Social Context, the best type Flashcards
Which real-life scandal and court case has an almost uncanny bearing on King Lear?
Brian Annesley, a wealthy Kentishman and elderly gentleman pensioner of Queen Elizabeth, had 3 daughters:
1) Grace (married to Sir John Wildgoose)
2) Christian (the wife of William, 3rd Baron Sandys)
3) and the youngest, unmarried Cordell
in 1603 GRACE, with some encouragement from Christian, tried to have her father declared insane and incompetent on the grounds that Annesley was ‘altogether unfit to govern himself or his estate’
The two eldest daughters wanted to annex their father’s property and take control.
CORDELL
1) wrote to Robert Cecil (1st Earl of Salisbury) to protest her older sisters’ action on the grounds that her father’s loyal service to Eliz deserved better ‘than at his last gasp to be recorded and registered a lunatic’
2) urged him to have her father’s estate put under the care of Sir James Croft.
CECIL agreed, Annesley made a will in favour of Cordell
When Annesley died in July 1604 the Wildgooses contested the will, but the terms were upheld by the Court of Chancery.
How may Shakespeare have known of the Annesley case?
One of the executors of the will was a Sir William Harvey, the third husband of the Dowager Countess of Southampton (+ a candidate for the W.H. of Shakespeare’s sonnets)
The Dowager died in 1607, W.H. married Cordell Annesley in July 1608:
Harvey was the stepfather of Shakespeare’s patron through Dowager and the playwright was in a position to have discovered this story not only from a public perspective (big news 1603-04, kept before public till 1608) but also a private source.
What is a logical conclusion to draw regarding the Annesley case?
this real-life scandal helped
1) inspire the revival and publication of the old play King Leir
2) served as inspiration for Shakespeare to introduce the theme of Lear’s madness into his own version of the play
Who developed the concept of the Great Chain of Being?
ANCIENT GREECE:
- Plato (429-347bc)
- Aristotle (384-322bc)
Whose ideas were taken up and synthesised by
- Plotinus
in ROME around 260bc
Plotinus in turn influenced Augustine’s theology, and from there inspired Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) and his followers
What is interesting about Plotinus?
He rejected as illogical the belief that the stars guide human fortune, arguing that such belief led to moral turpitude as it gave people a ready-made excuse for their own bad behaviour.
Be believed the stars were “ensouled” (given significance and meaning) by the “One” (God)
What witticism of the Fool, that he says in II.4.236, can be linked to the Annesley case?
“Winer’s not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way”
Can be taken as a reference to the behaviour of Grace Wildgoose and her husband in trying to take from her aged father what was legally his
Who was Augustine and why is his philosophy significant in King Lear?
Christian Neo-Platonist who helped to merge the traditions of Greek philosophy and Judaeo-Christian religiosity.
Believed we must be morally responsible for our willed actions but that grace can save our souls.
Makes King Lear a more frightening play: Cordelia- full of grace in Augustinian terms- dies with no promise of heavenly reward: ‘Is this the promised end?’
What was the change in the theme of the Great Chain of Being within Renaissance thought?
It started as a static worldview but gradually began to include the concept of the soul ascending through successive spheres, thus growing or evolving closer to God.
Alchemy.
The belief that there could be movement within the Chain slowly gained ground but was considered by many to be a SUSPECT belief, coming close to heresy– theories that expressed discontent at God’s natural order were viewed by conservatives as worrying.
What did the early alchemists, such as Queen Elizabeth’s mathematics tutor Doctor John Dee, believe?
That which is ‘base’ in creation could be impelled to aspire higher by refinement.
Hence a base metal like lead could be refined to make it ‘nobler’, like gold.
What were some of the internal tensions created within the Great Chain of Being dynamic?
static, yet not quite static
comforting in that everything in nature has its allotted place, but troubling because aspiration enabled some movement
Puritans were caught in an intellectual and moral quandary by it: they were themselves rebellious, wanting to refine an impure religion, but were deeply worried by the thought of too much change.
Why did the Renaissance make people feel both exited and frightened?
It unleashed tensions
‘Truths’ that had been reliable and comforting for hundreds of years were being questioned
For every person who welcomed the New Learning of the Renaissance, there were others who felt threatened by it
It is useful to see Shakespeare’s play as the dramatic manifestation of the tensions arising from the Renaissance…
between old, comfortable, conservative belief systems and new, challenging, liberating discoveries
Shakespeare is perhaps more interested in making his audience react philosophically (and emotionally) to the questions he poses than he is in answering those questions
Who considered the Chain of Being and recorded his thoughts in Natural Theology (a work translated from Latin to French in 1569 by Montgaine)?
Raymond de Sebonde (d.1426)
“The three classes lead up to man, who has not only existence, life and feeling, but understanding: he sums up in himself the total faculties of earthly phenomena”
In the Chain of Being, the apparently superfluous could be put low down on the ladder of creation and effectively ignored.
How does Shakespeare seem to question the traditional view of superfluity in King Lear?
Lear, who has been a traditionalist, moves into an ultra-modern and controversial view: the superfluous is not ‘lowly’ but essential.
Via a redistribution of that which is left over, Lear understands that he will be able to help the poor.
Edmund’s “excellent foppery of the world” speech.
he is caustic in his rejection of the conventional view (that the stars following God’s instruction are responsible for the fortunes of mankind) as this enables people to blame their bad behavior on the influence of the stars rather than being due to free will.
He agrees with Plotinus, arguing the case with sinister relish, illustrating his own will to power.
One of the reasons we can like him, despite being wicked, is that he shapes his own destiny, believe in free will and makes no superstitious/foppish excuses for his behaviour.
Modern sort of character in a play that contains some very medieval characters.
