Global Sharing With King Lear

Per the course objectives, I'm trying to continue to share Shakespeare globally. In order to facilitate this, I've written another Goodreads review, this time on King Lear. You can read it here. Once again, it doesn't cover anything you, my classmates, haven't heard me say before. I really feel like King Lear is a cautionary tale against bad parenting. If Lear and Gloucester alike had had a bit more compassion on certain of their children during various points in their lives, I think that much, if not all, of the conflict in King Lear could have been avoided. Edmund would have the validation he was seeking, so that would effectively cancel out his entire plot line. Cordelia would stay with Lear and care for him, so he wouldn't need to move in with Regan and Goneril. If he never moved in with Regan or Goneril, he would never be kicked out, he'd never lose his mind, and his life would probably be a great deal longer.

It wouldn't have made for a good play, but I can't help but think of these characters as real people. If these were real people, I would want Edmund to be loved by his father and accepted by his brother. I would want Lear to be kind to his daughters and to respect them as adults. I think that Lear is a very flawed individual as a whole (pompous, a poor leader, self-aggrandizing, etc). However, he could have cut down on his own suffering, not to mention Cordelia's, if he had wanted to be a father first, and God of the Universe second.

In Coppelia Kahn's paper "The Absent Mother in King Lear," Kahn asserts that the relationship between Cordelia and Lear is a reversal of the parent/child roles. Lear wants to be babied by his daughter, and his daughter wants to be an independent adult. Lear interprets this much in the same as a child interprets maternal abandonment. I'm not sure whether I agree with this interpretation, but I do think that Lear is a very childish man, and that he lacks the maturity to be a real father to his children.

Eye Gouging

There's been a lot of discussion about Gloucester losing his eyes, and whether or not it was an over-the-top punishment for his perceived crime. I kind of doubted it, and here's why. As far as Cornwall knows, Gloucester was a traitor. Going into this, I didn't know tons about penalties for treason, but I did know that people who were branded as traitors tended to be pretty harshly punished.

I googled the phrase "eye-gouging as punishment for treason," and I came across the book The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Medieval France by S.H. Cuttler. I know that King Lear isn't set in France, but the time period is about right. Here's what he has to say on the subject: "Not all the penalties [for treason] were capital: one could be put on the pillory or on the rack, or have one's eyes gouged out. Because treason could take many forms, the punishment could be made to fit the crime."

It sounds to me like eye-gouging was a fairly normal punishment - at least normal enough to come up in a completely unrelated, scholarly discussion on treason. In fact, for a traitor, Gloucester may have even gotten off easy - a courtesy from Cornwall, who had to have been devastated and betrayed. Granted, Gloucester actually wasn't a traitor, so the fact that he lost his eyes for a crime he didn't commit was hugely unfortunate. That being said, if Gloucester actually was a traitor, we the audience would feel that Cornwall was completely justified. We might actually be surprised that Cornwall didn't kill him.

 I suspect that Shakespeare would have been very aware of treason and its punishment. After all, he didn't exist in a vacuum, and the idea of treason was an especially big deal during the reigns of Henry VII though Elizabeth I. If historical accounts (and Phillipa Gregory novels) are to be believed, so-called traitors were getting hauled off to the Tower left and right.

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.

Intro To King Lear

I completely forgot about needing to blog today. Usually I try to write my posts the night before, but I was so excited about my last post (of which there will be more similar posts), that I forgot.

King Lear. I have not had the best of experiences with King Lear. I once saw a live production of King Lear in Cedar City. My mom and I had driven up from Phoenix, which is about an eight hour drive. That part was fine. I like roadtrips and my mom and I have gone on several together throughout the course of my time living with her. We saw several other plays before we saw King Lear (my favorite being Bernard Shaw's Candida. Love the Shaw).

Anyway. King Lear. It was in an amphitheater, which, under normal circumstances is fine. Unfortunately, in this case it was raining pretty heavily. It was also extremely cold. I also had to pee really, really badly, and I couldn't go anywhere until intermission, which they saved until after Act III. It. Was. Awful. But almost none of my bad experiences were the fault of the production. The actors were fine, as I recall. Lear was suitably senile, which is a quality I like in my Lears. I mean, he does so many asinine things throughout the course of the play that it's hard for me to imagine him not completely senile. He's like somebody's great-grandpa who isn't allowed to drive or use the toilet by himself, but for some reason, he's been tasked with running a kingdom. Questions all around.