Shakespearean

Drama

King Lear Knowledge Notes

Chain of Being

The Elizabethan World Picture Elizabethans viewed their world order according to what is called The Chain of Being, much of which worked its way into the literature of the time, including Shakespeare's plays.

Everything on earth and in the universe is linked in a particular order - everything has its place.

The most heavenly beings are placed at the top of the chain, seated at the foot of God.

The basest creatures are at the bottom, furthest away from God. The best way of envisioning this is probably to think of a ladder

What is a Tragedy?

TragedyThe protagonists (main characters) must be admirable but flawed characters

=HUMAN

The audience must be able to understand and sympathize with the characters

THEMES TO LOOK OUT FOR IN KING LEAR

Kingship; Crown Inheritance; Division; Justice; Parents and Children Ingratitude of children Love: self-love and

false love Legitimacy Loyalty; Hospitality

Eyes and Sight Madness and Insanity Civil Disorder Nothing; The poor/poverty The Elements Nature and Nurture Identity Cruelty and Violence Fortune Warmth and Cold

LANGUAGE

1. Treat language like special effects2. Treat language like a voiceover in a

film .3. Characters overflow with words

Special

effects

Bad GuysGood guys

Profile of Gloucester

· representative of the old regime: weak, elderly, inert, credulous

EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess. To thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should IStand in the plague of custom and permitThe curiosity of nations to deprive meFor that I am some twelve or fourteen

moonshinesLag of a brother? Why “bastard”? Wherefore

“base”?When my dimensions are as well compact,My mind as generous, and my shape as trueAs honest madam’s issue? Why brand they usWith “base,” with “baseness,” “bastardy,” “base,”

“base”—Who in the lusty stealth of nature takeMore composition and fierce qualityThan doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bedGo to th' creating a whole tribe of fopsGot ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.Our father’s love is to the bastard EdmundAs to the legitimate.—Fine word, “legitimate”!—Well, my legitimate, if this letter speedAnd my invention thrive, Edmund the baseShall top th' legitimate. I grow, I prosper.Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

TRAGIC HEROQualities of a Tragic Hero:Possesses high importance or rankExhibits extraordinary talentsDisplays a tragic flaw—an error in

judgment or defect in character—that leads to downfall

Faces downfall with courage and dignity

Profile of Gloucester Represents the old

regime: weak, elderly, inert, credulous

Dramatic role · to head up the minor plot · his fate mirrors Lear's

Historically · represents mindless continuity, · end of an era inertia,

Who are his sons?

What do you know about them?

TRAGIC HERO Qualities of a Tragic

Hero: Possesses high

importance or rank Displays a tragic

flaw, an error in judgment or defect in character—that leads to downfall

HE DOESN’T SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF HIS DAUGHTERS

TRAGIC HERO Knowledge Check question

What is Lear’s tragic flaw or error in judgment?

Do people know of his plan?

How does he go about it?

Points- Good GuysProfiles of Lear 'bad' characters:

Category Edgar Kent Cordelia Albany

Appearance

not flash, younger, not as confident as might be, sensitive

shabby, older, gaunt

plain, slight, maidish, low of voice, alert

avuncular, poised,

Characteristics, temperament

gentle, easily led,

to get things right, to teach restraint, aware of the error of excess

not boastful, careful of exaggeration, few words, a natural goodness, not wimpy.

calm, patient, slow to anger, not devious, knowledgeable

Motivations caring, loyal, honest

loyalty, devotion, honesty

love, justice, tragic

justice, balance, pity

Appraisal

misunderstands Edmund, weak?, untested, driven by care and pity, endures hardship for his father

unable to be diplomatic, free of anything underhand, predictable to a fault

hides her goodness = (expects it to be enough?), accepts fate, strong devotion to the truth as only guide to life

respected by Lear, strong in himself, puzzle what he saw in Goneril to marry her

Points -Bad GuysCategory Edmund Goneril Oswald Cornwall

Appearance lusty, young, dark,

'wolfish visage', late 30s

foppish, weasel, oleaginous

sly, like Regan

Characteristics, temperament

ambitious, hungry, self- important, cagey, manipulative

aggressive, manipulative,

sycophantic, unscrupulous, ambitious

ambitious, untrustworthy

Motivationspower-hungry, cruel, deceitful

gain, greed, self-seeking, hard, pitiless

gain, opportunist, opportunist

Appraisal unscrupulous to be feared repugnant conspirator

Profiles of Lear 'bad' characters:

The FOOL Knowledge notes Act 1 scene 4+5

Q- What is the fools role in the play?

