Wurtele Thrust Stage / Feb 11 – Apr 2, 2017

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

STUDY GUIDE Inside

THE PLAYWRIGHT Comments About the Playwright • 3 A Selected Chronology of the Life and Times of William Shakespeare • 6

THE PLAY Synopsis, Characters and Setting • 9 Comments on Some of the Characters • 10 Responses to King Lear • 12 Sources of the Play • 15 Another Version of the story of King Lear • 17

CULTURAL CONTEXT The Language of the Play • 18 Edgar’s Demons • 19 Selected Glossary of Terms • 20

THE GUTHRIE PRODUCTION Notes from the Creative Team • 24 The Role of a Lifetime • 26

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Understanding • 28

This activity is made possible by The Guthrie Theater’s production the voters of Minnesota through is part of Shakespeare in American a Minnesota State Arts Board Communities, a program of the Operating Support grant, thanks to National Endowment for the Arts Play guides are made possible by a legislative appropriation from the in partnership with Arts Midwest. arts and cultural heritage fund.

Guthrie Theater Study Guide Copyright 2016

DRAMATURG Carla Steen GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves RESEARCH Belinda Westmaas Jones, Madeline Kvale, Carla Steen

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The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National Endowment production, education and professional training. By presenting both classical literature and for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State new work from diverse cultures, the Guthrie illuminates the common humanity connecting Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to Minnesota to the peoples of the world. support this activity from the National Endowment for the Arts.

2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAYWRIGHT

The Playwright

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare not only English, but also Latin country gentleman. Shakespeare and Greek. In 1582, Shakespeare died there – on what is thought to was born in 1564 married Anne Hathaway, and the be his birthday, April 23, in 1616. and raised in Stratford– couple would have three children. He is buried in the parish church, upon–Avon, in Shakespeare moved to London by where his grave can be seen to 1592 and quickly began to make this day. His known body of work England’s West a name for himself as a prolific includes 37 plays, 100 long poems Country. playwright. He stayed in London and 154 sonnets. for about 20 years, becoming As the son of an up–and–coming more and more successful in town merchant, Shakespeare his work as an actor, writer, and would have attended the village shareholder in his acting company. grammar school where he would His retirement took him back have learned to read and write to Stratford to lead the life of a

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Comments about the Playwright

And Shakespeare thou, for all our modern music: he wrote Shakespeare’s mind whose honey-flowing vein, the text of modern life. is the type of the Pleasing the world, androgynous, of the thy praises doth obtain, … Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Live ever you, Men, 1841 man-woman mind. at least in fame live ever. … It is fatal for anyone Well may the body die, who writes to think but fame dies never. No other poet has given so many- sided an expression to human of their sex. It is Richard Barnfield,A Remembrance of nature, or rendered so many fatal to be a man or Some English Poets, 1598 passions and moods with such a woman pure and an appropriate variety of style, simple; one must sentiment and accent. If, therefore, He has a magic power over words: we were asked to select one be woman-manly or they come winged at his bidding; monument of human civilization man-womanly. and seem to know their places. that should survive to some They are struck out in a heat, on future age, or be transported to Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929 the spur of the occasion, and have another planet to bear witness to all the truth and vividness which the inhabitants there of what we arise from an actual impression have been upon earth, we should If one takes those thirty-seven of the objects. His epithets and probably choose the works of plays with all the radar lines of single phrases are like sparkles, Shakespeare. the different viewpoints of the thrown off from an imagination, different characters, one comes fired by the whirling rapidity of George Santayana, Interpretations of out with a field of incredible its own motion. His language Poetry and Religion, 1900 density and complexity; and is hieroglyphical. It translates eventually one goes a step further, thoughts into visible images. It and one finds that what happened, abounds in sudden transitions and We do not understand Shakespeare what passed through this man elliptical expressions. from a single reading, and certainly called Shakespeare and came into not from a single play. There is a existence on sheets of paper, is William Hazlitt, Lecture on the English relation between the various plays something quite different from Poets, 1818 of Shakespeare, taken in order; and any other author’s work. It’s not it is work of years to venture even Shakespeare’s view of the world, one individual interpretation of the it’s something which actually He is like some saint whose pattern in Shakespeare’s carpet. resembles reality. A sign of this history is to be rendered into all is that any single word, line, languages, into verse and prose, T. S. Eliot, Dante, Faber & Faber, 1929 character or event has not only a into songs and pictures and cut up large number of interpretations, into proverbs; so that the occasion but an unlimited number. Which which gave the saint’s meaning the is the characteristic of reality. … form of conversation, or of a prayer, An artist may try to capture and or of a code of laws, is immaterial reflect your action, but actually he compared with the universality of interprets it – so that a naturalistic its application. … He wrote the airs painting, a Picasso painting, a

