King Lear Critics

Question 1

What is Kastan’s essay called?

Answer 1

Shakespearean tragedy

Question 2

What are four main points Kastan makes?

Answer 2

-Tragedy is “uncompensated suffering”
- For Shakespeare “uncertainty is the point”
-“Tragic motor human error or capricious fate?”
-He speaks of “tragedy’s fearful incomprehensibility”

Question 3

What is Nuttall’s essay called?

Answer 3

The pleasure of tragedy

Question 4

What are three main points Nuttall makes?

Answer 4

-“pleasure need not occupy the foreground of consciousness”
-“grief and fear become in their turn matter for enjoyment”
-“poetry and drama must please”

Question 5

What is Bradley’s essay called?

Answer 5

The Shakespearean tragic hero

Question 6

What are four main points Bradley makes?

Answer 6

-“They are contrasted with previous happiness or glory”
-“reverse of fortune….appealed strongly to human sympathy and pity”
-“man is the plaything of an inscrutable power”
-“the sense of powerless of man”

Question 7

What is Mack’s essay called?

Answer 7

Tragedy and madness

Question 8

What are four points Mack makes?

Question 9

What is Rutter’s essay called?

Answer 9

Language and female power in KL

Question 10

What are four points Rutter makes?

Question 11

What is Kermode’s essay called?

Answer 11

Ways of speaking in KL

Question 12

What are four points Kermode makes

Question 14

What is O’Toole’s essay called?

Answer 14

The morality of KL