Edmund Flashcards
Gloucester introduced as a father not understanding his children
(Edmund’s injustice)
Calls Edmund (illegitimate) his ‘whoreson’ and says he has ‘so often blushed to acknowledge him’ whilst Edmund stands beside him.
Oblivious to Edmund’s resentment of his father
Thou nature…
Thou nature art my goddess, to thy law my services are bound
(I only worship what is nature not what is man made)
Direct address
Opening to a soliloquy
Edmund sees custom of inheritance as plague - diseased connotations - transmitted throughout generations
Plague - 1604, 1625
Law of primogeniture - required all property to be passed to oldest male child
Why brand they us
With base?
Baseless
Barstardy
Base,base!?
Plosives
Anger tone
Sense of permanence
Brand - cattle connotations - ownership, dominance, owned by a system of laws (an inanimate concept)
Where is the natural justice?
Nature is a goddess - doesn’t discriminate
Illegitimacy doesn’t exist within nature
He was born in the ‘lusty stealth of nature’, says he is a manifestation of passion and yet he is still illegitimate. That’s better than being conceived in a ‘stale bed’
‘’Edmund the base shall top th’legitimate’
‘I grow, I prosper’
‘Now gods, stand up for bastards’
- chain of being - Edmund wants to break it apart
- what he cannot get through social injustice he will get through nature. Proto Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest; idea certain people become powerful in society just because they are innately better)
Shakespeare gives a bastard 15 lines. What is he saying?
Righteous anger in this speech - is Shakespeare questioning legitimacy and social law?
LINKS - Goneril, Regan and Edmund are the engine of social change; they are a generation trying to alter the justices of an anachronistic system. Makes their characters all the more complex - they are the play’s villains and yet also the plays heroes.
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Let me…
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit
Shakespeare uses the sub plot to emphasise the importance of possessing land through Edmund aim to obtain Edgar’s inheritance.
John Locke - if he can’t have it through inheritance let him have it through intelligence
Machiavellian
Law of primogeniture
Emerging capitalism
Natural law illegitimacy, bastardy changing beliefs in social standing court politics, value placed upon material wealth class conflict deception
The younger rises…
The younger rises when the old doth fall
Nature thus…
Nature thus gives way to loyalty
Economic reading of Edmund’s soliloquy
The period this was written was the beginnings of empire, imperialisation, global trade and capitalism. Capitalism, a product of the enriched middle class who looked for opportunity to make a profit, in a way is similar to a Edmund, Goneril and Reagan. They represent these people who must act to make their fortunes and get what they want.
The point to a generation of people who are no longer going to rely on just the word of god, this generation will begin challenging authority. They represent the spirit of opposition to the word of god, they challenge the concept of monogamy (
Property article on Edmund trying to shake system
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Edmund excellent foppery speech
He views his father’s perception of the world (his belief in the prophetic nature of the stars) as ‘excellent foppery’.
Excellent - hyperbole creates mocking tone of Gloucester’s outlook
Edmund deceiving Edgar
Edgar says some villain has told lie about him
Edmund says ‘that’s my fear, I pray you’.
What does Edmund call his father and Edgar?
‘Credulous father’
‘Brother noble..far from doing harm’
Marxist reading of a Edmund
Would perceive Edmund as the plays hero, a character wronged by the old systems of power who has decided who will be oppressed no longer