4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER photograph, are all interpretations. if you recall your salad days, Shakespeare has two sides to him: But in itself, the action of one you are quoting Shakespeare; if one is the historical side, where man touching his head is open you act more in sorrow than in he’s one of a group of dramatists to unlimited understanding and anger, if your wish is father to working in Elizabethan London interpretation. In reality, that is. the thought, if your lost property and writing for an audience living What Shakespeare wrote carries has vanished into thin air, you are in that London at that time; the that characteristic. What he wrote quoting Shakespeare; if you have other is the poet who speaks is not interpretations: it is the thing ever refused to budge an inch or to us today with so powerfully itself. suffered from green-eyed jealousy, contemporary a voice. If we study if you have played fast and loose, only the historical, or 1564 – 1616 Brook, Peter. “What is Shakespeare?” (1947), if you have been tongue-tied, a Shakespeare, we take away all his The Shifting Point, New York: Harper & tower of strength, hoodwinked or relevance to our own time and shirk Row, 1987 in a pickle, if you have knitted your trying to look into the greatest brows, made a virtue of necessity, mystery of literature, the mystery insisted on fair play, slept not of how someone can communicate Shakespeare himself, indeed one wink, stood on ceremony, with times and spaces and cultures Shakespeare especially, does danced attendance (on your lord so far removed from his own. not describe from outside; his and master), laughed yourself characters are intimately bound into stitches, had short shrift, cold Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on up with the audience. That is why comfort or too much of a good Shakespeare, New Haven, Conn.: Yale his plays are the greatest example thing, if you have seen better days University Press, 1986 there is of people’s theater; in this or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, theater the public found and still be that as it may, the more fool finds its own problems and re- you, for it is a foregone conclusion Every age creates its experiences them. that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if own Shakespeare. Jean Paul Sartre, Sartre on Theater, 1959 you think it is early days and clear … Like a portrait out bag and baggage, if you think whose eyes seem to it is high time and that that is the Shakespeare can illuminate our long and short of it, if you believe follow you around the knowledge of Western attitudes; that the game is up and that truth room, engaging your an analysis of values can also will come out even if it involves glance from every illuminate some dark corners your own flesh and blood, if you lie angle, [his] plays in Shakespeare’s work. For low till the crack of doom because Shakespeare, unlike some of his you suspect foul play, if you have and their characters critics, did not unthinkingly adopt your teeth set on edge (at one fell seem always to be the received wisdom of his time. swoop) without rhyme or reason, “modern,” always to He really probed, dramatically, the then – to give the devil his due – if subjects of power and legitimacy, the truth were known (for surely be “us.” his own attitudes towards sex and you have a tongue in your head) women; he struggled all his life for you are quoting Shakespeare; even Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All, a vision of a proper ordering of if you bid me good riddance and New York: Anchor Books, 2004 society. send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a doornail, if you think I Marilyn French, Shakespeare’s Division of am an eye-sore, a laughing stock, Experience, 1981 the devil incarnate, a stonyhearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut, If you cannot understand my tut! For goodness sake! What the argument, and declare “It’s dickens! But me no buts – it is all Greek to me,” you are quoting one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be Shakespeare. more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; Bernard Levin, Enthusiasms, 1983

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A Selected Chronology of the Life and Times of William Shakespeare

YEAR WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BRITISH AND WORLD HISTORY

William Shakespeare is born to John Shakespeare and Mary Galileo Galilei is born. Arden of Stratford–upon–Avon, their third child and first son. Playwright Christopher Marlowe is born. 1564 (Traditionally, Shakespeare’s Day is celebrated on April 23.) Voyages of exploration, trade and colonization are undertaken throughout the “New World,” primarily by England, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands.

Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio writes Ecatommiti, 112 stories St. Augustine, Florida, is founded by the Spanish and will 1565 that includes “The Moor of Venice.” become the oldest continuously settled city in the U.S. founded by Europeans.

James Burbage opens The Theatre, London’s first playhouse 1576 used by professional actors.

Holinshed publishes the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and 1577 Ireland, a primary source for Shakespeare’s history plays and one of the sources for King Lear.

Shakespeare’s family finds itself in serious debt and Interest in Roman and Greek antiquities leads to the 1578 mortgages Mary’s house in Wilmcote to raise cash. discovery of the catacombs in Rome.

John Shakespeare is involved in lawsuits regarding several Sir Francis Drake completes his circumnavigation of 1580 mortgaged family properties. the world.

