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King Lear context - Coggle Diagram
King Lear context
parents at the hands of unscrupulous children
These two cases demonstrate how the play's concerns with age and unscrupulous children were anxieties of the period.
first case took place in 1603. It involved ageing nobleman, Sir Brian Annesley, the eldest of whose three daughters tried to have him declared insane so she could take his property.
Recalls the plot Edmund attributes to Edgar: ‘the father should be as ward to the son and the son manage the revenue
second case took place 20 years before King Lear: former Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Allen, divided his property between his three daughters
In court his daughters were accused of treating Allen with scorn and Allen died, as Lear does, regretting his decision.
Both Cordell and Cordelia loyally defend their fathers against treacherous sisters
the issues in King Lear are not just important to to legendary royals but ordinary families too
Eldest daughters husband writes to Robert Ceceil to allow him to take iventory of father in law's belingings Cordell writes to Cecil begging him not declare her father as mad
Bastardy
Edmund issues radical challenge to the old order
Bastards are always rotten in English renaissance drama- Bastards viewed as evil because half connected with aristocracy and half a product of another world
Edmund's final act is to try and put something right- doesn't coincide with how bastards usually act
Nature is extraordinarily complex in King Lear- can be used as a descriptor of ethical human action and denotation of proper order in the world
Edmund rages against aristocratic laws of primogeniture which are inherently unfair
Edmund appeals to meritocratic ideal, claiming he is as worthy as anyone born into privilege and rewards should not follow structure of deeply hierarchal social order but to those who deserve them
Edmund's view shared more with emergent bourgeoisie than aristocracy
only in 2012 the legislation proposed that first daughter could inherit the throne if she has younger brother
the Folio of 1623 (studied text)
created after his death with the expressed purpose of keeping his memory and work alive.
hundreds of small variant changes, involving words or phrases as well as full lines. Speeches given to different characters, stage directions altered
Michael Warren has convincingly argued, Albany and Kent are weaker characters in the Folio and Edgar’s character becomes more forceful.
Both Lear’s final lines are changed showing a shift in King Lear’s final vision of the world and a softening of the character of Kent as he too comes to the end of his journey
Edgar is presented in the Folio as the leader of the new generation and the representative of a gentler form or leadership.
Richard Eyre says ‘Edgar, a mild, bookish man, becomes a warrior, then sees this holocaust, and the advice he gives is, open your heart, speak what you feel’.
The reintroduction of hope in Lear’s last line can be performed either as redemption and absolution or delusion. altered to change it from a scene of absolute despair to a scene of possible redemption
the Quarto of 1608
appeared in Shakespeare's lifetime
changes made from the Quarto to the Folio represent alternations to the dramatic action and characters that improve the play theatrically.
Some scenes and lengths of scenes were cut after the Quarto as seen as superfluous
There are roughly 285 lines in the Quarto that are not in the Folio and 115 lines in the Folio that are not in the Quarto
in the Quarto the final lines are given to Albany, which is appropriate in terms of his seniority within the social structure to the play