HOFSTRA/DRAMA

1999
HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA AND DANCE

IN CELEBRATION OF
th
THE 50 ANNIVERSARY
of the HOFSTRA
SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

KING
LEAR
STUDY GUIDE
Written and compiled
by James J. Kolb
 A Study Guide to

Hofstra University’s

Department of Drama and Dance

Production

of

KING LEAR
by

William Shakespeare
March 1999

Table of Contents

The Pelican Shakespeare version of King Lear, edited by About Shakespeare...........................................................2

Alfred Harbage, is the text used in the current production. It is
published in paperback by Penguin Books Title Page of the First Folio Edition
of Shakespeare’s Plays.....................................................2
ISBN # 0 140714.146 ($3.95)
Shakespeare’s Coat of Arms ...........................................3

Shakespeare’s Plays .........................................................3

Shakespeare’s Theatre .....................................................4

A Summary of the Story ..................................................5

The Sources of the Story .................................................6

The Date of Composition.................................................7

Special Problems With the Text of King Lear ..............7

The idea and format of this study guide is by Peter Sander. He
prepared and wrote the content of pp. 2-3. The material on pp. A Few Critical Comments .................................................8
4-5 has been adapted and rewritten from his study guide
prepared for Romeo and Juliet, as have the questions for About the Play on Stage..................................................9
discussion and selected reading list. Other materials have been
written or compiled by James Kolb. Notable Lines ...................................................................16

About the Play in Other Forms .....................................17

Questions for Discussion ..............................................20

A Selected Reading List.................................................20

HOFSTRA/DRAMA
Department of Drama and Dance Hofstra University’s
Hofstra University (516) 463-5444 50th Annual Shakespeare Festival...............................21
 ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

Because Shakespeare is acknowledged to be the

greatest dramatist and poet in the English language, a natural
and burning curiosity has fired critics, scholars, and artists
from the time of his death to the present day. The complete
facts of his life have eluded them all because actors and
playwrights of that age were not held in high esteem, and the
writing of letters and the keeping of journals were not common
practice.
What can be pieced together of that life has been
arrived at by painstaking detective work and educated guesses.
The sources of information are scanty at best, mostly drawn
from four areas: l) documents and records of the period, such
as birth and marriage certificates, deeds, legal depositions, and
account books; 2) traditions, anecdotes, and recollections
passed down through the years, some of very dubious validity;
3) literary references by other authors; and finally 4)
conclusions that might be drawn from Shakespeare’s writings
themselves.
We can be relatively sure that Shakespeare was born
about three days before his April 26, 1564, baptism to John
Shakespeare and Mary Arden Shakespeare in Stratford-on-
Avon, a market town of about 2,000 people in Warwickshire.
We know that the playwright was the third child after two
daughters died in infancy and that five more children followed.
John Shakespeare was a wool dealer and glovemaker in
Stratford who became a prominent borough official and civic
leader until about 1577, when he exp erienced financial
difficulties and dropped out of public life.
Title page of the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s plays with
There is no secure information about Shakespeare’s
the famous Martin Droeshout engraving, 1623.
schooling—a sore point with many snobbish critics who
cannot conceive of a person who has not gone to college
writing as elegantly and knowledgeably as Shakespeare did. It In 1592, however, in a dying warning to fellow
is assumed that he went through the Stratford grammar school playwrights, Robert Greene attacked Shakespeare as “an up-
from the age of six until his sixteenth year. Days were long at start crow” and firmly established him as the successful author
school, from five or six o’clock in the morning until five in the of the three history plays, Henry VI, Parts One, Two, and
evening, six days a week. Latin and Greek were certainly taught, Three. By then it was assumed that Shakespeare had already
and there Shakespeare must have come into early contact with also written and had seen productions of The Comedy of
the Roman plays of Seneca, Plautus, and Terence which found Errors, Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two
their way into his own works as did the poetry of Ovid, Virgil, Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and the bloody
and Horace and the histories of Caesar and Livy. By any but popular tragedy of Titus Andronicus.
contemporaneous or modern estimation, Shakespeare must Between 1592 and 1594 the theatres were closed on
have been an educated man. As Dryden observed, “He was account of plague, and Shakespeare turned to poetry, com-
naturally learned; he needed not the spectacle of Books to read posing Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and probably
Nature; he looked inwards and found her there.” the 154 sonnets.
The first real concrete record of Shakespeare’s ac- When the theatres reopened, Shakespeare had be-
tivities does not surface until 1582 when he was 18, at which come a stockholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, so called
time a marriage license was issued to him and Anne Hathaway, because it was under the patronage of England’s Lord
a woman eight years his senior from a tiny neighboring village. Chamberlain. It was one of London’s two major theatre
Five months after they were married, their first child Susannah companies. Four years later the theatre moved to the other side
was born, followed in 1585 by the birth of twins, Hamnet who of the Thames and opened the Globe, where ultimately most of
died at the age of eleven, and Judith who died in 1662, eight the great tragedies were presented.
years before the death of Shakespeare’s last descendant. During the period 1594 to 1600, with the production of
Seven years after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo
name occurs in connection with the first of his plays produced and Juliet, as well as the two parts of Henry IV, among others,
in London. It is reckoned that he left Stratford around 1587, but the theatre company prospered and Shakespeare became a man
what he did in those years is pure conjecture. Some legends of means. He lived in a fine home in London and purchased the
say he was a schoolmaster; others claim he got into an largest house in Stratford. He was granted a coat of arms
altercation with a local squire for poaching deer and had to flee; acknowledging him as a “gentleman,” an honor coveted but
still others maintain that he went off to join a touring company never achieved by his father because of money problems.
of players. We shall never know. By the turn of the century Shakespeare had written his
major romantic comedies: As You Like It, Much Ado About
Nothing, and Twelfth Night; and with the accession of James
2
to the English throne after the death of Elizabeth in 1603, the 3) The Mature Years (about 1600-1607). During this
Lord Chamberlain’s Men were taken under the monarch’s wing, period Shakespeare produced his greatest work: Hamlet, King
calling themselves thereafter the King’s Men. Many of the Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and such comedies as Twelfth Night
plays were then performed at Court, and in 1608 the company and Measure for Measure.
was able to open a second theatre, the Blackfriars, indoors and 4) The Late Period (about 1608-1613). This era is
mainly for the upper classes, which allowed Shakespeare to marked by the playwright's concern with more mystical matters
turn to more subtle themes and pastoral romances, including often set in pastoral surroundings. The difficult plays of this
Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. group include Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The
Shakespeare’s reputation as a fashionable writer by Tempest.
then, however, was perhaps beginning to wane, or he lost en- According to Shakespearean scholar G.B. Harrison,
thusiasm for the bustle of London life. In 1611 he retired to the complete list of the plays with their approximate dates is as
Stratford returning pen to paper only to compose Henry VIII, a follows:
pageant, which by stage accident occasioned the burning of
the Globe in 1613 at its premiere performance. He is also 1591
reputed to have collaborated in the writing of a minor play titled Henry VI, Parts One, Two, and Three
Two Noble Kinsmen—to be presented by Hofstra, fall 1999. Richard III
Apparently he died on his birthday in 1616, some say Titus Andronicus
as the result of contracting a “fever” after drinking with some Love’s Labour’s Lost
of his playwright friends. His grave is marked by a stern and The Two Gentlemen of Verona
ominous warning, supposedly composed by the Bard himself, The Comedy of Errors
adding to the mystery surrounding his life but perhaps merely The Taming of the Shrew
posted to keep his remains from being moved as was often 1594
done: Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Good frends for Iesus (Jesus’) sake forbeare Richard II
To dig the dust encloased heare! King John
Blest be ye (the) man yt (that) spares thes stones, The Merchant of Venice
And curst be he yt moves my bones. 1597
Henry IV, Parts One and Two
Much Ado About Nothing
Merry Wives of Windsor
As You Like It
Julius Caesar
Henry V
Troilus and Cressida
1601
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
Measure for Measure
All’s Well That Ends Well
Othello
1606
King Lear
Macbeth
Timon of Athens
Antony and Cleopatra
An elaborate version of Shakespeare’s coat of arms.
Coriolanus
The motto means “Not Without Right.”
1609
Pericles
1611
SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS
Cymbeline
It is generally acknowledged that Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale
writing for the theatre falls largely into four main periods: The Tempest
l) The Early Period (about 1590-1595). The plays that Henry VIII
fall into this group reflect Shakespeare's youthful vitality and
energy, both in conception and verse. Plays from this period
include Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming
of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Richard III.
2) The Middle Period (about 1595-1600). The plays
emanating from this time betray a developing dark attitude
about human nature, even cynicism at times. This is
characterized by Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of
Venice, Julius Caesar, and Troilus and Cressida.

