King lear, p.24
King Lear, page 24
Cavell, Stanley, “The Avoidance of Love,” in Disowning Knowledge in Seven Plays of Shakespeare (1987). A skeptical philosopher’s reading; still less for beginners, but so full of deep insight that it has claims to be among the best pieces ever written on the play.
Colie, Rosalie L., and F. T. Flahiff, Some Facets of “King Lear”: Essays in Prismatic Criticism (1974). An unusually strong collection of critical essays.
Danby, J. F., Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature (1949). Contexts for Edmund.
Dollimore, Jonathan, “King Lear and Essentialist Humanism,” in Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (1984). Inflected by neo-Marxist cultural politics.
Elton, William R., King Lear and the Gods (1966). Useful contextualization in the intellectual history of Shakespeare’s time.
Empson, William, “Fool in Lear,” in The Structure of Complex Words (1951). Superb essay on a key word.
Goldberg, S. L., An Essay on King Lear (1974). Consistently thoughtful.
Greenblatt, Stephen, “Shakespeare and the Exorcists,” in Shakespeare Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (1988). Inventive account of why Shakespeare used an anti-Popish treatise for the mad language of Poor Tom.
Heilman, R. B., This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (1963). Good account of image patterns.
Kermode, Frank, ed., King Lear: A Casebook (1969). Fine collection of studies from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Kott, Jan, Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1964). The chapter on King Lear as a bleak, absurd drama analogous to Samuel Beckett’s Endgame has been hugely influential; Peter Brook saw an early version, which did much to shape his 1962 production.
Mack, Maynard, King Lear in Our Time (1966). Remains valuable in our time.
Taylor, Gary, and Michael Warren, eds., The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare’s Two Versions of King Lear (1983). Groundbreaking collection of essays on Quarto and Folio variants.
THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCE
Brooke, Michael, “King Lear on Screen,” www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/566346/index.html. Overview of film versions.
Chambers, Colin, Other Spaces: New Theatre and the RSC (1980). Includes fine account of the powerfully intimate Buzz Goodbody production.
Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds, Players of Shakespeare 2 (1988). Interviews with actors, including Antony Sher on playing the Fool in Adrian Noble’s production.
Leggatt, Alexander, King Lear, Shakespeare in Performance (1991). Good survey.
Ogden, James, and Arthur H. Scouten, eds, Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism (1997). Contains several illuminating essays.
Rosenberg, Marvin, The Masks of King Lear (1972). Many fascinating details of performances down the ages.
AVAILABLE ON DVD
King Lear, directed by Peter Brook (1970, DVD 2005). Bleak interpretation with magisterial performance by Paul Scofield.
King Lear (Korol Lir), directed by Grigori Kosintsev (1970, DVD 2007). Powerful Russian version.
King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller (BBC Television Shakespeare, 1982, DVD 2004). Michael Hordern as Lear in a reworking (with fuller, perhaps overlong text) of an earlier television version by Miller, based ultimately on a stage production at Nottingham.
King Lear, directed by Michael Elliott (Channel 4 Television, 1983, DVD 2007). Laurence Olivier’s last Shakespearean performance.
Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa (1985, DVD 2006). Epic Japanese adaptation in Samurai setting.
A Thousand Acres, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (1997, DVD 2006). Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in a film version of a novel by Jane Smiley that transposes the story to the American Midwest and tells it from the point of view of the three daughters.
King Lear, directed by Richard Eyre (BBC2 Television 1998, DVD 2006). Filming of Eyre’s exemplary small-scale National Theatre production.
My Kingdom, directed by Don Boyd (2001, DVD 2005). Richard Harris’ last role: the Lear plot transposed to the world of a twenty-first-century Liverpool drug baron.
REFERENCES
1. Gamini Salgado, Eyewitnesses of Shakespeare: First Hand Accounts of Performances 1590–1890 (1975), p. 38.
2. James Boswell, in a diary entry on 12 May 1763, in Boswell’s London Journals: 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (1950), pp. 256–7.
3. George Steevens, review dated 16–18 February 1773, quoted in Shakespeare, The Critical Heritage, ed. Brian Vickers, vol. 5, 1765–1774(1979), pp. 501–2.
4. Leigh Hunt in an originally unsigned review of King Lear in The Examiner, No. 21, 22 May 1808, pp. 331–3.
5. The Times, review of King Lear, 25 April 1820.
6. William Hazlitt, in a London Magazine review of June 1820.
7. William Hazlitt, in a London Magazine review of May 1820.
8. John Forster, “The Restoration of Shakespeare’s Lear to the Stage,” The Examiner, No. 1566, 4 February 1838, pp. 69–70.
