the major versions of King Lear absolutely dumb-foundedly spectacularly momentously someone call the BBC slap my sideways I’ve found the answer fascinating?
IT’s NOT in the fucking quarto.
well I never. Oh, my!
Some scholar’s view it as an addition of Armin’s..
The scene (A3S3) in which Gloucester confides in Edmund, sealing his doom, is interesting because its..
an interlude between two storm scenes
shows the further intertwining of main and sub-plots
The irony of Gloucester beseeching Edmund to look after himself is painful to behold…!
Edmund knows ‘The younger rises when the old doth fall’
Gloucester is truly blind here: ‘unnatural dealing’ is afoot infront of him
Lear takes shelter in the hovel but ushers in _____ first, expressing his sympathy for the fool. NEW UNDERSTANDING IS PROMPTING KINDNESS
The Fool
Tom’s nakedness defines his essential humanity
‘Is man no more than this?’
Lear seeks to show fellow-feeling with him by tearing off his own clothes
Lear calls him his ‘noble philosopher’
AIIIS4: Lear reminds Kent of the relative nature of despair, and that great mental suffering numbs the mind to physical pain: quote?
‘When the mind’s free/
The body’s delicate’
1) Middleton and Rowley play A Fair Quarrel 1617: ‘Tis no prison when the mind is free’
2) Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae 524: influential, reflects on how evil can exist in a world created by a benign God & how humans can make themselves happy in a world governed by ever-changing Fortune
AIIIS4 Lear is aware that if he could marshall his mental resources he could yet save himself,
but the pain caused by his daughter’s ______ reveals the boundary point through which he enters the realm of madness.
‘filial ingratitude’
What wise insights does ‘madness’ give Lear?
1) prays not to gods but to ‘poor naked wretches’ whom he ignored when he held power
2) idea of sharing society’s superfluous wealth (echoed by Gloucester when he gives his purse to Edgar)
3) that this fair society can only be created by the willed actions of those who have a ‘superflux’ of wealth
Shakespeare criticises tax policies that make rich richer and poor poorer
that enclose lands so honest peasants must become beggars or thieves
(DANGEROUS SENTIMENTS)
Lear assumes only unkindness of ‘pelican daughters’ could have driven Poor Tom so mad:
Lear’s own pain prompts him to believe that Tom suffered the same fate as himself;
‘Didst thou give all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?’
‘…Nothing could have subdued nature /
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters’
What does Poor Tom refer to in Act 3 scene 4 that may make the audience uncomfortable, given that we know he is only pretending?
‘foul fiend’, ‘four inch bridges’: ranting and gibbering and INCESSANT COLDNESS.
Pretence and dishonesty
His counterfeiting of the behaviour of a demonaic; uncanny atmosphere of terror and black magic
How are there strands of reason and logic in Lear and Poor Tom’s madness?
1) Lear struggle to make sense of his disintegrating world as his understanding breaks down-
‘plagues’ and animal savegery (‘pelican daughters’) torment him BUT his stream of consciousness follows a sort of logic-
‘flesh’ begets children who will be cruel
2) ‘Unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art’ (+ stripping in stage directions)- we see what it is to be human when trappings of wealth/status gone; Lear finds an object lesson in what it is to be human
3) Edgar: mingles doggerel, nonsense, biblical fragments, bawdy, snatches of old poems and snippets of proverbial wisdom
How were lunatics treated (on stage and in reality) in Shakespeare’s time?
laughed at
‘This cold night will
turn us all to fools and madmen’
Fool: uncharacteristically sensitive and fearful
If the poor man stands naked we are reminded
that he has become ‘nothing’, how far he has fallen.
Famous naked Lears:
- Ian Holm (1997)
- Ian McKellen (2007)
1) How is Gloucester a good lad in AIII Scene 4?
2) And how does he help introduce painful ironies?
a)
b)
1) he light of his beacon symbolises safety, lead his king to basic human needs of shelter and food
Lear is so preoccupied with his new-found ‘philosopher’ he barely notices
2) a) He speaks kindly of Kent and reveals that Edgar’s supposed plot has ‘craz’d his wits’ (both are present!)
b) Words about parenthood (‘Our fleh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile / That it doth hate what it gets’) are true of both plots… BUT Lear is aware of R and G’s responsibility, G is yet to learn it is E
What is the significance of placing Act III scene 5 where it is situated?
And which two characters develop further?
We see the vindictiveness of Cornwall contrasted with the kindness of Kent and Gloucester in the previous scene.
Edmund pretends it is a wrench to betray his ‘blood’, Cornwall’s promise of fatherly affection is vile
BUT whereas wickedness is in Cornwall’s nature, Edmund has chosen wickedness for policy
WHICH MANIFESTATION OF EVIL IS WORSE?
‘Modo’
Horace: ‘modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis’
‘learned Theban’, ‘good Athenian’
Is the ‘trial’ of Act III Scene 6 in the Folio, the Quarto, or both?
not in the Folio (and the same goes for Edgar’s soliloquy)
Different critical views about the Act III scene 6 trial?
- some claim it only encourages the audience to laugh cruelly at lunacy
- G. K. Hunter: the scene weaves ‘the obsessive themes of betrayal, demoniac possession, and injustice into the most complex lyric structure in modern drama’
