| Kastan sees Shakespeare’s tragedies as… | Kastan sees Shakespeare’s tragedies as intense treatments of age old questions about whether the causes of suffering lie in human weakness, divine retribution, or arbitrary fate |
| Kastan: idea of tragedy as… | Kastan: idea of tragedy as the fall from prosperity to wretchedness |
| Kastan: Shakespeare’s understanding of tragedy came from… | Kastan: Shakespeare’s understanding of tragedy came from medieval articulations of the genre than classical ones |
| Kastan: Boethius: Tragedy means a… | Kastan: Boethius: Tragedy means a literary composition written in happier times recalling events that ended in misery |
| Kastan: tragedy’s power… | Kastan: tragedy’s power… universal and inexplicable |
| Kastan: reasons for intolerable suffering… | Kastan: reasons for intolerable suffering: tragic motor, human error or capricious fate? |
| Kastan: Catastrophe a… | Kastan: Catastrophe a malignity of the heavens? |
| Kastan: characters struggle unsuccessfully to… | Kastan: characters struggle unsuccessfully to reconstruct a coherent worldview from the ruins of the old |
| Kastan: uncertainty is… | Kastan: uncertainty is the point |
| Kastan: Shakespeare’s tragedies provoke the questions about… | Kastan: Shakespeare’s tragedies provoke the questions about the cause of the pain and loss the plays so agonizingly portray, and in the refusal of any answers starkly prevent any confident attribution of meaning or value to human suffering. |
| Kastan: Kenneth Muir: There is no such thing… | Kastan: Kenneth Muir: There is no such thing as Shakespearean tragedy: there are only Shakespearean tragediesIf Muir is only saying that Shakespeare does not seem to have written tragedy driven by a fully developed theoretical conception of the genre we can easily assent, but a coherent and powerfully compelling sense of tragedy can be seen to develop through the plays |
| Kastan: Tragedy, for Shakespeare, is… | Kastan: Tragedy, for Shakespeare, is the genre of uncompensated suffering |
| Nuttal: tension between… | Nuttal: tension between pleasure and pain |
| Nuttal: audience pleasure in relation to… | Nuttal: audience pleasure in relation to the pain they are witnessing on stage |
| Nuttal: playwright’s ability to… | Nuttal: playwright’s ability to disturb the emotions of the audience |
| Nuttal: it would not be surprising if an audience… | Nuttal: it would not be surprising if an audience inwardly driven by envy were to delight in the fall of one greater than they |
| Nuttal: Aristotle… | Nuttal: Aristotle: the proper pleasure of tragedy |
| Nuttal: in the tragic theatre suffering and death are… | Nuttal: in the tragic theatre suffering and death are perceived as matter for grief and fear, after which it seems that grief and fear become in their turn matter for enjoyment. |
| Nuttal: original basic collision… | Nuttal: original basic collision between terrible matter and a delighted response |
| Nuttal: thunderous term… | Nuttal: thunderous term- ‘tragedy’ |
| Nuttal: Nietzchean oxymoron… | Nuttal: Nietzchean oxymoron- ‘tragic joy’ |
| Nuttal: Dr Johnson… | Nuttal: Dr Johnson poetry and drama must please |
| Nuttal: despise the… | Nuttal: despise the pleasurable and to value the disturbing |
| Nuttal: it is now virtually unimaginable that… | Nuttal: it is now virtually unimaginable that a reviewer of a new play should praise it by saying that it offers solace or comfort |
| Nuttal: adjective ‘ucomfortable’ is… | Nuttal: adjective ‘ucomfortable’ is automatically read as praise |
| Nuttal: if people go again and again to see such things… | Nuttal: if people go again and again to see such things, they must in some way enjoy them |
| Bradley: Shakespearean tragedy in relation to… | Bradley: Shakespearean tragedy in relation to definitions of the genre offered by the ancient Greek writer Aristotle and by medieval writers |
| Bradley: Shakespearian tragedy centres on a … | Bradley: Shakespearian tragedy centres on a character of high rank and exceptional qualities who undergoes a reversal of fortune that leads to his own death and to a more general calamity |
| Bradley: Pre-eminently the… | Bradley: Pre-eminently the story of one person, the hero… single stars |
| Bradley: leads up to and… | Bradley: leads up to and includes the death of the hero |
| Bradley: no play at the end… | Bradley: no play at the end of which the hero remains alive is in the full Shakespearean sense, at tragedy |
| Bradley: the story depicts… | Bradley: the story depicts also the troubled part of the hero’s life which precedes and leads up to his death |
| Bradley: essentially a tale of… | Bradley: essentially a tale of suffering and calamity conducting to death |
| Bradley- suffering and calamity… unexpected, and | Bradley- suffering and calamity… unexpected, and contrasted with previous happiness or glory |
| Bradley- exceptional suffering and calamity… essential ingredient… | Bradley- exceptional suffering and calamity… essential ingredient in tragedy and a chief source of the tragic emotions, and especially of pity |
| Bradley: Pity… directed in the one case chiefly to… | Bradley: Pity… directed in the one case chiefly to the hero, in the other chiefly to the minor characters |