9. “Review of King Lear,” The Athenaeum, No. 1066, 1 April 1848, p. 346.
10. William Winter, “The Art of Edwin Booth: King Lear,” in his Life and Art of Edwin Booth (1893), pp. 177–85.
11. Henry James, “Tommaso Salvini,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LI, No. CCCV, March 1883, pp. 377–86.
12. John Gielgud, “Granville Barker Rehearses King Lear,” in his Stage Directions (1963, repr. 1979), pp. 51–5.
13. James Agate, review of King Lear in Brief Chronicles: A Survey of the Plays of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans in Actual Performance (1943, repr. 1971), pp. 201–3.
14. The Times, review of King Lear, 21 April 1936.
15. W. A. Darlington, “Old Vic at Home,” New York Times, 13 October 1946.
16. Alan Brien, “Simulation in the Fields,” The Spectator, Vol. 203, No. 6843, 21 August 1959, pp. 223–4.
17. Maynard Mack, King Lear in Our Time (1966).
18. James Ogden, “Introduction,” in Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism, ed. James Ogden and Arthur H. Scouten (1997).
19. Illustrated London News, Vol. 241, No. 6433, 17 November 1962.
20. Stephen J. Philips, “Akira Kurosawa’s Ran,” in Lear from Study to Stage,p. 102.
21. Benedict Nightingale, New Statesman, 3 December 1976.
22. Sheridan Morley, Daily Express, 2 July 2004.
23. Tom Piper, King Lear, RSC Online Playguide, 2004.
24. Corin Redgrave, King Lear, RSC Online Playguide, 2004.
25. Benedict Nightingale, “Some Recent Productions,” in Lear from Study to Stage, p. 236.
26. John Peter, Sunday Times, 31 October 1999.
27. Michael Billington, Guardian, 30 October 1999.
28. Colin Chambers, Other Spaces: New Theatre and the RSC (1980), p. 71.
29. Nightingale, “Some Recent Productions,” p. 232.
30. Irving Wardle, Independent, 15 July 1990.
31. David Fielding, designer of the 1990 production, in interview with Lynne Truss, Independent, 8 July 1990.
32. John Gross, Sunday Telegraph, 15 July 1990.
33. Michael Billington, Guardian, 13 July 1990.
34. Note in King Lear, RSC program, 1993.
35. Irving, Independent, 15 July 1990.
36. Chambers, Other Spaces, p. 69.
37. Michael Billington, Guardian, 30 June 1982.
38. Billington, Guardian, 30 June 1982.
39. David Nathan, Jewish Chronicle, 9 July 1982.
40. James Fenton, Sunday Times, 4 July 1982.
41. Antony Sher, “The Fool in King Lear,” in Players of Shakespeare 2, ed. Russell Jackson and Robert Smallwood (1988).
42. Adrian Noble, interview for King Lear, RSC Education Pack, 1993.
43. Robert Wilcher, “King Lear,” in Shakespeare in Performance, ed. Keith Parsons and Pamela Mason (1995), p. 91.
44. Gordon Parsons, Morning Star, 5 July 1982.
45. Alexander Leggatt, King Lear, Shakespeare in Performance (1991),p. 55.
46. Wilcher, “King Lear,” p. 93.
47. Janet Dale, in RSC Education Pack, 1993.
48. Benedict Nightingale, The Times, 12 July 1990.
49. Billington, Guardian, 13 July 1990.
50. Nightingale, “Some Recent Productions,” p. 231.
51. Emily Raymond, King Lear, RSC Online Playguide, 2005.
52. Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard, 21 May 1993.
53. Michael Billington, Guardian, 22 May 1993.
54. Nightingale, “Some Recent Productions,” p. 239.
55. Paul Taylor, Independent, 5 July 2004.
56. Peter J. Smith, in Cahiers Élisabéthains, No. 66 (2004).
57. Billington, Guardian, 30 June 1982.
58. Charles Marowitz, “Lear Log,” Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Winter 1963), pp. 103–21.
59. Redgrave, King Lear.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND
PICTURE CREDITS
Preparation of “King Lear in Performance” was assisted by a generous grant from the CAPITAL Centre (Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning) of the University of Warwick for research in the RSC archive at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded a term’s research leave that enabled Jonathan Bate to work on “The Director’s Cut.”
Picture research by Helen Robson, Jan Sewell, and Kevin Wright. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for assistance with picture research (special thanks to Helen Hargest) and reproduction fees.
Images of RSC productions are supplied by the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive, Stratford-upon-Avon. This library, maintained by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, holds the most important collection of Shakespeare material in the UK, including the Royal Shakespeare Company’s official archive. It is open to the public free of charge.
