Power, Society and Class, Feudalism Flashcards
Lear’s kingdom based on nepotism
'’I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall’’ - Kent
Commentary on the ruling of King James I and foreshadows the oncoming disorder.
Reputation for giving excessively generous gifts; he was an outrageous spender. The historian ‘Smith’ says James was a ‘weak king of England’ who ‘wasted money’.
Associated with drunkenness (symbol of breaking tradition).
Stage directions Lear’s entrance in act 1
‘enter one bearing a coronet, then Lear’
Foakes suggests that Lear should have worn a crown throughout the whole scene as a visual highlight of the irony of his actions in giving away his power and yet seeking to retain his royal perogatives, ‘the name and all th’addition to a king’.
However perhaps if Lear was crowned and robed like a king the Jacobean audience would have been more likely to detect analogies between James I.
Lear dividing kingdom
‘we have divided in three our kingdom’
What will Lear express quote
‘meanwhile we shall express our darker purpose’
- abdication
- power erodes in darkness (chomsky)
- perhaps he enjoys knowing that asking his daughters to battle their love will cause conflict
- ‘darker’ suggests something wicked and refers to motif of sight and perception
Childish Lear at very start quote
His children with their ‘younger strengths’ whilst we ‘unburdened crawl toward death’
- childish connotations of ‘crawl’, Lear wants to become dependent on others, opposite of how a king should be
Power flattery quote
When power to flattery bows
Personification
Kent recognises he loves in a kingdom where power to flattery bows
Imagery of physical bowing of king to his daughters metaphoric of a reversal in status, perhaps foreshadowing the later dominance Goneril and Regan attempt to assert over their father.
