Lear Flashcards
BK Stuart on Lear
“Lear would rather flattery than the truth”
Hal Holbrook on Lear
“Lear slips into madness… a direct result of Lear’s refusal to face the awful truth that has exploded in his mind”
“He has clung steadfastly to the conviction that he is a loving father, despite all evidence of the contrary.”
Arnold Kettle on Lear
“Lear’s madness is not so much a breakdown as a breakthrough. It is necessary.”
Lear’s Entrance (Act 1, Scene 1)
“Sennet. Enter one bearing a coronet, King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and attendants”
AO2: ‘Sennet’ = A call on a trumpet or cornet signalling the ceremonial exits and entrances of actors in Elizabethan drama.
AO4: Megalopsychia - the sennet establishes the king’s high status. Lear also enters first.
AO3: The order that the characters enter the stage is also significant. The men enter first followed by the women. It is a visual metaphor for the natural order and at this point in the play everything is ordered and controled. This mirrors the natural order, which is about to be disrupted. Everything on stage seems orderly and controlled right now as the natural order is in place but when it is disrupted chaos erupts (madness, violence and storm). Women were placed below men in the great chain of being, on par with animals reflecting the patriarchal society of the 17th century.
“We shall express…
our darker purpose. Give me the map there. know that we have divided in three our kingdom” - Lear (1:1, 35-37)
AO2: Royal ‘we’ meaning ‘God and I’ invoking the divine right of kings. MEGALOPSCHIA.
Collective pronoun ‘we’ and possessive determiner ‘our’ are subtly juxtapose to create irony; he is dividing his kingdom yet implying it is unified. He is MYOPIC to the chaos he is about to create.
‘darker purpose’ - Refers to the motif of sight, foreshadows myopia. Connotations of sinister purpose and foreshadows the consequences of his actions.
Dividing the map is symbolic - it shows the tear of the fabric in the family and foreshadows the consequences his decision will cause.
Imperatives ‘give’ ‘know’ - hubris + megalopsychia, shows his confidence in the obeying of his order, which is ironic as it will not stay the same.
AO3: The GCOB and natural order = belief God gave Lear his position as King therefore not meant to give up rule. A Jacobean audience would’ve been aware of the consequences of splitting a kingdom, therefore can anticipate the outcomes of the play and no it will not end well.
Lear endorses primogeniture. Written in 1605, 2 years after King James of Scotland became King of England. Like Lear, James had 3 kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland) to pass onto his children. Unlike Lear, James made it clear that he intended to bequeath all 3 to a single heir, because he shared the widespread belief that primogeniture was essential to the strength and stability of the social order. In ignoring the laws of primogeniture, Lear has thrown the entire country into chaos.
Jacobean audiences would have been disgusted at Lear’s decisions. They believed in the medieval theory of kinship, which valued unity above all else. Lear dividing the kingdom is going directly against his duty.
“Tell me, my…
daughter… which of you shall we say doth love us most?” - Lear (1:1, 47 & 50)
AO2 - Imperatives ‘tell’ highlights Lear’s power and his confidence in obeying of his orders. This will not stay the same - irony. Determiner ‘my’ implies he believes he owns his daughters - they belong to him. Also ironic as they will end up owning him. Rhetoric of ‘shall we say’ implies competition between the sisters. sets the tone and foreshadows future events between the two. It also extenuates Lear’s ego.
AO3: Jacobean audience would’ve been aware and enrolled in the hierarchy of father/daughter/son relationships. Fathers were the patriarch of the family, therefor expected and demanded obedience from his children.
AO4: Lear’s megalopsychia. Hubris - Lear’s need for a fulfilled ego causes competition between his daughters and leads to his downfall. Public setting exemplifies this. Arrogance leads him to misjudge his daughters.
Nothing will…
come of nothing: speak again.” - Lear (1.1,89)
AO2: PARADOX - implies mans power within the world, Lear’s lack of insight. Ironic as the whole tragedy come from the word “nothing”.
AO5: J Harrison on “nothing will come of nothing”
“Lear replies “Nothing will come of nothing.” He is wrong - from this one word “nothing” begins the whole devastating tragedy”
AO4: myopia - Lear fails to see the truth in Cordelia’s lack of words and the emptiness in G+R’s false words.
“Come not between…
the dragon and his wrath” - Lear (1:1, 120-121)
AO2: Animal imagery of dragon and emblem of power shows arrogance.