For more information see www.shakespeare.org.uk.
1. Robert Armin © Bardbiz Limited
2. Mr. Macready (1838). Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
3. Directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky (1936). Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
4. Directed by John Gielgud and Anthony Quayle (1950). Angus McBean © Royal Shakespeare Company
5. Directed by Peter Brook (1962). Angus McBean © Royal Shakespeare Company
6. Directed by Trevor Nunn (2007). Manuel Harlan © Royal Shakespeare Company
7. Directed by Deborah Warner (1990). © Donald Cooper/Photostage
8. Directed by Adrian Noble (1993). © John Bunting
9. Directed by Adrian Noble (1982). Joe Cocks © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
10. Reconstructed Elizabethan playhouse © Charcoalblue
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Act 1 Scene 1
1.1 Location: the royal court, Britain
1 affected favored
5 qualities … moiety their qualities are so evenly balanced that the most careful scrutiny cannot distinguish between either man’s share
8 breeding upbringing (plays on the sense of “conception”) charge cost (plays on the sense of “accusation, blame”)
9 brazed made brazen, hardened
10 conceive understand (Gloucester then plays on sense of “become pregnant”)
13 ere before
14 fault transgression/loss of scent during a hunt/vagina
15 undone plays on the sense of “not copulated with” issue outcome/child
16 proper handsome/worthy/rightful
17 by … law legitimate
17 some year about a year
18 dearer more beloved (plays on the sense of “more expensive”)
18 account estimation (plays on the financial sense)
21 whoreson i.e. bastard (here used affectionately)
27 sue entreat, seek
28 deserving to be worthy of (your esteem)
29 out away (perhaps abroad or in the house of another nobleman; it was common for a nobleman’s son to be educated in the house of another important family)
1.1 Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession
1.1 bearing a coronet carrying a small crown denoting inferior rank/wearing a wreath or garland about the head (must be of material that can be broken in half)
31 Attend wait on, look after
34 darker secret (with sinister connotations)
36 fast intent firm intention
37 business official duties/exertion/anxiety
39 son i.e. son-in-law (like Albany)
41 constant will unshakable intention
41 publish proclaim, make public
42 several dowers individual dowries
42 that so that
45 sojourn stay
48 Interest possession
50 bounty generosity/gift
51 nature … challenge natural affection, combined with merit, makes a claim
53 wield express
56 grace virtue
58 makes breath poor makes words insufficient/renders one breathless (in the attempt to express it)
58 unable inadequate
59 all … much i.e. all possible expressions of the amount of love
61 bounds territories
62 shadowy shady
62 champaigns riched rich open countryside
63 wide-skirted meads extensive meadows
67 self-mettle same temperament/same substance (“metal”)
68 prize … worth value myself in equal terms
69 deed action, performance/bond, legal document
70 that in that
72 square of sense guiding principle governing the senses/(physical or mental) region of the senses
73 alone felicitate only happy
77 ponderous weighty
78 hereditary by inheritance
80 validity value
83 vines … Burgundy Lear characterizes France and Burgundy by their assets: vineyards and cattle pastures
84 interessed admitted, given a share
84 draw attract/receive, collect/pull forth (as one “draws lots”)
92 bond duty (with connotations both of a binding legal agreement and of restrictive shackles)
93 Mend improve
94 mar spoil
96 begot conceived, fathered
96 bred raised, brought up
101 plight pledge, promise
106 untender hard/cruel (plays on the sense of “not young”)
110 Hecate Greek goddess of witchcraft and the moon
111 operation movement and astrological influence
111 orbs planets
114 Propinquity … blood close ties of kinship
116 this this time (or Lear gestures toward himself)
116 Scythian person from Scythia, an ancient region extending over much of eastern Europe and Asiatic Russia, notorious for its barbarous inhabitants
117 generation children/own people
117 messes small groups of people who eat together/portions of food, meals/disgusting concoctions/troubled, confused conditions
119 neighboured treated with hospitable kindness
120 sometime former
121 liege lord, one to whom feudal duty and service was owed
124 set my rest stake everything (card-playing term)/repose, be at ease
125 kind affectionate (in the manner of a family member)
125 nursery care
125 avoid leave
127 Who stirs? Get on with it!/Why don’t you move?
129 digest absorb, incorporate
130 plainness frankness, plain speaking
130 marry her be her dowry/get her a husband
132 large effects extensive trappings
133 troop with accompany
134 With reservation of reserving the right to have (legal language)
135 sustained maintained, supported
137 th’addition to the title and honors of