A marriage license is issued to William Shakespeare and The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Spain, Portugal, Agnes (Anne) Hathaway in November. She is eight years France, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. 1582 his senior and pregnant at the time of their marriage. The (England does not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.) following May their first daughter, Susanna, is born.

Twins, Hamnet and Judith, are born in February to William Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes writes the pastoral novel 1585 and Anne Shakespeare. Galatea.

No records document Shakespeare’s life during these “lost 1585–91 years.” At some point, he made his way to London without his family, perhaps joining a troupe of traveling actors.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is accused of plotting the murder of 1586 Elizabeth I. A number of other conspirators are put on trial and executed. Mary is executed the following year.

The Spanish Armada attempts to invade England but fails due to bad weather at sea and the ability of smaller English 1588 ships to out–maneuver the attackers in the English Channel. The event establishes England as a major naval power.

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YEAR WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BRITISH AND WORLD HISTORY

Shakespeare is listed as an actor with the Lord ca. 1590 An anonymous play title King Leir is produced. It is Chamberlain’s Men in London. a source for Shakespeare’s play.

1592 Writer and dramatist Robert Greene scathingly lashes out at 15,000 people die of the plague in London. Theaters close “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers” at the time temporarily to prevent the spread of the epidemic. when Shakespeare’s first known play,King Henry VI, Part One, is successfully performed.

During the course of the plague, it appears that Shakespeare Christopher Marlowe is killed in a tavern brawl (1593). His has written several plays (their dates of composition have tragedy Edward II is published the following year. not been established with certainty in all cases): King Henry London’s theaters reopen in 1594 when the threat of the VI, Parts Two and Three, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, and 1593–94 plague has abated. the comedies Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, as well as the poems “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece.”

John Shakespeare, the dramatist’s father, is granted a coat The Blackfriars Playhouse, later to become the winter 1596 of arms. theater for Shakespeare’s company, opens in London. Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, dies at the age of 11.

Shakespeare’s sonnets circulate unpublished. A second armada of Spanish ships en route to attack England is dispersed by storms. The two parts of King Henry IV, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and probably Much Ado About Nothing are written. Sir Francis Bacon’s Essays, Civil and Moral, is published. 1597– He purchases the New Place, one of the largest estates in The English Parliament passes an Act prescribing that 98 Stratford. convicted criminals be sentenced to deportation to distant colonies. He is listed as a player in a production of Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humor.

The Globe Playhouse opens. Shakespeare is part owner by The Earl of Essex is sent to command English forces in virtue of the shares divided between the Burbage family of Ireland. He fails to secure peace and returns to England 1599 actors (half) and five others, including the dramatist. against the orders of Elizabeth I. Approximate year of composition for King Henry V, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It.

Shakespeare’s poem, “The Phoenix and the Turtle” and his The international trading corporation, the English East India plays, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet and Company, is founded. 1600 Troilus and Cressida date approximately from this period The capital of Japan moves from Kyoto to Tokyo. (1600–02).

Shakespeare’s father dies. Ben Jonson, offended by a satirical portrayal of himself in a play, returns the insult, sparking a series of plays known as 1601 the War of the Theaters in which playwrights ridicule each other from the stage.

Approximate year of composition for Othello and Measure Elizabeth I dies. She is succeeded by her cousin, James I. for Measure. (The era of his reign is called the Jacobean period.)

James I is crowned King of England, and the acting Sir Walter Raleigh is arrested as a suspect in a plot to 1603 company known as Lord Chamberlain’s Men, with which dethrone James I. He is tried for treason and imprisoned. Shakespeare is affiliated, becomes The King’s Men. They will A new outbreak of the plague in London. perform 12 plays per year for the court of James I.

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Shakespeare’s name is included among England’s greatest The Gunpowder Plot – a plan to blow up the House of Lords writers in Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine, during an address by James I – is foiled in November. Guy 1605 published by the antiquarian William Camden. Fawkes and other conspirators are arrested and eventually executed the following year. King Lear appears.

Macbeth appears. A 13-year war between Austria and the Ottoman Empire 1606 ends with the peace of Zsitvatörök.

Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, marries Dr. John Hill; they English colonists in America, led by John Smith, establish the make their home in Stratford. city of Jamestown, Virginia. 1607 Anthony and Cleopatra, Pericles and Timon of Athens are written.

Shakespeare’s acting company signs a lease for the use of Galileo Galilei uses a design by Dutch scientist Johan the Blackfriars Playhouse. Lippershey to construct his own telescope. 1608 Coriolanus appears.

Shakespeare’s mother dies.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are published. Tea from China is shipped to Europe for the first time, by the 1609– Dutch East India Company. His late plays The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest 10 belong to this period.

