King Lear

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics grade: 2 (B) Martin Luther University (Anglistics) course: Shakespear's Plays language: English abstract: King Lear was first published in 1608 and is one of the numerous tragedieswritten by William Shakespeare. However it is not just any of his tragedies thetragedy of King Lear stands like a colossus at the centre of Shakespeare'sachievement as the grandest effort of imagination says Foakes who is the Editorof the Arden Edition (Foakes 1997 1). In its social range it encompasses a wholesociety from king to beggar and invites us to move in our imagination between aroyal palace and a hovel on a bare heath (Foakes 1997 1). Neverthelesscomplications have been kept to a minimum (Brown 2001 229) byShakespeare. Still this tragedy is as demanding as any of the others - in someways it is the most epic of them all (Brown 2001 229).Between all the commotion in the plot Lear's story is the one clear andindisputable element (Brown 2001 229). From the beginning to the end Lear'sstory is presented in stark and unavoidably physical terms (Brown 2001 231).The threefold dignity of a king an old man and a father isdishonored by the cruel ingratitude of his unnatural daughters; theold king who out of a foolish tenderness has given awayeverything is driven out into the world a homeless beggar; thechildish imbecility to which he was fast advancing changes into thewildest insanity and when he is rescued from the destitution towhich he was abandoned it is too late. (Bates 1906))In a way that was new to himself and almost unknown in the theatreof his time Shakespeare constantly drew attention to what his heroundergoes in body as well as in mind in his senses as well as in histhoughts and feelings achievements and relations with otherpeople. (Brown 2001 231)In this paper I am trying to follow Lear's state of mind and thou