3
 forces in a play—Montagues and Capulets, French and English
armies, or rebels and loyalists. The rest of the play was
performed on a large square or rectangular (we cannot be sure)
area which extended out into the audience, surrounded on
three sides by the spectators.
Usually stage directions in many of the texts were
added later by the editors, but an early edition of Romeo and
Juliet gives us some clues about the theatres. After Juliet
drinks the potion, the script indicates, “She falls upon her bed
within the curtains,” and then one assumes they are closed.
After discovering and lamenting Juliet’s supposed death,
“They all but the Nurse go forth, casting rosemary on her and
shutting the curtains.” Suggestions such as these are all that
historians have to go on in determining how the plays were
staged.
It is thought that the architecture of the playhouses
was developed from touring companies who set up and per-
formed at innyards against one wall of the building. Audiences
could stand at ground level or watch from balconies and
galleries on three sides. These galleries found their way into
the structure of theatres built for the purpose of productions.

A drawing of the Swan theatre by Johannes de Witt, now in the

university library at Utrecht, Holland

SHAKESPEARE’S THEATRE

With our contemporary exposure to modern theatre,

television, and film, with their capacity for reproducing every-
day reality so precisely and astounding us with amazing special
effects, it is perhaps difficult to envision the kind of
productions and the quality of imagination that Elizabethan
audiences experienced when they attended a performance of
Macbeth.
Our information about the playhouses of that time is
very sketchy, derived as it is from one or two drawings, scanty
stage directions, a few building specifications, contracts, and
prop lists. It is clear, though, that the major plays were Enlarged detail of the Globe playhouse on the south
presented out of doors in open theatres in daylight. When bank of the Thames from a map of London published
nighttime scenes were called for, a few words sufficed to set about 1625
the hour and the mood. Locations were also clarified by the
actors’ speeches. We can, therefore, assume that only the Behind the stage was the “tiring” area (coming from
barest, most essential pieces of furniture and scenery were the word “attiring”) where the actors could change costumes
set—a chair, a bush, or a throne. The plays were done without (they played more than one role because the companies were
intermission—many of the audience members stood small, the casts large), where props were stored (many plays
throughout—and, therefore, the production had to move were kept in the repertory during the season and the life of the
quickly from scene to scene in an almost cinematic way in order theatre), and from where music and special effects might
to achieve, as the Chorus in Romeo and Juliet calls for, “the emanate (it was a cannon explosion which started the fire that
two hours’ traffic of our stage.” destroyed the Globe Theatre in 1613).
To accommodate tombs, beds, and balconies and to The stage itself was pitted with several openings (or
allow “dead bodies” to exit without being carried off, some traps) from which ghosts could emerge, in which graves could
device was needed to permit them to be hidden or to give them be “dug,” or characters descend. One critic suggests that the
some elevation from the stage level. It is therefore conjectured witches in their first meeting with Macbeth “vanish” through
that there was a curtained area somewhere on the back wall of such a trap, and the apparitions in Act IV, Scene 1, appear and
the stage area, both on the platform level and above it. Since exit through a trap. Later in the development of the company
actors often had to traverse the playing area from one side to Shakespeare worked for, an indoor theatre, the Blackfriars, was
the other, it is likely that there were entranceways or doors on purchased. This catered to a more elite clientele, permitted
either side of the stage which also served to clarify opposing performances in all sorts of weather, perhaps allowed some
rudimentary lighting effects, but, above all, acoustically gave
4
Shakespeare the opportunity to write more subtle dialogue with Shakespeare wrote for the company of actors who
more complex imagery and ideas than the direct, open, heroic made up the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later the King’s Men.
speeches required by playing out of doors. Heroic roles were fashioned around the talents of their leading
actor, Richard Burbage. As he grew older, the roles conceived
for him also matured so that early in his career Burbage played
Romeo and Hamlet, then later he assayed King Lear, Macbeth,
and Othello. Will Kemp played the lower, broader, comic roles
like Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. He apparently
broke off with the theatre and was replaced by the more
ethereal singer and dancer, Robert Armin. For him Shakespeare
conceived a totally different sort of comic role more appropriate
to his talents and temperament. He played Feste in Twelfth
Night, Touchstone in As You Like It, the Drunken Porter in
Macbeth, and perhaps the Fool in King Lear.
The women in Shakespeare’s plays were all played by
boys, and they must have developed great acting skills to
portray such complex personalities as Juliet, Lady Macbeth,
and Cleopatra. Their careers, however, were short-lived since it
would have stretched believability too far to have kept them in
such parts after their voices had changed in about their
fourteenth year.
Shakespeare himself acted in the company, his most
famous role being that of the Ghost in Hamlet, but his influence
as a shareholder was obviously due to the enormous
The Second Blackfriars theatre as reconstructed by popularity of the plays he supplied rather than from his
Irwin Smith in Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse: distinction as a performer. Tradition holds that Shakespeare
Its History and Design. (New York: New York Uni- played the role of Adam in As You Like It. It is thought by
versity Press, 1964). some critics that he may have performed the role of Duncan in
Macbeth.
The act and scene divisions in the plays were later The demise of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre
textual additions, but an audience usually knew when a major occurred when violence, sex, and spectacle were substituted
section had ended by the rh ymed couplet which summarized or for an identifiable humanity in the plays, and sentimentality
rounded out a series of dramatic events. For example, in Act V replaced true feeling. The acting quality no doubt also dete-
the forces led by Albany and Edmund are about to engage the riorated when companies of children became fashionable; and
army led by Cordelia. As Albany exits, Edmund ends the scene the death knell of the most vital theatre in world history
with a sneer at Albany and Albany’s intention of being sounded when the Puritans took over the State and closed the
merciful to Cordelia and Lear after the battle: theatres in 1642.
As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia, A SUMMARY OF THE STORY
The battle done, and they within our power, Old and weary of ruling, Lear decides to divide his
Shall never see his pardon; for my state kingdom among his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and
Stands on me to defend, not to debate. Cordelia. The first two are hypocritically eloquent in expressing
As Steven Urkowitz has pointed out, in their devotion before the assembled court. Cordelia, however,
Shakespeare’s Revision of King Lear, the rhymed couplet is refuses to flatter her father, and Lear mistakes her honesty for
used frequently to heighten tension and to undermine audience lack of affection. Angered at what he considers her ingratitude,
expectation. Often a scene seems to be coming to an end, or a he renounces her and divides Britain between Goneril and
character appears about to exit, when someone else interrupts Regan. The faithful Earl of Kent is banished for coming to
or delays that action. For example, in Act I, scene 1, Cordelia Cordelia’s defense. Despite these events, the King of France
chastises her sisters as she prepares to leave the stage with the takes the disgraced daughter as his Queen.
King of France: By agreement, Lear retains his title and a retinue of
I know what you are, one hundred knights. He plans on spending alternate months
And like a sister am most loath to call with Goneril and Regan, but the two soon conspire to humiliate
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father: and degrade him, first reducing his entourage and finally
To your professed bosoms I commit him, driving him away, penniless and lacking shelter even for
But yet alas, stood I within his grace, himself.
I would prefer him to a better place; Lear is left with only two followers, the Fool from his
So farewell to you both. court and Kent, who has returned in disguise to serve him.
Seeking refuge from a terrible storm in a hovel on a desolate
But before Cordelia is able to exit, Regan and Goneril plain, they come upon Edgar, the son of the Earl of Gloucester.
both respond, with Goneril employing another rhymed couplet, Edgar too has been forced to flee by the treachery of his half-
and that is followed by more exit lines and another rhymed brother, Edmund. Disguised as a madman, he goes
couplet by Cordelia before she actually leaves the stage. unrecognized by the now unbalanced monarch.