| Bradley: to the medieval mind a tragedy meant a narrative rather than a play… | Bradley: to the medieval mind a tragedy meant a narrative rather than a play… A total reverse of fortune, coming unawares upon a man who ‘stood in high degree’, happy and apparently secure- such was the tragic fact to the medieval mind |
| Bradley: appealed strongly to… | Bradley: appealed strongly to common human sympathy and pity; it startled also another feeling, that of fear |
| Bradley: made them feel that man is blind and helpless, the plaything of an inscrutable power… | Bradley: made them feel that man is blind and helpless, the plaything of an inscrutable power… a power which appears to smile on him for a little, and then on a sudden strikes him down in his pride |
| Bradley: Tragedy with Shakespeare is concerned always with… | Bradley: Tragedy with Shakespeare is concerned always with persons of ‘high degree’; often with kings or princes; if not, with leaders in the state… with members of great houses, whose quarrels are of public moment |
| Bradley: the saying that every death-bed is the scene of the fifth act of a tragedy… | Bradley: the saying that every death-bed is the scene of the fifth act of a tragedy has its meaning, but it would not be true if the word ‘tragedy’ bore its dramatic sense |
| Bradley: his fate affects… | Bradley: his fate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire |
| Mack: frequently Shakespeare’s tragic heroes suffer… | Mack: frequently Shakespeare’s tragic heroes suffer madness or are associated with it |
| Mack: Madness often seems… | Mack: Madness often seems to be a form of divine punishment, but also brings with it special insight and freedom to speak the truth |
| Mack: art and madness both allow… | Mack: art and madness both allow freedom of speech |
| Mack: hero’s second phase… | Mack: hero’s second phase: Madness |
| Mack: Shakespeare’s heroes are… | Mack: Shakespeare’s heroes are associated with this disease- Madness |
| Mack: Elizabethan psychological lore.. | Mack: Elizabethan psychological lore… excess of any passion approached madness |
| Mack: madness is to some degree… | Mack: madness is to some degree a punishment or doom |
| Mack: Lear prays to the heavens that | Mack: Lear prays to the heavens that he may not suffer madness |
| Mack: Lear… is allowed free yet relevant associations. His great speech… | Mack: Lear… is allowed free yet relevant associations. His great speech in Dover fields on the lust of women derives from the designs of Goneril and Regan on Edmund, of which he consciously knows nothing |
| Mack: privileged in… | Mack: privileged in madness to say things |
| Mack: Lear about the corruption of… | Mack: Lear about the corruption of the Jacobean social system ( and by extension about all social systems whatever) |
| Mack: one of the anguishes of being a great artist is… | Mack: one of the anguishes of being a great artist is that you cannot tell people what they and you and your common institutions are really like… to communicate at all, you must acknowledge the opposing voice |
| Mack: Cassandra: Greek mythology, had the power to see into the future… | Mack: Cassandra: Greek mythology, had the power to see into the future but she was destined never to be believed- similar to Cordelia- Act 1 scene 1 |
| Mack: predicament of the artist… | Mack: predicament of the artist… having been given the power to see the ‘truth’, can covey it only through poetry |
| Rutter: the play explores… | Rutter: the play explores deep anxieties about female power in relation to language |
| Rutter: Lear himself is made to seem… | Rutter: Lear himself is made to seem womanish by his tears and cursing |
| Rutter: women- who wept or… | Rutter: women- who wept or cursed because they had no real power |
| Rutter: patriarchal anxieties… | Rutter: patriarchal anxieties about effemization |
| Rutter: most complicatedly feminized… | Rutter: most complicatedly feminized of all Shakespeare’s tragedies |
| Rutter: Janet Adelman… | Rutter: Janet Adelman: ‘overwhelmingly about fathers and their paternity’ |
| Rutter: ‘fantasies of… | Rutter: ‘fantasies of maternal power’ |
| Rutter: What the audience sees in Lear is… | Rutter: What the audience sees in Lear is a series of disturbed images of the feminine that plays upon Lear’s daughters even when they are off-stage |
| Rutter: Pietà … | Rutter: Pietà , Lear-as-Mary staggering onto the stage, arms full of Cordelia-as-Christ |
| Rutter: The womb is… | Rutter: The womb is ‘the dark and vicious place’ the ‘sulpherous pit’ that ‘is all the fiend’s’ all revulsion |
| Rutter: Lear knows his tears make… | Rutter: Lear knows his tears make a woman of him and that his daughters, causing him to weep, are to blame for having ‘power to shake my manhood thus’ |
| Rutter: his tears of impotent rage are… | Rutter: his tears of impotent rage are indeed the sign of a female |
| Rutter: Lear unmanned himself much earlier when… | Rutter: Lear unmanned himself much earlier when, recoiling from Cordelia’s refusal to mother his boy- hood, he appropriated women’s discourse: he fell to cursing. Cursing is the language of political exclusion |
| Rutter: ideas of Fury-ous… | Rutter: ideas of Fury-ous authority beyond the male control or political practice |
| Rutter: Women curse… | Rutter: Women curse. They curse because they cannot act |
| Rutter: Lear’s elder daughters… | Rutter: Lear’s elder daughters neither weep nor curse |
