Shakespearean Drama

1. Shakespearean Drama King Lear Knowledge Notes

4. Chain of Being

5. The Elizabethan World PictureElizabethans 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

6. What is a Tragedy?

7. Tragedy • The protagonists (main characters) must be admirable but flawed characters • =HUMAN The audience must be able to understand and sympathize with the characters

10. THEMES TO LOOK OUT FOR IN KING LEAR 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 • Kingship; Crown • Inheritance; Division; • Justice; • Parents and Children • Ingratitude of children • Love: self-love and false love • Legitimacy • Loyalty; Hospitality

11. LANGUAGE • Treat language like special effects • Treat language like a voiceover in a film . • Characters overflow with words Special effects

12. Profile of Gloucester · representative of the old regime: weak, elderly, inert, credulous Good guys Bad Guys

13. EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess. To thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? Why “bastard”? Wherefore “base”? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us With “base,” with “baseness,” “bastardy,” “base,” “base”— Who in the lusty stealth of nature take More composition and fierce quality Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops Got ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate.—Fine word, “legitimate”!— Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top th' legitimate. I grow, I prosper. Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

14. TRAGIC HERO Qualities of a Tragic Hero: • Possesses high importance or rank • Exhibits extraordinary talents • Displays a tragic flaw—an error in judgment or defect in character—that leads to downfall • Faces downfall with courage and dignity

15. 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?

16. 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

17. TRAGIC HERO • Knowledge Check • question • What is Lear’stragic flaw or error in judgment? • Do people know of his plan? • How does he go about it?

18. Profiles of Lear 'bad' characters: Points- Good Guys

19. Profiles of Lear 'bad' characters: Points -Bad Guys

21. 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

23. 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.

25. thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,     when thou gavest thy golden one away. Refers to his royal crown

26. LEAR DIVIDED HIS KINGDOM BETWEEN GONERIL AND REGAN FoolI 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:

27. The Fool -Act 1 Scene 5 • He is critical of Lear but also kind and humorous pointing to Lear’s foolishness • Examples • Daughters are as sour as crab apples • He remarks Lear should have been ‘wise before being old’ • Lear should be like a snail with a house to put his bald head into • He uses animal imagery and metaphors

28. 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 Glouscester He is a consummate liar He is manipulative He 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

29. King Lear Act 2 Scene 4 Overview • Kent is in the stocks • Regan and Cornwall refuse to meets him • Regan demands that he return to ask forgiveness form Goneril • Sisters greet each other as friends • They sadistically reduce his retinue to none • Lear is reduced to level of animal • Lear gave all, his daughters gave nothing

30. Lears’s heroic struggle to endure • Disbelief • They durst not , they could not • I gave you all • Overwhelmed • Down thou climbing sorrow ! Thy elements below • Angry • I would rather wage against the enmity of the air • Powerless + isolated • Man’s life is as cheap as beasts

31. TRAGIC HERO Lear’s tragic plight • Kingship/ Power destroyed • Seeing the error of his ways • Displays new humanity in character

34. Lear’s Turmoil Humanity • 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! Impotent rage Madness

35. Knowledge Act 3 Scene 1 Natural order is disturbed • Lear 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

36. Division between Albany and Conwall

37. Close reading

39. 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.

40. 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.