AV Club

Quick Note on the Final Project: I've been listening to a number of audio representations of Hamlet.  I've been looking at cut versions of Hamlet. There's not much online, but I'm trying to track down my script from when I was involved in a short production. I'm going to try to have some audio samples up on Friday, if I can figure out how Garage Band actually works.

Now, on to King Lear:

Edmund has been quite the hot topic lately, and I love it. He's such a deliciously complex character. Lear is a senile old bag, as well as kind of a jerk. In fact, I think that Lear is one of the worst literary parents I've ever read. If the majority of his kids grew up to be mean, selfish twits, it's probably because the he messed up somewhere. Gloucester is better, but not by much. He picked and chose which of his children to give affection to. However, his poor parenting gave rise to this amazing character. (Amazing from a literary standpoint. I wouldn't want to have lunch with him.)  I feel like I can relate to him more so than any other Shakespearean character we've read. I mean, he does some horrible things, and I know he's supposed to be the villain, but I find him incredibly sympathetic. I'd like to share his speech from Act I:


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 moon-shines
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, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep 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 the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!


I love this speech. This speech is a banner for people who feel unwanted or disliked to rally around. I feel like everyone in the world can relate to this at some point in their lives. We all get rejected by people we want to love us. We all try to find legitimacy in who we are. Edmund claimss that he is a more legitimate son than Edgar, because there was love and passion present when Edmund was conceived. Edgar was the product of a passionless, but legal, marriage. Then there's this idea of custom. People do horrible, horrible things in the name of custom. Edmund was cast off and reviled from childhood because of custom. I say: Shame on everyone.

I hate the idea that some people deserve less than others because of factors they cannot control. I mean, in the 16th Century, there was this idea of divine right. Kings were kings because God appointed them to be so. There was the idea that you were born into the role that God appointed to you. I hate that idea. I think it's awful. Kids deserve to be loved by their parents, period the end. Gloucester might not have been an inherently bad guy, but he was not the ideal parent.

I tend to think that Lear was a terrible father. I mean, two of his three children turned out to be horrible, and one of them he banished for not sufficiently kissing up. I feel like good parents can turn out a bad seed or two, but if two out of three children grew up to be jerks (and the third is a boring Christ archetype introduced for the sake of the plot), it's probably because of less-than-satisfactory parenting.