5
 Gloucester offers to help his destitute king, but his Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen was yet another
kindness is reported by Edmund as treason and, as source. In Book II Spenser tells of the reign of King Leyr and
punishment, Regan’s husband blinds the old man. In doing so, his three daughters, Gonorill, Regan, and Cordeill, the love-test,
however, he is himself set upon by a servant and fatally and the marriages of the daughters. In this version Cordeill
wounded. Edgar, the disowned son, finds and cares for his leads the army herself that rescues Leyr and restores him to the
father, who has been set to wander on the moors. Cordelia, throne. Again, she reigns after her father’s death until she is
learning of her father’s plight, persuades her husband to send challenged by her nephews, and is imprisoned where she
troops to England. Reunited with Lear, she tries to restore his hangs herself.
mind and health, but the French army is defeated by English Another major source for Shakespeare was an
troops under Edmund’s command. Both Lear and Cordelia are anonymous play, The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir,
taken prisoner. Goneril, jealous of Regan’s advances to probably performed in 1594, though most likely as a revival,
Edmund, poisons her sister but her husband’s discovery of her being written even earlier. The play was published in 1605. The
treachery leads her to commit suicide. Edmund is killed in story follows lines very similar to those of the other sources
combat with Edgar. It is too late to countermand his last order, already mentioned but concludes with the reconciliation
which was to hang Cordelia and, overcome by this final between Leir and Cordella and the restoration of Leir to the
calamity, Lear dies. throne. The later story of Cordella’s reign and demise is
Quoted from Stratford Festival of Canada program ignored.

THE SOURCES OF THE STORY

Shakespeare’s genius did not usually extend to the
invention of new material to accompany his rich characteri-
zations and relationships, his clearly devised and exciting plot
and structure, and his soaring poetry. He drew his ideas from
Roman, Greek, and English history and mythology, other plays,
and translations of continental novellas. Often he combined
different tales into a new creation, and this was very much the
case with King Lear.
As Geoffrey Bullough has pointed out, though the
legend of King Lear may derive from Celtic legend, the story
also follows a well-established fairy-tale, or folk-lore pattern
which includes “filial ingratitude, the contrast between good
and bad children’s treatment of aged parents,” and the use of a
“love-test” to determine a child’s true love for a parent. In
Title page, The True Chronicle Title page, Sidney’s The Countess
addition to the numerous occurrences of elements of the story Historie of King Leir, 1605 of Pembrokes Arcadia , 1590
in fairy tales, Bullough identifies six sources with which
Shakespeare would have been familiar, as well as five other None of these sources has any of the sub-plot in King
possible or probable sources. Lear, involving Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar and
It is clear that Shakespeare knew Holinshed’s The Edmund. For this story, Shakespeare borrowed from Book II of
Historie of England since he made extensive use of it when he Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia in
wrote his history plays. The second book of Holinshed which the King of Paphlagonia is deprived of his kingdom “by
contains the story of “Leir . . . ruler over the Britaines” and of the hard-harted ungratefulnes of a sonne of his, deprived , not
his three daughters “Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla, which onely of his kingdome . . . but of his sight.” The king’s
daughters he greatly loved, but specially Cordeilla the ungrateful son is illegitimate; the loyal, legitimate son leads the
youngest farre above the two elder.” Holinshed describes a blinded father and prevents his father from his desire to leap off
“love trial” and Leir’s repudiation of Cordeilla. Later the a cliff in his despair. Ultimately the legitimate son prevails
mistreatment of Leir by Gonorilla, Regan, and their husbands against his bastard brother and is crowned king by his father
causes Leir to flee to France where he seeks aid from Cordeilla, who then dies of a broken heart.
“whom before time he hated.” Cordeilla and her husband lead Yet another source, A Declaration of Egregious
an army into Britain and restore Leir to the throne. Upon his Popish Impostures by Samuel Harsnett—an attack on Catholic
death, Cordeilla rules as Queen, but five years later becomes belief in possession and in exorcising demons— probably gave
embroiled in civil war with her nephews, is imprisoned, and, Shakespeare ideas about the genuine madness of Lear and the
despairing rescue, kills herself. feigned madness of Edgar, disguised as “Poor Tom.”
Another certain source seems to be The Mirror for Other possible or probable sources may include
Magistrates by John Higgins in which is related the story of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of England,
Leire and his three daughters, Gonerell, Ragan, and Cordilla or William Warner’s Albion’s England, William Harrison’s An
Cordell. The tale is narrated by Cordell and includes a Historical Description of the Iland of Britaine, and William
description of the love-test, the marriages of Gonerell to the Camden’s Remaines Concerning Britain.
“king of Albany,” and Ragan to the “Prince of Camber and Bullough also lists an interesting possible historical
Cornwall.” Again, as in Holinshed, Cordell marries the King of source, dating from 1603. Brian Annesley, “an old servant of
France, leads an army, and restores her father to the throne. Queen Elizabeth” had three daughters, one of whom sought to
Later she reigns as Queen until she quarrels with her nephews have him declared insane. She was opposed by Annesley’s
who imprison her. youngest, and unmarried daughter, Cordell. She succeeded in

