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