| Rutter: Having learned his language to… | Rutter: Having learned his language to survive his love test, they now assume the male voice, the male space Lear abandons. |
| Rutter: King Lear keeps coming back to… | Rutter: King Lear keeps coming back to the issue of speech and silence |
| Rutter: opposition between… | Rutter: opposition between speech and silence that the play always constructs as an opposition between mouth and heart |
| Rutter: play makes the daughters ugly… | Rutter: play makes the daughters ugly: the two who speak are monsters; the one who does not is monstered |
| Rutter: Lear’s command that his daughters should speak… | Rutter: Lear’s command that his daughters should speak- put against cultural practice, the audience’s expectation that good women keep their mouths shut |
| Kermode: play- wrestles with… | Kermode: play- wrestles with human suffering and evil on a universal, apocalyptic scale |
| Kermode: nothing- needs to be seen… | Kermode: nothing- needs to be seen in the context of a play in which language strains to find words to express the pain of being |
| Kermode: For King Lear is about suffering represented as… | Kermode: For King Lear is about suffering represented as a condition of the world as we inherit it or make it for ourselves. Suffering is the consequence of a human tendency to evil, as inflicted on the good by the bad. |
| Kermode: [Suffering] can reduce… | Kermode: [Suffering] can reduce humanity to a bestial condition, under an apparently indifferent heaven |
| Kermode: face a desolate future… | Kermode: face a desolate future… calling the conclusion an image of horror |
| Kermode: Apocalypse… | Kermode: Apocalypse… an image of the state humanity can reduce itself |
| Kermode: Gloucester… his murmurings about… | Kermode: Gloucester… his murmurings about the state of the world, which do not move Edmund, reflect the mood of the play |
| Kermode: in the apparent unreason of… | Kermode: in the apparent unreason of the Fool and Poor Tom and the ravings of the mad King, where the imaginations of folly flood into the language and give it violent local colour |
| Kermode: Lear can already be seen… | Kermode: Lear can already be seen a imperious and selfish; we discover that even giving his kingdom away is a selfish act |
| Kermode: Critical view of the other main sufferer… | Kermode: Critical view of the other main sufferer, Gloucester, and his relations with his natural son, Edmund. Gloucester treats Edmunds birth as an occasion for bawdy joking |
| Kermode: such economical writing is… | Kermode: such economical writing is perhaps no more than should be expected of a dramatist in his prime |
| Kermode: The verse of the daughters Goneral and Regan has to… | Kermode: The verse of the daughters Goneral and Regan has to be formal, manifestly insincere |
| Kermode: rhetorical falsity… | Kermode: rhetorical falsity: Cordelia refuses to play her sister’s game, aiming instead to expose the hypocrisy in their speechifying |
| Kermode: [Cordelia] would prefer to be silent… | Kermode: [Cordelia] would prefer to be silent, but the only way to announce that intention is to speak about it, which she does…. She does speak again, but virtually only to say nothing |
| Kermode: rhetorical formulae are… | Kermode: rhetorical formulae are used for a dramatic purpose |
| Kermode: The style of personal pronouns is… | Kermode: The style of personal pronouns is worth attention: Lear is almost always, regally, ‘we’ until he loses his temper with his daughter, when he uses ‘I’. |
| Kermode: Kent is truly… | Kermode: Kent is truly ‘unmannerly’, freely addressing the King as ‘thou’ |
| O’Toole: King Lear upsets any… | O’Toole: King Lear upsets any comfortable moral assumptions on the part of the audience |
| O’Toole: There is no convincing… | O’Toole: There is no convincing re-assertion of the moral and social order at the end |
| O’Toole: We have already had a… | O’Toole: We have already had a conventional, moral ending, the one provided by the single combat of Edmund and Edgar… The conventional moral triumph is completed |
| O’Toole: Edgar’s killing of Edmund in… | O’Toole: Edgar’s killing of Edmund in 5,3 has all the signs that it is the end of the play |
| O’Toole: All the plot lines are… | O’Toole: All the plot lines are being wrapped up |
| O’Toole: ‘This would have seemed a period… but…’… | O’Toole: ‘This would have seemed a period… but…’… biggest but in theatrical history. Things start to go wrong with the moral ending in which good has vanquished evil |
| O’Toole: We are brought back from the brink of… | O’Toole: We are brought back from the brink of a comfortable conclusion, forced to remember Lear and his suffering |
| O’Toole: The story bursts out beyond… | O’Toole: The story bursts out beyond the moral ending of the play, the overwhelming sense of injustice breaks through the even balancing of good and evil… it is the whole point of the play’s structure |
| O’Toole: it shows morality falling apart… | O’Toole: it shows morality falling apart under the stress of the plays traumatic events and emotions |
| O’Toole: The traditional morality of loyalty… | O’Toole: The traditional morality of loyalty, of knowing one’s place and keeping it, is no longer of much use |
King Lear Critical anthology
July 8, 2019