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Silence, Kent!’ Lear’s eyes were burning. His face was red. ‘Don’t come between the dragon and his wrath! I loved her the most and planned to spend my retirement in her loving care. Get out of my sight! So my grave will be my only peace as I hereby separate her from her father’s heart. Call the king of France. No-one stirs? Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany, add this third to my two daughters’ dowries.’ He pointed to Cordelia’s portion on the map. ‘Let pride, which she calls frankness, find her a husband. I invest you jointly with my power, authority and all the trappings of majesty. Ourself will live with each of you in alternate months, attended by a hundred knights, maintained at your expense. We’ll retain only the name and all the respect that’s due to a king. The influence, taxation and all the other administrative matters, beloved sons, will be yours. To confirm that, this coronet is divided between you.’ In 1998, the BBC produced a televised version, [149] directed by Richard Eyre, of his award-winning 1997 Royal National Theatre production, starring Ian Holm as Lear. In March 2001, in a review originally posted to culturevulture.net, critic Bob Wake observed that the production was "of particular note for preserving Ian Holm’s celebrated stage performance in the title role. Stellar interpreters of Lear haven't always been so fortunate." [150] Wake added that other performances had been poorly documented because they suffered from technological problems ( Orson Welles), eccentric televised productions ( Paul Scofield), or were filmed when the actor playing Lear was unwell ( Laurence Olivier). [151]
Regan, I think you are,’ said Lear. ‘I have good reason for thinking so. If you weren’t glad I would separate myself from your mother’s grave because it would be holding an adulteress.’ France stepped forward. ‘Fairest Cordelia,’ he said, ‘ rich in being poor: most wanted in being forsaken, and most loved being despised. I hereby take you and your virtues for myself. If it’s lawful I will take up what’s been cast away. Ye gods, it’s ironic that my love should be fired up by their coldest indifference. Your dowerless daughter, King, thrown my way by chance, is queen of me, of all I have and of fair France. Not all the dukes of insipid Burgundy could buy this underpriced but priceless virgin from me. Bid them farewell, Cordelia, cruel as they are. You lose here, to find better elsewhere.’The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, one published in 1608 (Q 1) and the other in 1619 (Q 2), [b] and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F 1). Q1 has "many errors and muddles". [22] Q2 was based on Q1. It introduced corrections and new errors. [22] Q2 also informed the Folio text. [23] Quarto and Folio texts differ significantly. Q 1 contains 285 lines not in F 1; F 1 contains around 100 lines not in Q 1. Also, at least a thousand individual words are changed between the two texts, each text has different styles of punctuation, and about half the verse lines in the F 1 are either printed as prose or differently divided in the Q 1. Early editors, beginning with Alexander Pope, conflated the two texts, creating the modern version that has been commonly used since. The conflated version originated with the assumptions that the differences in the versions do not indicate any re-writing by the author; that Shakespeare wrote only one original manuscript, which is now lost; and that the Quarto and Folio versions contain various distortions of that lost original. In 2021, Duncan Salkeld endorsed this view, suggesting that Q1 was typeset by a reader dictating to the compositor, leading to many slips caused by mishearing. [24] Other editors, such as Nuttall and Bloom, have suggested Shakespeare himself maybe was involved in reworking passages in the play to accommodate performances and other textual requirements of the play. [25]
Why not my hand, sir?’ said Goneril ‘How have I offended? Something isn’t offensive just because someone says so and because old men call it that.’ Goneril confronts Albany who has become furious with her after learning about the cruel treatment of Lear. When he further learns about the blinding of Gloucester and Cornwall's death, Albany resolves to take revenge upon Edmund and to assist Gloucester. Cordelia's refusal to dedicate herself to him and love him as more than a father has been interpreted by some as a resistance to incest, but Kahn also inserts the image of a rejecting mother. The situation is now a reversal of parent-child roles, in which Lear's madness is a childlike rage due to his deprivation of filial/maternal care. Even when Lear and Cordelia are captured together, his madness persists as Lear envisions a nursery in prison, where Cordelia's sole existence is for him. It is only with Cordelia's death that his fantasy of a daughter-mother ultimately diminishes, as King Lear concludes with only male characters living.
Gloucester looked up at Edmund. His features expressed enormous conflict. ‘Hmm!’ he exclaimed. ‘Conspiracy? “Sleep till I awakened him you would enjoy half his wealth?” My son Edgar! Could he have done this? Has he got the heart and mind to instigate it? When did you get this? Who brought it to you?’ The Joseph Mankiewicz (1949) House of Strangers is often considered a Lear adaptation, but the parallels are more striking in Broken Lance (1954) in which a cattle baron played by Spencer Tracy tyrannizes his three sons, and only the youngest, Joe, played by Robert Wagner, remains loyal. [119] Cornwall strode forward, signalling as he did so, to the servants, to release Kent. He stopped and bowed to Lear. ‘Hail to your Grace.’ Goneril nodded. ‘Even when he was at his best he was rash. So we can expect to see the effects, not only of his naturally unstable condition, but also the disorganised eccentricity that comes with feeble and bad-tempered old age.’ My dear lord,’ she said, ‘You have conceived me, brought me up and loved me. I return those duties accordingly – obey you, love you, and honour you entirely. Why do my sisters have husbands if they say they love you exclusively? If it happens that I should marry, that man who has my hand in marriage will have half my love, half my care and duty. Certainly, I’ll never marry like my sisters to love my father totally.’
Oh you slave! Criminal!’ Lear’s hand went to the hilt of his sword and his two sons-in law sprang up in alarm, with expressions of concern.
Essays and resources from The Folger Shakespeare
Act 3, scene 5 Edmund tells Cornwall about Gloucester’s decision to help Lear and about the incriminating letter from France; in return, Cornwall makes Edmund earl of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester walked into the hall, talking to himself. He was shaking his head and tutting: ‘Kent banished like that!’ he said. ‘And France departed in anger! And the king gone tonight, his power reduced to ceremony. All done on the spur of the moment!’ He looked up and saw his son. ‘Edmund! Hello. What news?’ The play was often revised after the English Restoration for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original play has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. In other literary forms of the Middle Ages there occasionally appear oral tales. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in telling the story of King Lear, includes the incident of Love Like Salt (Type 923) ...". Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 181. ISBN 0-520-03537-2. Jane Smiley's 1991 novel A Thousand Acres, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is based on King Lear, but set in a farm in Iowa in 1979 and told from the perspective of the oldest daughter. [171]
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