Records show that, by this time, Shakespeare “of Stratford– John Webster’s tragedy The White Devil is staged and 1612 upon–Avon, gentleman” has returned to live in his birthplace. published.

Two plays, King Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, are The Globe Playhouse burns down during the first 1613 attributed to both Shakespeare and John Fletcher. performance of King Henry VIII.

Shakespeare’s daughter Judith is married. The Catholic Church prohibits Galileo from further scientific work. Shakespeare dies on April 23 and is buried in Stratford’s 1616 Holy Trinity Church.

Heminge and Condell of The King’s Men compile John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is published. Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works in the First Folio. 1623 Dutch colonists settle in New Amsterdam (in 1664, seized by Anne, William Shakespeare’s widow, dies. the English, it will be renamed New York).

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Synopsis Setting

Lear has peacefully and descend into madness as he deals Britain. Various locations include prosperously led Britain as its king. emotionally and physically with King Lear’s Palace, Gloucester’s Approaching the comfort and the real and perceived betrayal Castle, Albany’s Palace, a heath tranquility of old age, Lear turns of all three of his daughters. near Gloucester’s Castle, and his attention to the inheritance of With no other options, and only Dover. his three daughters: Goneril, Regan the Fool and a disguised Kent and Cordelia. He plans to divide accompanying him, Lear turns to the kingdom among them, but first the stormy wilderness where his he wants them each to say how sanity continues to crumble. Characters much she loves him. Goneril and Furthering his treachery against Regan flatter their father, saying his family, Edmund betrays the that nothing can surpass their love. trust of Gloucester, who seeks to Lear, King of Britain When Cordelia, the youngest and give comfort to the old king and is Goneril, his eldest daughter Lear’s favorite, is asked to speak violently maimed for this breach. Regan, his middle daughter she remains silent, and finally Now in possession of the earldom Cordelia, his youngest daughter answers with “nothing.” Outraged of Gloucester himself, Edmund Duke of Albany, husband of Goneril and hurt, Lear disowns Cordelia begins to align himself politically Duke of Cornwall, husband of and banishes her from his sight, and romantically with Goneril and Regan along with his advisor the Earl of Regan and sets his eyes on the King of France, suitor of Cordelia Kent, who has defended Cordelia. British throne. Duke of Burgundy, suitor of With the King of France as her Cordelia last powerful ally, Cordelia leaves Abandoned, vulnerable and Earl of Gloucester, a nobleman Britain to marry him and take the powerless, Lear and Gloucester loyal to Lear throne in France. are only able to see the reality Edmund, bastard son of Gloucester of their terrible mistakes when Edgar, eldest son of Gloucester The family of Gloucester also blinded by madness and violence. Earl of Kent, a nobleman loyal wrestles with power and Now the Queen of France, Cordelia to Lear inheritance in Lear’s court. The returns to Britain to rescue her Oswald, steward of Goneril Earl of Gloucester has, after years father. Finding Lear a miserable Fool to King Lear of feigned indifference, openly madman, Cordelia goes to battle Old Man acknowledged his bastard son, against her sisters’ and Edmund’s Gentleman Edmund, marking him as the machinations while, in a moment Herald second son behind Gloucester’s of clarity, Lear recognizes the pure Knights, Officers, Messengers, older son and heir, Edgar. Edmund love of Cordelia and the loyalty Soldiers, Servants, Attendants immediately uses his new position of Kent. As the storm clears, we deceitfully: he fakes a letter from are left with the pieces of a once Edgar to frame him for treachery, proud kingdom, with only those enraging Gloucester. Not knowing whose nature has deemed fit to that Edmund is responsible, Edgar rule surviving. heeds Edmund’s advice and flees to the countryside, disguising himself as a madman.

Goneril and Regan prove unkind to their father as they refuse to lodge him and his knights, eventually stripping him of everything he once possessed. As a storm tears through Britain, Lear begins to

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Comments on Some of the Characters