6
keeping her father from being declared insane, and when he variants between Q[uarto] and F[olio] that require choices for a
died she inherited most of his estate. modernised text.”
From this survey, it seems clear that Shakespeare was Once thought to be a pirated text, since the early
indeed at the height of his powers when he wrote King Lear 1980s the Quarto has generally been accepted as an earlier
considering the ways in which he mixed and blended a large version of the play; most probably derived from Shakespeare’s
variety of sources to achieve his version of the story. Unlike own working draft, usually referred to as “foul papers”—so
his sources, Shakespeare seems to have perceived a tragedy at called because the manuscript was probably “messy” with text
the core of this old story, or an adult fairy tale, in which no one possibly crossed out, with words inserted and with text added
lives happily every after. It is interesting to consider that the in the margins. The Folio, in contrast, is believed to derive from
story of King Lear usually ended happily for centuries before the printed Quarto of the play—but a Quarto that has been
Shakespeare’s tragic version, and that the happy ending was amended to reflect the actual playing version of the work,
even added to Shakespeare’s own version between 1681 and based on the official promptbook. In other words, the Quarto
1838. represents Shakespeare’s unrevised, or partially revised,
thoughts on the play, while the Folio reflects his final revision
THE DATE OF COMPOSITION of the work. Steven Urkowitz was especially influential in
The earliest reference to Shakespeare’s version of proposing this theory in his work, Shakespeare’s Revision of
King Lear is made in the Stationer’s Register of November King Lear. As Urkowitz writes in summary: “Except for only a
1607, where the play—intended for publication—is described very few variants that are obviously the result of errors in
as having been performed before the king at the previous copying or printing, the vast majority of the changes found in
Christmas season of 1606. Jay Halio, a recent editor of the text, the Folio must be accepted as Shakespeare’s final decisions.
assumes that the play was probably performed earlier than that The modern practice of printing a composite text eclectically
date at the Globe. chosen from the Quarto and Folio seriously distorts
Since most commentators believe that Shakespeare Shakespeare’s most profound play.”
made considerable use of A Declaration of Egregious Popish In 1986 Oxford University Press published The
Impostures by Samuel Harsnett, which was published in March Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells and
1603, the play must have been written sometime between 1603 Gary Taylor, and included both texts of the play as separate
and 1606. works—The History of King Lear: The Quarto Text and The
Some editors see significance in Gloucester’s mention Tragedy of King Lear: The Folio Text. In 1989 the University of
of “These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good California Press published Michael Warren’s photo-facsimile
to us” (I.2.103-104), and relate the line to actual eclipses of the arrangement of the Quarto and Folio texts in parallel columns.
moon in September 1605 and of the sun in October 1605, but In 1992 and 1994 Cambridge University Press followed with
others discount the importance of these, noting that there were individual editions of the Folio and Quarto texts, both edited by
several other eclipses in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Another of Jay Halio.
Shakespeare’s sources, The True Chronicle Historie of King
Leir was published sometime after May 1605, and there is
debate as to whether the publication of this old play was
occasioned by the appearance of Shakespeare’s version on the
stage or if Shakespeare was inspired to write his version as a
result of this publication.
Generally, it is believed that Shakespeare began the
play sometime in the spring of 1605, completing it by that fall. A portion of the title page to the Quarto, in which
King Lear is described as a history.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS WITH
THE TEXT OF KING LEAR
King Lear exists in two distinct versions, both of
which are believed to reflect the work of Shakespeare.
Published first in a Quarto version in 1608, the play was later
reprinted in Quarto in 1619 with some revisions and
corrections. In 1623, a significantly different version of the play A portion of the title page to the Folio , in which
was published in the First Folio, a collection of 36 plays by King Lear is described as a tragedy.
Shakespeare (Pericles was not included in the First Folio).
Until 1986, it was virtually impossible for the ordinary
reader to realize that King Lear actually existed in two distinct
versions, since every published edition involved an editorial A FEW CRITICAL COMMENTS
conflation—or mixture—of both versions in order to assure
“For me the Fool remains one of the most intriguing
that every line of Shakespeare’s was retained. The Folio
characters Shakespeare wrote, elusive and difficult to read on
actually cuts 300 lines that are found in the Quarto text, and
the printed page, but often very effective in performance. In
adds about 100 lines. The Folio cuts include an entire scene in
some ways you could describe the writing as half-finished, a
which the mad Lear puts his daughters on trial (III.6.17-55); that
sketch; for the actor this is challenging and also flattering
is to say, this scene appears in the Quarto version but simply
because Shakespeare is allowing us to fill in the missing
does not in the Folio. Beyond the cuts and additions of lines,
spaces. However, as often happens in the theatre, we tend to
editor Jay Halio, has identified “nearly 1,500 substantive
focus too obsessively on our own role; in the end it is Lear’s

7
play, Lear’s story, and seen in that context the Fool’s We know so much more about schizophrenia than they did in
disappearance is not difficult to explain at all - he has simply Shakespeare’s time, yet psychologists have told me that
been absorbed by Lear, replaced by his madness, digested as Shakespeare seems to be delineating a casebook schizophrenic,
fodder for his new perception of the world. For me one of the particularly in the beginning of the Dover scene. There is also a
most moving moments in the play is when the mad Lear meets vast amount of animal imagery in the play, which seems to say
the blind Gloucester and comments to him, ‘When we are born, that the underlying nature of human beings is that of the worst
we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools.’ Lear’s of jungle animals. Throughout, Shakespeare conducts a
journey through the play is a terrible and traumatic one, but detailed investigation into, and a searching assessment of,
before he dies he has learned compassion, humility, gentleness. what man’s relationship to man should be. Finally, the play is
Although no longer present to witness this transformation, the concerned with man’s confrontation with the end of his life.
Fool would definitely have approved; of that I am sure.” Edgar says in his last line to Gloucester ‘Men must endure their
—Antony Sher going hence, even as their coming hither’.
“Lear has to endure more, it seems, than Job.”
—Tony Church

“The theme of King Lear is the decay and fall of the world.
The play opens like the Histories, with the division of the realm
and the king’s abdication. It also ends like the Histories, with
the proclamation of a new king. Between the prologue and the
epilogue there is a civil war. But unlike the Histories and
Tragedies, in King Lear the world is not healed again. In King
Lear there is no young and resolute Fortinbras to ascend the
throne of Denmark; no cool-headed Octavius to become
Augustus Caesar; no noble Malcolm to “give to our tables
meat, sleep to our nights.” In the epilogues to the Histories and
Tragedies the new monarch invites those present to his
coronation. In King Lear there will be no coronation. There is
no one whom Edgar can invite to it. Everybody has died or
been murdered. Gloucester was right when he said: ‘This great
world / Shall so wear out to naught.’ Those who have
survived—Edgar, Albany and Kent—are, as Lear has been,
Antony Sher as the Fool and Michael Gambon as Lear, just ‘ruin’d piece[s] of nature’.”
Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982. Directed by Adrian Noble. —Jan Kott

“So King Lear is not just a play about a foolish king.

