King Lear Context and critic Flashcards
when was the gunpowder plot?
1605
when was king lear published?
1606
the gunpowder plot caused: ‘a maelstrom of fear, horror, a desire for revenge…
an all too brief sense of national unity and a struggle to understand where such evil came from.’ (Shapiro)
after the gunpowder plot: ‘A manhunt was set in motion…
to locate the plotters and all English ports were closed.’ (Shapiro)
if the gunpowder plot had worked: ‘The time would have been ripe for…
a foreigner to invade.’ (Shapiro)
frightened that the explosion would kill his friend and brother-in-law, Tresham, sent him a letter of warning…
…this letter was found and prevented Guy Fawkes’ explosion of parliament
‘in 1599 King James wrote a political handbook, Basilikon Doron, for his eldest born, Prince Henry…
warning about the dangers of dividing territory among children.’ (Shapiro)
intertextual reference to Thomas Malory’s Arthurian legends: ‘the mixture of pagan folklore and christian legend…
in Malory may have inspired Shakespeare.’ (Guilfoyle)
intertextual reference to Thomas Malory’s Arthurian legends: ‘in Malory, King Arthur leads an army from France and lands at Dover to…
confront a would-be usurper of his throne, Mordred’ - his son - (Guilfoyle)
‘Shakespeare turned forty-two in 1606…
In an era which people lived on average until their mid-forties’ (Shapiro)
‘Winter 1603, a third of the population had been struck by the plague:…
over thirty thousand Londoners died – three thousand deaths a week.’ (Shapiro)
what was the plague blamed on and what did the London authorities do?
dogs were blamed, they were rounded up and slaughtered
Shakespeare was primarily inspired by?
King Leir
compared to Leir, King Lear had: ‘little interest in…
in keeping any of the old play’s Christian piety’ (Shapiro)
the scene where Edgar leads his father to a cliff was inspired by?
Arcadia (1590) by Philip Sidney
‘A noble heart, like the sun…
showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate’ (Philip Sidney, Arcadia, 1590)
(Fool and Lear) ‘he would force them together…
creating an unusually intimate and endearing bond’ (Shapiro)
Declaration (1603)
by Samuel Harsnett - ‘a brutal world in which young people are abandoned and mistreated…
the physically or psychologically ill are abused, and those who give the ‘wrong’ answers are punished’ (Shapiro)
Give two ideas of how Micheal de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) that influenced Lear
- attempts to detach from worldly things to prepare for death
- the great volatility (unpredictable) of human nature is its most basic feature
what was poignant about the date King Lear was first performed? 26th Dec 1606
a day associated with hospitality of the homeless
what is primogeniture
law claiming that all property is passed onto the eldest male heir
James I had three kingdoms to pass to his one heir, why did he find it important to follow primogeniture
believed it essential to the strength and stability of social order
define Machiavellian villain
cunning, self-serving, manipulative character
define pathos
moments that evoke great pity
who is the malcontent in king lear and when is this established
Edmund is discontent with his position in life, is is disgusted by society particular in his soliloquy in 1.2
what is poetic justice and where is it in king lear
when virtues are rewarded and vices punished - Regan and Gonreil’s deaths (no poetic justice for Cordelia)
define the denouncement of a play
when the fates of the characters are all shown - there is a lack of closure
Cordelia “The epitome of graceful…
Chrsitain femininity” - Warren
define sadomasochism
enjoying or welcoming pain
define gerontocracy
old people have power
‘you can be an angel (Cordelia), or you can be a monster (Gonreil and Regan)…
There is no middle ground.’
- bruce
‘The education and…
purification of Lear’ (Lamar)
‘there is no supernatural justice…
only human natural justice.’ -Goldberg
Edmund ‘he obeys natures
law of selfishness.’
- Knight
“Shakespeare uses the beings that his world deems lowly and foolish to destabilize…
conventional wisdom about class and to subvert the hierarchal expectations of his culture.”
- Halvorson
“an order collapsing because…
of its own internal contradictions” - Turner
“human beings are entirely responsible for their own actions…
the tragedy is absolute”
- Muir
“The play destabilises our theological and…
moral assurances.”
-Sisson
“One must be poor to be rich, a fool to be…
wise and blind to see.”
- Hare
