| Clothing | “When disguise is no longer necessary, the hero (Edgar) emerges.” Hugh Maclean |
| Political | “The conflict between the old binding loyalty and the new boundless individualism.” Julian Markels |
| Tragedy | Dr Samuel Johnson said Cordelia’s death was “shocking” and too much to bear, he could “not endure” to read it again. |
| Power/Kingship | (On Lear’s downfall, him as a weak old man) “Painful and disgusting” Charles Lamb |
| Tragedy | Play as a whole portrayed “the titanic tragedy of human life.” George Brandes |
| Power/Kingship | “Lear, in the opening, is acting like God on the last day, exercising his judgement over the world.” Fintan O’Toole |
| Gender | Women are presented as “the source of primal sin and lust.” Kathleen McCluskie |
| Gender | The play is about “male anxiety”. Coppelia Kahn |
| Power/Kingship | The play is about “power, property and inheritance.” Jonathon Dollimore. |
| Lear | “Lear’s rage is an uncontrollable force.” |
| Lear | “His terrible fate lies coiled and nascent in opening words.” Tony Tanner |
| The blinding of Gloucester | Modern productions have played it so Regan is sexually aroused by Gloucester’s suffering. |
| Family | “The play is about stripping away home and sanity.” Sam Mendes |
| Gender | ‘Damning indictment of women in power.” |
| Cordelia | Critics have argued that because Cordelia wants to reinstate Lear on the throne and the ‘old order’, she must die. |
| Gloucester’s “suicide” | “The most extraordinary moment of audience disorientation in all drama.” AD Nuttal |
| The ending: Christian reading | National Theatre production, dir Richard Eyre: Edgar arrives through white lit door, he is a black silhouette, thus depicting him as a Christ-like figure. |
| The ending: loyalty/positive | National Theatre production, dir Richard Eyre: Proxemics – Kent and Edgar either side of Lear who is kneeling over Cordelia, he is surrounded by good as he dies. |
| The ending: family/loyalty/old order versus new | National Theatre production, dir Richard Eyre: Lear’s body placed on a wagon with all bodies and Kent wheels it out through lit doorway, biblical connotations of heaven. However, it ends with the wagon fading into the distance thus perhaps symbolising the older order fading away. |
| The ending: family | National Theatre production, dir Richard Eyre: Family dumped onto wagon is a distorted image of a family reunited. |
| The ending: Christian reading | Royal Shakespeare Company, dir Trevor Nunn: Edgar enters in ‘Mad-Tom’ clothing and is in this till the end. |
| The ending: family | Royal Shakespeare Company, dir Trevor Nunn: Gonerill and Regan are dressed in white when they have died. |
| The ending: nihilistic | Royal Shakespeare Company, dir Trevor Nunn: Ends with Edgar looking up to Gods and then cradling his hands in his hands as if Gods are not there. |
| Power/Kingship | “Brutal tearing off of the crown.” Jan Kott |
| The ending: positive | AC Bradley argues that Lear dies happy because he believes he sees Cordelia breathing. |
| The ending: nihilistic | Tragedy ends with the Cordelia saying nothing…does anyone learn anything? |
| Tragedy | “Unremittingly bleak…Shakespeare’s bleakest…why it is so popular.” John Lennord |
| Tragedy | “Ironical structure is just calculated to destroy faith in both poetic justice and divine justice.” William R Elton |
| Lear | Lear is “fully responsible for this explosion of chaos.” Lynda E Boose |
| Lear | “Suffering purified Lear and restored his tragic greatness.” Jan Kott |
| Lear and the storm (3.2) | “A projection outward of everything he cannot tolerate within.” Janet Adelman |
| Lear and his madness | “Madness was a useful protection.” Margot Heinemann |
| Cornwall | “Nazi-type brute.” Margot Heinemann |
AO5: King Lear
July 25, 2019