It is about a king who loses his palace, his crown and his robes
and finds himself an unsheltered mortal. It is also about a man
without his dignity, lurking in hovels, without authority,
without reason. We all live in societies that depend upon our
belief in them and the belief of others. Without that belief they
afford no shelter. I think Shakespeare, in his greatest years, was
much preoccupied with that theme. He wanted here to express
it unequivocally, if necessary cruelly. Sanity, dignity and love
depend upon a structure of belief which might even be a
structure of illusion. He shows us the rats gnawing at the holy
cords and the collapse of the structure which is like the end of
the world. In that situation we find ourselves naked, blind,
deprived of reason. We babble the dialects of privation. Our life
is as cheap as beasts. That is why King Lear is the cruelest Paul Scofield as King Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1962.
play.” Directed by Peter Brook. Production is often described as Beckett-like,
—Frank Kermode and influenced by Jan Kott’s essay on King Lear and Endgame.
“On the wide canvas of this play three persons stand
“This is a play on so many levels. It is about relationships out with more vivid life than the rest: Edmund, Lear, Cordelia.
between fathers and their children. Practically all the horrors They correspond to three periods in man's evolution—the
that occur within families occur here in enlarged or extreme primitive, the civilized, and the ideal.”
form. There is massive love, horror and jealousy, together with —G. Wilson Knight
emotional blackmail for all kinds. There is also a great deal of
social criticism about the way that things are ordered and the “From Henry Vl onward, Shakespeare never ceased to
hypocrisy of power as well as its injustice. It is also a study of be concerned with the problem of chaos, or, as we would be
the rise of Renaissance man, embodied in the person of more likely to say today, of disintegration. Sometimes it may be
Edmund, who cuts his way through the old world by climbing no more than a hint of chaos in an outburst of individual
up on the shoulders of everybody else. Other themes include passion or social disorder. Often it is chaos under its extreme
personal responsibility and the encounter of men and madness. aspects of insanity or war. Always the easy and obvious

8
remedy for chaos is force. But the best force can do is to You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave. (IV.7.45)
impose order, not to elicit harmony, and Shakespeare spurns I fear I am not in my perfect mind. (IV.7.63)
such a superficial and temporizing solution. ‘How with this
rage,’ he perpetually asks, No cause, no cause. (IV.3.75 )
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Ripeness is all. Come on.
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? And that’s true too. (V.2.11)
In play after play he pits some seemingly fragile representative Is this the promis’d end? (V.3.263)
of beauty against the forces of inertia and destruction: a dream, Her voice was ever soft,
the spirit of innocence or play, love, art—whether as poetry, Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman
drama, or music especially. Force and Imagination: they are the (V.3.272-3)
ultimate foes. Force or Imagination: that is the ultimate choice. Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
But always up to King Lear the conflict seemed to fall short of And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
finality. It remained for Shakespeare’s supreme play to oppose Never, never, never, never, never! (V.3.306-8)
physical force with imagination in its quintessential form of
metaphysical Vision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In King Lear, however, they mean everything. What the play
“In this, his version of The Last Judgment, means it means all of the time; which must be the last way now
Shakespeare has demonstrated that hatred and revenge are a of saying that it is not only wide but deep, not only pitiful but
plucking-out of the human imagination as fatal to man’s power huge.”
to find his way in the universe as Cornwall’s plucking out of —Mark Van Doren
Gloucester’s eyes was to the guidance of his body on earth.
The exhibition, in fearful detail, of this self-devouring process ABOUT THE PLAY ON THE STAGE
is what makes King Lear to many readers the most hopeless of
The first record of King Lear on the stage is of a
Shakespeare’s plays. But King Lear also exhibits and
performance at court in December 1606, presented by
demonstrates something else. It shows that there is a mode of
Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, for King James I. We
seeing as much higher than physical eyesight as physical
know of this performance because it is recorded as having
eyesight is than touch, an insight that bestows power to see
occurred in the Register of the Company of Stationers of
‘things invisible to mortal sight’ as certainly as Lear saw that
November 1607, indicating the intention to publish the play.
Cordelia lives after her death.”
The title page of the actual publication of the Quarto in 1608
—Harold C. Goddard
repeats the claim that it was publishing the play “As it was
played before the Kings Majestie at Whitehall upon/St.
“But the nature that dominates Lear is completely
Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes.” According to Jay
different from the friendly green worlds of the comedies. It is
Halio, the only other record of King Lear prior to the
harsh and violent, a dimension of cataclysms, of ugly,
Restoration is a production given by a provincial company in
deformed creatures whose entire existence seems to be devoted
Yorkshire in 1610. The fact that the text of King Lear
to poisoning or maiming life, and hideous animals and plants
underwent revision, suggests to Halio that the play may or may
that serve for loathsome but necessary food. Nature in Lear is
not have been popular, but that there were early attempts to
like that in Timon, predatory, cruel, and hostile to human life.
revive the play after its first production.
“To depict nature as hostile to human life, however, is
King Lear was one of just nine plays of Shakespeare
to suggest that humans are not part of nature, that they are a
initially selected by William Davenant at the start of the
transplant, a foreign body which the planet seeks to reject. The
Restoration theatre in 1660. Davenant promised that he would
two perceptions—that humans are intrinsically part of nature
“reform and make fitt” these plays for his acting company.
and that they are foreign to it—work throughout the play until
Records from the Restoration indicate that King Lear was
the reuniting of Lear and Cordelia. The two ideas do not clash
performed in 1664 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and in 1675 at Dorset
with each other: they coexist.”
Gardens. According to the memoirs of the stage prompter, John
—Marilyn French
Downes, in these performances the play was staged “as Mr.
Shakespeare wrote it; before it was alter’d by Mr. Tate.” It is
“Shakespeare, who spares us nothing in this play,
probable that the great Restoration actor, Thomas Betterton,
knows also how to let us have it all at once from time to time in
played Lear.
little speeches, in single pregnant lines that pierce us literally to
In 1681 Nahum Tate rewrote King Lear changing the
the heart. If the whole is as vast and shaggy as the cosmos is
ending back to the happy one that was traditionally found in
to fearful man, the parts are fitted in with wonderful refinement.
the versions and sources of the story that existed before
Nothing in all his work is more impressive than these two
Shakespeare wrote his play. In Tate’s version Cordelia and
extremes of skill. Line after line carries in its apparently frail
Edgar fall in love, and at the end of the play Lear turns the
body the immense burden of the whole. Such lines—or they
kingdom over to them. Lear, Kent, and Gloster “retir’d to some
may be less than lines—come everywhere, but naturally they
cool Cell” plan to pass their remaining time “In calm Reflections
thicken towards the close. Then they imply so much that their
on our Fortunes past.” Tate also completely eliminated the role
context cannot be suggested short of a reference to all that has
of the Fool and added Arante, a confidante for Cordelia.
happened. In themselves they are of the utmost simplicity, and
According to Sandra Clark, the Fool was not restored to the
seem to mean nothing:
text until 1838 when it was “played by a pretty young woman.”
I stumbled when I saw. (IV.1.21) King Lear was hardly the only play of Shakespeare’s
to undergo adaptation or to be “regularised” in the Restoration.
Too well, too well. (IV.6.66)
Adaptations were also made of The Taming of the Shrew as

9
Sauny the Scot, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra as All for
Love, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet as Caius Marius.
These adaptations often simplified Shakespeare’s language
and sought to clarify the more complex plots of the originals.
They also addressed the sensibility of the age and alluded to
the politics of the time. In some cases little of the original play
remained.

William Charles Macready as Lear,

and Helen Faucit as Cordelia, Covent Garden, c.1840 .

Finally, in 1838, William Charles Macready restored

most of Shakespeare’s original play, including the Fool and
eliminated the Edgar/Cordelia love affair—though the play was
David Garrick as King Lear on the heath in the storm, c. 1756.
cut significantly. A further restoration of cuts was made by
Samuel Phelps in his production of 1845.
In 1756 David Garrick made some adjustments to the All of the great actors of the 18th and 19th centuries
Nahum Tate adaptation, restoring some of Shakespeare’s lines essayed the role of Lear, though often in the “happy ending”
but continued to omit the fool, retain the happy ending, and the version by Nahum Tate. Memorable Lears included Thomas
love affair between Edgar and Cordelia. In the mid-18th century Betterton, James Quin, David Garrick, Edmund Kean, William
Spranger Barry also performed Lear, competing with Garrick. Charles Macready, and Henry Irving. Mrs. Cibber and Ellen
Barry’s Cordelia was Mrs. Cibber. Terry were memorable Cordelias.

