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... here with a feigned hearing that allows them to make a public pronouncement of their love for him. He is delighted when Goneril says hers is "Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty" (1. 1. 56). He is similarly pleased with Regan's praises. Lear foolishly believes that Goneril and Regan love and respect him the way they say they do; he is oblivious to the fact that his daughters, or anyone for that matter, may lie for their own benefit. Because he believes his eldest daughters' insincere adulation, Lear's trial proves him a fool.
In addition, Lear senselessly concludes that Cordelia is a disrespectful daughter and not worthy of her share of the kingdom. He is irked when she states simply that she loves her father as a daughter should, no more and no less: "I love your majesty/According to my bond, no more nor less" (1. 1. 92 - 93). Angry and humiliated at her lack of honor, Lear immediately exiles Cordelia from the country. Through banishment, Lear intends "to reduce her to "nothing, " this being the recompense that she had earned by answering "Nothing" to his demand that she demonstrate her love for him" (Willeford 210). He then orders her to marry the King of France and finally divides the kingdom between his two eldest daughters and their husbands. Furthermore, Lear's folly is again evident when both Goneril and Regan later shun him.
As he ventures into the night's storm, he tells the Fool, "O fool, I shall go mad" (2. 2. 475). He later remarks, "My wits begin to turn" (3. 2. 68). Here, Lear begins his downward spiral toward madness. But in his madness, he discovers the essence of humanity; he descends from his majestic position to a ranking of lower class. He declares, "When we are born we cry that we are come/To this great stage of fools" (4. 6. 183 - 84). The Fool accurately comments, "this cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen" (3. 4. 77).
Later, he quips, "Marry, he's grace and a codpiece that's a wise man and a fool" (3. 2. 40 - 41). Ironically, the Fool and the king begin to swap positions. Up until this point, the Fool has granted Lear helpful understanding of his decisions; this establishes the question of which of the two is now the real fool. Lear asks, "Dost thou call me a fool, boy?" The Fool replies, "All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with" (1. 4. 142). The "king has been openly debased to the level of the Fool" (Willeford 218). Consequently, the Fool disappears after the storm; he has taught Lear all he knows.
Through Lear's metamorphosis, Shakespeare demonstrates that being a fool enables one to see things clearly. Moreover, when Lear is reunited with Cordelia at the end of the play, "it is not as the petty tyrannical king who has banished her but as a fool who has himself been banished by such a king and who yet preserves the future of the kingdom in his enigmatic relationship with her" (Willeford 223). Lear is fooled a final time by Cordelia's death. After she is hanged, Lear appears on stage holding her dead body in his arms. He cries, Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha?
What is't thou says? Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman. I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee. (5. 3. 269 - 73) Lear asks for a "looking-glass" and "feather" to see if she has "no breath at all. " As Lear falls to his death, he has a glimmer of hope. He asks, "Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips, /Look there, look there!" (5. 3. 308 - 309). Rather than part in misery, Lear journeys to his final rest in contentment for he is fooled into thinking Cordelia still lives.
The "imagined breath" is brought to the audience by "a king who is also a tragic clown to a point of folly" (Willeford 225). Although the Fool serves many functions in King Lear, his main role is that of a moral instructor to his king. He teaches him that humans are unable to know themselves completely. Through his character, Shakespeare reveals the magnitude of humanity.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. R. A. Forces.
Surrey: International Thomson Publishing Company, 1997. Willeford, William. The Fool and His Scepter: A Study in Clowns and Jesters and Their Audience. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969. The story of King Lear and his three daughters existed in some form up to four centuries before Shakespeare recorded his vision. Lear was a British King who reigned before the birth of Christ, allowing Shakespeare to place his play in a Pagan setting.
Predated by references in British mythology to Lyr or Ler, Geoffrey of Monmouth recorded a story of King Lear and his daughters in his Historia Regan Britannia of 1137. Dozens of versions of the play were then written up, highlighting certain events, such as the love test, or expanding upon the story, such as creating a sequel where Cordelia committed suicide. Most of these versions had a happy ending, though untrue to the story, where peace was restored under the reign of Lear and Cordelia. Shakespeare however had no interest in writing a tragicomedy. The main version that Shakespeare had likely read and from which he had definitely borrowed was The True Chronicle History of King Lear and his Three Daughters. He also borrowed from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle of England, Scotland, and Ireland (who adopted the story from Monmouth), Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queen, Sir Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (from which Shakespeare drew his subplot), and John Higgins' A Mirror For Magistrates.
He stole pieces and ideas from these versions to create the type of story he wanted to tell. For instance, The True Chronicle provides the basis of the story, though sentimentalizing it by ignoring the sequel. "Lear" is betrayed by two of his daughters but is reconciled to his youngest at the end. "Cordelia" is accompanied by a Fool-type character who is loyal to her and Lear is reseated on the throne after beating Goneril and Regan's armies. Moreover, Shakespeare left out main components of the earlier stories of Lear and created wholly new ones as well. Most considerable of the changes was the creation of a subplot and Lear's descent to madness. In Shakespeare's time, numerous events, historical considerations, relationships, and cultural trends influenced his writing of King Lear.
Scholars tend to believe that the play was written after Othello and before Macbeth, thus assigning it to 1604 - 1605. Further proof of this comes from the apparent influence the 1603 texts, A Declaration of Egregious Polish Impostures, by Samuel Harsnett, and John Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays, had on Shakespeare's conglomeration of the story. Critics have noted that more than one hundred words found in King Lear which Shakespeare had never before used can be found in Florio's translation. In addition, Montaigne's famous essay, "Apology for Raymond Second, " apparently refers to the same major themes which Shakespeare's King Lear presents.
He also borrowed from a very convenient contemporary true story of a gentleman pensioner of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Brian Annesley, whose daughters tried to get him declared insane in late 1603 so that they could legally take control of his estate. The youngest daughter, named Cordell, intervened on his behalf. As Shakespeare's players were the king's men, he knew they would have to perform for King James I and his court. Subsequently, Shakespeare imbued his plays with certain aspects that would appeal to James. For instance, the dangers of a divided kingdom was often the topic of James's pieces because of his wish to unite Scotland with England.
Further topics from the time which Shakespeare took into account were the honor and wisdom endowed to the elderly as opposed to the rash ambition of the young as well as the ritualistic reverence showed to royalty. Shakespeare himself had moved into his period of writing tragedies as he felt they were more respected by critics although audiences generally preferred comedies. After his publication of Julius Caesar, he was looked at as the greatest tragedian since Sophocles and was at the zenith of his literary capacity. The play was first performed for the King in December of 1605. It was first published in a quarto in 1608 and titled M William Shak-space His Historie, of King Lear. A completely revised version was reprinted by Shakespeare in a 1623 First Folio edition, now referred to as The Tragedy of King Lear.
The two versions were conflated in the eighteenth century until editors realized how significantly different the two were and now each edition and the conflated text can be found. Bibliography:
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