Lear Critics Flashcards
James Shapiro on Cordelia’s return.
Nationalistic sympathies become compromised when it turns out that the virtuous Cordelia, now married to the King of France, is on the wrong side…
James Shapiro scrutinises Cordelia
Why does Cordelia stubbornly refuse to humour her father? Does Lear even want her to marry? Is he already showing signs of mental decline? Are those who join Cordelia’s invading army treasonously siding with a foreign power against the British?
James Shapiro’s description of the fears of the post-November England.
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.
James Shapiro on Lear’s world
grizzled and world weary protagonists.
James Shapiro on the 17th Century
a world of callous and self-righteous male authorities, of casual violence and willful deception…
James Shapiro on satanic possessions.
In refusing easy explanations for what possesses people to do evil things, Shakespeare wrote a play well suited to its times.
James Shapiro on anti-catholic sentiment
With the threat of bloody catholic uprising all too real, who of those still clinging to the old faith could now be trusted.
James Shapiro to the cruelty of man (on the Declaration)
A world in which what people do to each other is more cruel than anything thought up by devils.
RA Foakes on audience intimacy
the relationship between players and spectators was an intimate one.
James Shapiro on the fear of the gunpowder plotters.
It must have been shocking, the image and horror of the collapse of the state and the obliteration of the royal family akin to the violent fantasy of the Gunpowder plotters.
Michael Neill on Lear’s loss of knights.
For Lear to be stripped of his train of a hundred knights was for his royal self to be publicly undone: the servantless master, like the masterless servant, became, in a profound sense, ‘nothing’.
Katherine O’Mahoney on Goneril’s suicide
Goneril’s suicide and subsequent damnation is viewed as a punishment from God.
Johnathan Dollimore on the moral of Lear
Above all a play about power, property and inheritance.
Emma Smith shoehorn
‘most desolate tragedy’
RA Foakes on capitalism in Lear
‘typifies a new world of ruthless self-seeking capitalism’