Mrs. Cibber as Cordelia in Nahum Tate’s version of the play. With her
maid, Arante, she is in the process of being rescued from Edmund’s men
by Edgar. A romance between Edgar and Cordelia ensues, c. 1756. Henry Irving as King Lear. Drawing from 1892.
In 1768 George Colman the Elder further altered King
Lear by eliminating the love between Edgar and Cordelia. But,
as O’Dell describes it, Colman “retains Tate’s happy
catastrophe” of an ending. Edmund Kean performed Lear with
additional modifications made by Robert Elliston to the Nahum
Tate adaptation in 1820, including the restoration of
Shakespeare’s language in the storm scene of Act III and in the
recognition scene between Lear and Cordelia in Act V. In 1823
Elliston made further revisions for Kean including the
restoration of the tragic ending, though the love affair between
Cordelia and Edgar was kept.

10
 Ellen Terry as Cordelia, Lyceum Theatre, c. 1890-92.

According to William Winter, the first American Lear

was a Mr. Malone who performed the role at the Theatre in
Nassau Street, New York City, in 1754. Later American Lears
included Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, E.L. Davenport,
Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough, and virtually every other
actor of any distinction!

Set for King Lear, Berlin, 1908. Directed by Max Reinhardt.

Edwin Forrest as Lear Edwin Booth as Lear

Actor, playwright, scholar, and stage director, Harley Granville-Barker

wrote a remarkable set of essays on staging Shakespeare. In 1940, he
assisted John Gielgud in Gielgud’s second production of King Lear. Alexander Moissi as the Fool and Albert Bassermann as Lear,
Berlin, 1908. Directed by Max Reinhardt.
As Harley Granville-Barker has noted, many critics,
including Charles Lamb and A.C. Bradley have considered Lear
“impossible to be represented on a stage,” but Granville-Barker
refuted that notion with the assertion that “Shakespeare meant
it to be acted,” and, of course, the number of great actors who
have essayed the role attests to Granville-Barker’s assertion.

Randle Ayrton as Lear in an Expressionist staging of the play designed

and directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1936.

11
 Anthony Nicholls as Kent, Charles Laughton as Lear,
Ian Holm as the Fool, and Albert Finney as Edgar,
Donald Wolfit as Lear, c. 1944. A famous Lear between the wars, Wolfit
Royal Shakespeare Company, 1959.
served as the model for “Sir” in Ronald Harwood’s play, The Dresser.
Directed by Glen Byam Shaw.

Paul Scofield as Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1962.

Directed by Peter Brook.

Laurence Olivier as Lear, Old Vic, 1946

Peggy Ashcroft as Cordelia, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1950.

12
Diana Rigg as Cordelia, Irene Worth as Goneril, and Patience Collier as
Regan, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1962. Directed by Peter Brook.

Kent placed in the stocks.

Richard Briers as Lear and Emma Thompson as the Fool, 1990.

Jonathan Hyde as Edgar, David Waller as Gloucester, Michael Gambon as

Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982. Directed by Adrian Noble.

Brian Cox as Lear and David Bradley as the Fool, Royal National
Theatre of Great Britain, 1990. Directed by Deborah Warner.

13
 John Gielgud as Lear, Old Vic, 1931. Directed by Harcourt Williams.

Linda Kerr Scott as the Fool and John Wood as Lear,

Royal Shakespeare Company, 1990. Directed by Nicholas Hytner.

John Gielgud as Lear, Old Vic, 1940.

Directed by Lewis Casson and Harley Granville-Barker.

Robert Stephens, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1993.

Directed by Adrian Noble.

In the 20th century, the role and the play has

continued to be a kind of Mount Everest for major
Shakespearean actors and directors. Michael Redgrave, John
Gielgud, Charles Laughton, Paul Scofield, Laurence Olivier,
Donald Wolfit, Eric Porter, Tony Church, Robert Stephens,
Donald Sinden, Michael Gambon, Michael Hordern, Anthony
Hopkins, Brian Cox, John Wood, and Ian Holm have all played
the role on the English stage—several on more than one
occasion. John Gielgud performed the role four times between
1931 and 1955, and then, for a fifth time in 1994, performed it in
a BBC radio broadcast, at the age of 90! John Gielgud as Lear with Alan Badel as the Fool, Stratford-upon-Avon,
1950. Directed by John Gielgud and Anthony Quayle.
JOHN GIELGUD
“EVERY INCH A KING”
ON FOUR OCCASIONS
14
 Directed by David Gardner.

William Hutt as the Fool and Peter Ustinov as Lear,

John Gielgud as Lear and Claire Bloom Cordelia, Palace Theatre, 1955. Stratford, Canada, 1979. Directed by Robin Phillips.
Costumes were designed by Isamu Noguchi.
In Canada, Lears include John Colicos, Peter Ustinov,
Douglas Campbell, and William Hutt, who has played the role
four times, three of them at the Stratford Festival, and on
another occasion played the Fool to the Lear of Peter Ustinov.

William Hutt as Lear, Stratford, Canada, 1972.

Directed by David William.
John Colicos as Lear and Martha Henry as Cordelia. Stratford Canada,
1964. Directed by Michael Langham.

WILLIAM HUTT—FOUR KINGS AND A FOOL

William Hutt as Lear and John Ormerod as the Fool,

Stratford, Canada, 1988. Directed by Robin Phillips.

William Hutt as Lear, Canadian Players, 1961-62.

15
 Lester Rawlins as the Fool and Morris Carnovsky as Lear,
Stratford, Connecticut, 1963.
William Hutt as Lear, Stratford, Canada, 1996.
Directed by Richard Monette.
20th-century Cordelias have included Jessica Tandy,
Peggy Ashcroft, Claire Bloom, Zoë Caldwell, Diana Rigg, Anna
Notable American Lears have included Orson Welles,
Calder-Marshall, Cherie Lunghi, Alice Krige, Martha Henry,
Morris Carnovsky, who played the role three different times in
and Ruby Dee.
Stratford, Connecticut, James Earl Jones, Fritz Weaver, Hal
The Fool has been played by Alan Badel, Alec
Holbrook, and Ruth Maleczech, who performed Lear in a
Guinness, Ian Holm, Alec McCowen, David Suchet, William
gender-bending production of the play done by Mabou Mines.
Hutt, Edward Atienza, Nicholas Pennell, and Antony Sher.