AO4: Lear’s hubris
“Avoid my…
sight // Out of my sight!” - Lear to Kent (1:1, 123 and 157)
AO2: References to sight enforces the motif of sight. Creates foreboding as audience in aware that Lear is getting rid of all the people with insight who can help him; without them he is left metaphorically blind.
AO4: Myopia
Language of violence
“kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!” (4:6)
AO2: Alliteration and repetition
AO4: Sam Mendes, national theatre interview: “when he goes mad his only means of communication is violence. He uses the language of violence throughout the play and the currency of the society he governs is violence.”
“You see me here, you
gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both!” - Lear (2:4, 269 - 270)
AO4: Myopia - sees himself as the victim.
Lear’s peripeteia
Cornwall: “Shut up your doors, my lord… come out o’th’storm”
AO2: Repeats Regan - sense of finality.
Metaphorically warning Gloucester that this will be Lear’s downfall
Lear’s anagnorisis
“you houseless poverty” (3:4, 26)
“Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.”
“O I have ta’en Too little care of this!”
“Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel… And show the heavens more just.” (3:4, 30)
AO2: Plosives - emphasises Lear’s anger/frustration + his anagnorisis that the world is cruel tot these people. Ecphonesis.
AO3: Shakespeare’s message to King James and the audience. James had a lavish lifestyle - spent more money in one year than Elizabeth did in her entire reign, and when he ran short deducted from the national tax; this created a corrupt society and made living condition for commoners worse.
This message is still important in today’s society - homelessness, wars etc. People suffer constantly and the riche ignore it
AO4: Lear’s anagnorisis
Unaccommodated man
Lear:
“Is man no more than this?”
“unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.”
“off, off, you lendings! come; unbutton here.”
“tearing off his clothes”
3:2
AO2: Triplet + animal imagery. compares human to a non-human animal.
AO4: Here Lear looks past appearance for the first time - anagnorisis. He is metaphorically removing appearances. This scene shows how far Lear has fallen from his high social status and powerful position as King. There is a nihilistic tone of hopelessness to Lear’s words and mood here, as he sees man (and himself) stripped of possessions and family and reduced to a poor naked animal - adds to cathartic feel. Lear shows compassion/sympathy towards Tom which increases our pity towards him.
AO5: Harold Bloom on “unaccommodated man” - Believed the “decent from Monarch to ‘unaccommodated man’ thus conveys most potently man’s fragility, fallibility and fatality”
The phrase ‘unaccommodated man’ of which this was its first recorded use in the English language, is also evidence of Lear’s madness, for he speaks in prose of the unaccommodated man “the unaccommodated man like a bare, forked animal that thou art”, and therefore a contrast to his earlier speech in blank verse and iambic pentameter. Lear thus, is no longer “every inch a king”.
AO3: Philosophical message: what does it mean to be human? Poverty, unemployment and food shortages were common in Jacobean life. Shakespeare’s message that when you remove the clothes and possessions we are all equal, we are all just “unaccommodated men” under our material possessions. This is still relevant to modern audiences as materialism, or consumption-based orientation to happiness seeking is still present in todays society.
In Shakespeare’s time, Humanism was on the rise. Humanism was a school of thought that valued human understanding and reasoning. Humanism gave a rationalist outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Shakespeare inviting the audience to consider their own view on human life.
“Let me wipe it first;
it smells of mortality.” - Lear (4:6, 132)
AO2: Ambiguous metaphor. Lear acknowledges the smell and wipes it, showing shame. The smell might be an appalling odour that he has acquired from the outside, or it might be something intrinsic; Lear is decomposing from the inside because he is emotionally distressed from the disrespect. The smell is a physical indication of his spiritual corruption caused by deception and Lear is ashamed of his mortality because it shows weakness and indicates he is no longer a powerful King but just another human being. Death as a betrayal of the body is similar to G+R’s betrayal of Lear and shows the corrupt society.
The line is open to levels of interpretations:
- Lear is making a comment about his life being over? He is saying to Gloucester: you can kiss my hand as if I’m king but really you are kissing the hand of a dead man.
- An ironic comment on Lear’s prior ravings? Children, traditionally are supposed to represent immortality, the continuation of oneself through one’s line, but Lear is saying that they have brought him nothing but death because he completely repudiates them.
- Lear hates humanity by now and the smell of his hand from being in the open country for a long time reminds him of his opinions of humanity or mortality. In William Faulkner’s similar cynical opinion of humanity, human life is “the same frantic steeplechase towards mothing everywhere and man stinks the same stink no matter where in time.”