He is used to show Lear’s true feelings and highlight Lear’s foolishness

The fool acts as a commentator speking the truth

Fool Kent tries to point out that the fool is telling the

truth

    All thy other titles thou hast given away; that     thou wast born with.

KENT

    This is not altogether fool, my lord.

thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,     when thou gavest thy golden one away.

Refers to his royal crown

LEAR DIVIDED HIS KINGDOM BETWEEN GONERIL AND REGAN

Fool

    I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:     they'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt     have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am     whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any     kind o' thing than a fool: and yet I would not be     thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides,     and left nothing i' the middle:

The Fool -Act 1 Scene 5He is critical of Lear but also kind and

humorous pointing to Lear’s foolishness

ExamplesDaughters are as sour as crab applesHe remarks Lear should have been

‘wise before being old’Lear should be like a snail with a

house to put his bald head intoHe uses animal imagery and

metaphors

King Lear Act 2. scene 1 – Manipulative Edmund

Edmund begins this scene with deceit and treachery He tricks his father into believing Edgar is hungry for power

and land and is willing to murder GlouscesterHe is a consummate liarHe is manipulativeHe cuts his own arm to add credence to his lies saying Edgar

injured himHis father believes him and calls him loyal and natural

HOW HE LIES His language reflects the theme of Natural order.

He use pregnant imagry and refersto the natural orderHis language is duplicitous and ironic and he is a skilled in his speechesHe is the real villain, not Edgar

King Lear Act 2 Scene 4 Overview

Kent is in the stocksRegan and Cornwall refuse to meets

himRegan demands that he return to ask

forgiveness form GonerilSisters greet each other as friendsThey sadistically reduce his retinue

to noneLear is reduced to level of animalLear gave all, his daughters gave

nothing

Lears’s heroic struggle to endure

1. Disbelief They durst not , they could not I gave you all

2. Overwhelmed Down thou climbing sorrow ! Thy

elements below3. Angry

I would rather wage against the enmity of the air

4. Powerless + isolated Man’s life is as cheap as beasts

TRAGIC HEROLear’s tragic plight

Kingship/ Power destroyed

Seeing the error of his ways

Displays new humanity in character

Lear’s Turmoil KING LEAR

    O, reason not the need: our basest beggars     Are in the poorest thing superfluous:     Allow not nature more than nature needs,     Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;     If only to go warm were gorgeous,     Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,     Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,--     You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!     You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,     As full of grief as age; wretched in both!     If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts     Against their father, fool me not so much     To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,     And let not women's weapons, water-drops,     Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,     I will have such revenges on you both,     That all the world shall--I will do such things,--     What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be     The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep     No, I'll not weep:     I have full cause of weeping; but this heart     Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,     Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

Humanity

Impotent rage

Madness

Knowledge Act 3 Scene 1Lear against the elements

Lear is Contending with the fretful element:Bids the winds blow the earth into the sea,Or swell the curled water 'bove the main,That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;Strives in his little world of man to out-scornThe to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,The lion and the belly-pinched wolfKeep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,And bids what will take all.

Madness

Natural order is disturbed

Division between Albany and Conwall

Close reading

Storm Scene This political chaos is mirrored in the

natural world. We find Lear and his courtiers plodding

across a deserted heath with winds howling around them and rain drenching them.

Lear soon finds himself symbolically stripped bare.

He has already discovered that his cruel daughters can victimize him; now he learns that a king caught in a storm is as much subject to the power of nature as any man.

A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention.

The Storm As Lear wanders about a desolate heath in Act III, a terrible

storm, strongly but ambiguously symbolic, rages overhead. In part, the storm echoes Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting

madness: it is a physical, turbulent natural reflection of Lear’s internal confusion.

At the same time, the storm embodies the awesome power of nature, which forces the powerless king to recognize his own mortality and human frailty and to cultivate a sense of humility for the first time.

The storm may also symbolize some kind of divine justice, as if nature itself is angry about the events in the play.

Finally, the meteorological chaos also symbolizes the political disarray that has engulfed Lear’s Britain.