Alec Guinness as the Fool, Old Vic, 1946

NOTABLE LINES
Orson Welles as Lear, City Center, New York City, 1956
(as cited in the Bantam edition of the play)
Nothing will come of nothing. (Lear I.1.90)

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,

Most choice, forsaken, and most loved, despised . . .
(France I.1..254 – 255)

Thou, Nature, art my goddess. (Edmund I.2.1)

Now, gods, stand up for bastards! (Edmund I.2.22)

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest. (Fool I.4.116–118)

16
Ingratitude, thou marble–hearted fiend . . . (Lear I.4.257) The worst is not
So long as we can say, “This is the worst.”
Hear, Nature, hear! Dear goddess, hear! (Edgar IV.1.27–28)
Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful! (Lear I.4.274–276) As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport. (Gloucester IV.1.36–37)
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! (Lear I.4.287–288) If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses,
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, It will come,
As full of grief as age, wretched in both. Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
(Lear II.4.274–275) Like monsters of the deep. (Albany IV..2.47–51)
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! This shows you are above,
(Lear III.2.1) You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! (Albany IV.2.79–81)
Singe my white head! And thou, all–shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world! (Lear III.2.6–7) Ay, every inch a king. (Lear IV.6.107)
Here I stand your slave, But to the girdle do the gods inherit;
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man. Beneath is all the fiends’. (Lear IV.6.126–127)
(Lear III.2.19–20)
There thou mightst behold the great image of authority; a
Let the great gods, dog’s obeyed in office. (Lear IV.6.157–159)
That keep this dreadful pother o’er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. (Lear III.2.49–51) When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. (Lear IV.6.182–183)
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning. (Lear III.2.59–60) I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire. (Lear IV.7.47–49)
The art of our necessities is strange,
And can make vile things precious. (Lear III.2.70–71) I fear I am not in my perfect mind. (Lear IV.7.64)

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, Men must endure

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Ripeness is all. (Edgar V.2.9 – 11)
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? (Lear III.4.28–32) and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—
O, I have ta’en Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out . . .
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; (Lear V.3.13–15)
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
(Lear III.4.32–34) The gods are just,. and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us. (Edgar 5.3.173–174)
Is man no more than this? (Lear III.4.101–102)
The wheel is come full circle. (Edmund V.3.177)
Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked
animal as thou art. (Lear III.4.105–107) Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
(Lear V.3.262)
’Tis a naughty night to swim in. (Fool III.4.109–110)
Kent. Is this the promised end?
Child Rowland to the dark tower came. (Edgar III.4.182) Edgar. Or image of that horror? (V.3.268–269)

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course. Her voice was ever soft,
(Gloucester III.7.57) Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
(Lear 5.3.277–278)
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. (Edgar IV.1.5–6) If Fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
One of them we behold. (Kent V.3.285 – 286)
World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, The wonder is he hath endured so long. (Kent V.3.322)
Life would not yield to age. (Edgar IV.1.10–12)

Full oft ’tis seen

Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. (Gloucester IV.1.19–21)

17
 1953. This version, which still may be found on video tape,
featured Orson Welles as Lear, Alan Badel as the Fool, Michael
MacLiammoir as Mad Tom, Arnold Moss as Kent, Beatrice
Straight as Goneril, Margaret Phillips as Regan, and Natasha
Parry as Cordelia. The sub-plot involving Gloucester, Edgar
and Edmund has been cut.
Much better known is Peter Brook’s film adaptation of
his famous stage production, starring Paul Scofield. The film
(1971) stresses Brook’s vision of bleakness and pessimism that
he finds in the play and was in part influenced by Brook’s
reading of Jan Kott’s essay on “King Lear or Endgame” in
Shakespeare Our Contemporary. The film featured Paul
Scofield as Lear, Jack MacGowran as the Fool, Irene Worth as
Goneril, Susan Engel as Regan, and Anne-lise Gabold as
Cordelia.
Just a year prior to Brook’s film, a Russian version of
King Lear was released, directed by Grigori Kozintsev. It also
Michael Gambon as Lear and Alice Krige as the dead Cordelia, was photographed in a bleak landscape but seemed to present
Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982. Directed by Adrian Noble. the story in a more optimistic way. Kozintzev’s Lear was Yuri
Yarvet and Valentina Shendrikova was Cordelia. Both Brook
ABOUT THE PLAY IN OTHER FORMS and Kozintsev emphasized the antiquity of the play, depicting
The works of Shakespeare have inspired numerous both costumes and settings that were rugged, perhaps from the
other artistic creations, including other plays, ballets, musicals, Middle Ages or earlier.
operas, and films. Romeo and Juliet exists as a memo rable In 1982 the BBC presented the play as part of its
ballet, as do A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of “Shakespeare Plays” television series. Directed by Jonathan
the Shrew, among others. The Boys From Syracuse, Kiss Me, Miller, it was costumed in Renaissance dress. The production
Kate, West Side Story, and Catch My Soul [Othello) have been featured Michael Hordern as Lear, Frank Middlemass as the
successful musical theatre adaptations from Shakespeare. Fool, Gilian Barge as Goneril, Penelope Wilton as Regan, and
Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette; Verdi’s Macbeth, Otello, and Brenda Blethyn as Cordelia.
Falstaff; Giannini’s Taming of the Shrew; Nicolai’s The Merry
Wives of Windsor; Thomas’ Hamlet; and Barber’s Antony and
Cleopatra are just a representative few of the hundreds of
operas inspired by Shakespeare’s plays. From early silent
treatments to Franco Zeffirelli’s wide-screen versions of Romeo
and Juliet and Hamlet, and the more recent films of Henry V
and Hamlet directed by Kenneth Branagh, many of
Shakespeare’s plays have been given film treatment, though
often in too literal or stiff a fashion for the big screen.
King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s most monumental
works, has both inspired and intimidated attempts at artistic
recreation. It is famous for being the opera that Giuseppe Verdi
long considered but never composed. Given his penchant for
storms, powerful villains, and touching duets for fathers and
daughters, one could well imagine such an opera from Verdi,
Yuri Yarvet and Valentina Shendrikova in Kozintsev’s film of King Lear.
but instead he composed three other Shakespearean operas, as
mentioned above.
In 1978 German composer, Aribert Reimann, did
compose an operatic King Lear for the renowned baritone,
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. According to Gary Schmidgall,
Reiman employed serial music techniques, including tone rows
and tone clusters, and both the text and his music tended to
emphasize the bleakness of Lear’s world. Schmidgall likens the
opera to the world of Samuel Beckett and to the famous, bleak
staging of King Lear by Peter Brook. Since the middle of the
19th century, more than 20 other composers have attempted
operas based on Lear, but none have succeeded. Other works,
inspired by King Lear, include an overture by Hector Berlioz
and incidental music by Dmitri Shostakovich, who also
composed music for the Russian film of King Lear, directed by
Kozintsev.
Numerous film and television versions of King Lear
have been realized, including a truncated version directed for
television by Peter Brook (the credit lists him as Peter Brach) in

18
 Michael Hordern as Lear in the BBC television production, 1982.
Directed by Jonathan Miller.

In 1983 Michael Elliott directed the play for television,

utilizing a kind of Stonehenge setting. This production featured
Edward Bond’s play, Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1983. Directed
Laurence Olivier as Lear, John Hurt as the Fool, Dorothy Tutin
by Barry Kyle. Bob Peck as Lear with his two “villainous” daughters,
as Goneril, Diana Rigg as Regan, and Anna Calder-Marshall as
renamed Fontanelle and Bodice, played by Jenny Agutter on the left and
Cordelia. Penelope Beaumont on the right.
Bard Productions presented a relatively uncut King
Lear in 1984 with Mike Kellan as King Lear, supported by an Filmmakers have also concocted other variations on
indifferent American cast. Thames Television released a the Lear plot, including A Thousand Acres (based on a novel
version of King Lear in 1988 with significant cuts, starring by Jane Smiley) and The Substance of Fire (based on a play by
Patrick McGee as Lear. In 1998 Masterpiece Theatre presented Jon Robin Baitz), both of which explore conflicts between a
a much more substantial version, starring Ian Holm as Lear. parent and his children. Akira Kurosawa translated the Lear
The play has also inspired other playwrights. Edward plot into samurai settings for his film, Ran. In literature, the
Bond has written a play, Lear, which uses Shakespeare’s play Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, adapted the play for his
as a springboard from which Bond explores the inhumanity of novella, A Lear of the Steppes.
man and the atrocities occasioned by war. Howard Barker has
taken a different tack and has written a play, Seven Lears, that
explores events prior to Shakespeare’s play, including an
exploration of the question of what happened to the mother of
Lear’s daughters. Ronald Harwood wrote his play, The Dresser,
inspired in part by the great touring actor of Lear, Donald
Wolfit.

Akira Kurosawa’s film, Ran

19
 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 8. How did the production make use of music to underline
Before Seeing the Play action?
1. When we first meet King Lear does he give any A SELECTED READING LIST
evidence of his later madness? About Shakespeare and His Plays

2. What do you think Shakespeare is suggesting about Chute, Marchette. Shakespeare of London. New York:
the nature of the relationship between parents and children in E.P. Dutton, 1949.
An easy-to-read absorbing biography.
this play?
Ribner, Irving. William Shakespeare: An Introduction to
3. King Lear has sometimes been described as an adult His Life, Times, and Theatre. Waltham,
fairy tale. How does the play follow that pattern? Massachusetts: Blaisdell Publishing Co., 1969.
An overview of Shakespeare. Very readable.
4. The word “Nothing” is used frequently in this play. Schoenbaum, Samuel. Shakespeare, the Globe and the
Can you identify some of the scenes in which the word is used World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
and why the word is significant? A richly illustrated look at Shakespeare’s times and
his plays taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library
5. Early in the play Lear asks “Who is it that can tell me traveling exhibit.
who I am?” (Act I, scene 4). Does King Lear acquire self-
knowledge as the play progresses? Does he acquire an answer About Shakespeare’s Theatre
to his question? Beckerman, Bernard. Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-
1609. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
6. What do you think of Shakespeare’s characterization of An informative account of the staging of
the women in the play: Goneril, Regan, Cordelia? Shakespeare’s plays in his time.
7. The ending of King Lear has been the subject of Hodges, Walter C. The Globe Restored. New York:
much debate. Is the ending pessimistic (“Howl, howl, howl, Coward-McCann, Inc., 1954.
A well illustrated and readable attempt to reconstruct
howl,” “Is this the promised end?”, “Never, never, never,
the Globe Theatre.
never, never.”) or is there room for optimism (“This feather
stirs, she lives,” “Do you see this? Look on her! Look, her
lips.”)? From a production point of view.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. 3rd ed.
8. Discuss the ways in which clothes reveal or disguise [The Arden Shakespeare, edited by R.A. Foakes).
various characters in the play. London and New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1997.
9. Flattery and truthfulness are juxtaposed in this play. [The New Cambridge Shakespeare, edited by Jay
Consider which characters are prone to flattery and which to Halio). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1992.
truthfulness. FOLIO TEXT ONLY.
Both editions contain fine and very extensive
After Seeing the Play introductory material, excellent topic and line notes.
Paperback editions. The Arden 3rd edition contains
1. Did the actors portray the characters on the stage the both Folio and Quarto versions, but distinguishes
way you imagined them when you read the play? How were they them in the text. The New Cambridge edition publishes
similar? How different? the Folio version only. A separate, 1996 edition
contains the Quarto.
2. With whom did your sympathies lie? Did those Leggatt, Alexander. Shakespeare in Performance: King
sympathies change? Lear. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP,
1991.
3. At what point were you most involved? At what point An excellent examination of the play as produced in
were you least involved? Why do you think this was so? four key stage productions (Gielgud/Granville -Barker,
Scofield/Brook, Ustinov/Phillips, Gambon/Sher/
4. Did you find the various disguisings and pretendings
Noble), two films (Kozintsev and Brook), and two
easy to follow?
television versions (Hordern/Miller and Olivier).
5. What did you find new or revealing in the play after Ray, Robert H. Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s
seeing the production that you did not get from a reading of the King Lear. New York: MLA, 1986.
text? Introductory material plus thirteen essays offering a
variety of approaches to teach the play.
6. How do you see the play in terms of what you see on Urkowitz, Steven. Shakespeare’s Revision of King Lear.
TV? Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.
An extraordinary examination of the differences between
7. How do you think these actors and this production the Quarto and Folio texts that both illustrates
dealt with the relationship between Lear and his daughters? Shakespeare’s revising hand, and also makes a case
How did this production treat the madness of Lear? How did it for his remarkable sense of the theatre.
present the ending and what meaning did the ending suggest to
you?

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 50 Years of
Shakespeare
1950-1999
1950 Julius Caesar 1975 Love’s Labour’s Lost
1951 Henry IV, Part I 1976 Much Ado About Nothing
1952 Twelfth Night 1977 Romeo and Juliet
1953 Macbeth 1978 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1954 Much Ado About Nothing 1979 The Winter’s Tale
1955 Othello 1980 Twelfth Night
1956 Richard III 1981 Macbeth
1957 As You Like It 1982 The Taming of the Shrew
1958 Hamlet 1983 As You Like It
1959 The Merry Wives of Windsor 1984 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1960 Romeo and Juliet 1985 The Tempest
1961 Love’s Labour’s Lost 1986 Romeo and Juliet
1962 The Tempest 1987 The Comedy of Errors
1963 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1988 Twelfth Night
1964 Julius Caesar 1989 The Merchant of Venice
1965 The Taming of the Shrew 1990 Othello
1966 Twelfth Night 1991 Hamlet
1967 Romeo and Juliet 1992 The Merry Wives of Windsor
1968 As You Like It 1993 Measure for Measure
1969 The Comedy of Errors and 1994 As You Like It
The Boys from Syracuse 1995 Macbeth
1970 Hamlet 1996 Pericles
1971 The Merry Wives of Windsor 1997 The Taming of the Shrew
1972 Richard III 1998 All’s Well That Ends Well
1973 Measure for Measure 1999 King Lear
1974 A Midsummer Night’s Dream

HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY’S
50th ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Hofstra University’s Annual Shakespeare Festival began in 1950 with a production of Julius Caesar. Over its 50-year
history the Festival has presented a varied selection of the plays of Shakespeare, lesser-known short plays from the period,
musicales, and scenes from Shakespeare’s plays performed by high school groups. 1999 marks the first time that King Lear has
been staged, representing one of 23 plays of the Shakespearean canon presented at the Festival.
Since 1951, the second year of the Festival, plays have been performed regularly on a 5/6 life-sized replica of the Globe
stage as reconstructed by John Cranford Adams, later assisted by Irwin Smith. Dr. Adams was President of Hofstra University from
1944 to 1964. The replica was built under the supervision of Donald H. Swinney, designer and technical director in the Department
of Drama. The Globe was erected each spring in the Calkins Gymnasium where the Festival was presented in its early years. Since
1958 the Festival has been held in the John Cranford Adams Playhouse. In most years the replica of the Globe has been used as the
setting for the Shakespeare Festival. On a number of occasions a different setting has been used, and that will be the case for this
year’s production of King Lear.

HOFSTRA/DRAMA
Hofstra University
Department of Drama and Dance

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