CORDELIA Gloucester. inspire fear or disgust, they merely In this opening scene, in Cordelia’s amused. In Shakespearean London, despairing counsel to herself – Marjorie B. Garber, “King Lear,” Shakespeare and for a considerable length of “What shall Cordelia speak? Love after All, New York: Pantheon, 2004 time afterward, it was considered and be silent” (1.1.60) – we have the fun to visit Bethlehem Hospital beginning of a highly significant and watch the madmen, very dramatic and performative mode EDMUND much as we today go to see a zoo, in Shakespeare, what might be The injury done by [the presence except that the animals are much called the rhetoric of silence. Some of] Edmund to the simplicity of the better treated and much more things cannot be said, cannot be action is abundantly recompensed sympathetically viewed than the given words. To abjure language by the addition of variety, by madmen were. in such cases is not a refusal of the art with which he is made to speech, like Iago’s final words, but cooperate with the chief design, If a madman were sufficiently rather an acknowledgement of and the opportunity which he gives harmless and amusing – if, for the limitations of language, and the poet of combining perfidy with instance, he could make “witless” the place of the ineffable or the perfidy, and connecting the wicked remarks that were nevertheless unutterable. The modest and silent son with the wicked daughters, humorous – he might be kept for claim of a love according to her to impress this important moral, the purpose by a family that was bond will distinguish Cordelia’s that villainy is never at a stop, that sufficiently well off to afford to language, and her silence, crimes lead to crimes, and at last feed a useless mouth. Naturally, throughout the play. Like Hamlet terminate in ruin. a shrewd but poor fellow could in the court of Claudius, dismayed see that if he but pretended to be by the falseness of ceremony Samuel Johnson, Notes from The Plays of slightly mad and took care to be and the role playing all around William Shakespeare, 1765 pungently clever, he might get a him, Cordelia refuses to play the good job. game, refuses to involve herself in playacting and willful deception. THE FOOL The court fool became a standard While Hamlet makes use of The institution of the court fool (or part of the palace scene then, and theatricality as a trap, Cordelia jester) is typical of western Europe was the analogue of the modern occupies what might be called the of the Middle Ages, and it arises television set, for ideally, he could vanishing point of theatricality. We out of the early Christian attitude do comic songs and dances, make may think that Cordelia’s rigidity toward madness. In pagan times witty comments, do sight gags, here is too pure a gesture, that she the madman was felt to be touched and so on. … In Shakespeare’s could bend, could compromise by the divine and was treated time the court fool still flourished, – but she, like her sisters, is her with awe and respect (a feeling though they were to vanish from father’s daughter, suborn and that plays its part in Hamlet, for the scene within a generation of his proud. Her motive in this moment instance…). death. seems plainly to disclaim artifice, to assert, again, something that To the early Christians, on the Naturally, such a fool could say and in her understanding needs no other hand, thanks in part to the do things an ordinary man could assertion: the true and natural tales of possession in the New not possibly get away with. Behind relationship between parent and Testament, madmen were felt to be the protection of his own madness child. But once disrupted, this infested with demons as a result of and the amusement of his royal “bond” is not restored until tragedy their sins. In that case, where mad patron, he could mock arrogant has overtaken both Lear and antics were not extreme enough to lords and stately bishops and cast

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aspersions on all the sacred cows. and more than they expected Concentrating on the issues of they found good excuse for not inheritance that arise from this Isaac Asimov, “King Lear,” Asimov’s Guide to paying the price for it. Like failings historical detail illuminates the Shakespeare, New York “Avenel Books, 1978 have been known in the most play’s participation, not merely reputable people. Their conduct in a generalized patriarchal so far, it could be argued, has ideology, but also in the specifically The Fool would be a role unlike been eminently respectable, level- patrilineal ideology that so any Shakespeare had ever written headed and worldly-wise. powerfully shapes early modern before or after – witty, pathetic, England’s social order and lonely, angry, and prophetic in turn, Harley Granville-Barker, Prefaces to economic history. Through the a part rich in quips and snippets Shakespeare: King Lear, Princeton, N.J.: figure of Kent, Shakespeare evokes of ballads and the kind of sharp Princeton University Press, 1947 (King Lear the distinctive Kentish character exchanges for which [comedian preface originally published in 1927) celebrated in Wordsworth’s sonnet, Robert] Armin was famous. Armin’s and in Shakespeare’s day, in range was extraordinary and it’s works such as William Lambarde’s not surprising that this almost KENT Perambulation of Kent (1576). bewildering role was cut for Why is Shakespeare’s Kent called But when Kent upbraids the king much of King Lear’s stage history. Kent? ... As Ralph Berry suggests, for his folly in dividing his estate, he It wasn’t only Shakespeare’s the names of all King Lear’s seems to repudiate the inheritance relationship with both [tragedian male principals are “hieroglyphs practices for which his county was Richard] Burbage and Armin of value, from which an entire famous, “the charters that were that had matured, but also the system can be reconstructed.” [theirs] before,” which the men of relationship of the star comedian … We can begin to reconstruct Kent had preserved from Norman and tragedian with each other. In those values by considering influence. Thus, Shakespeare’s the past, Shakespeare had tended William Wordsworth’s 1803 sonnet Kent is at once the epitome and to keep clowns and kings apart; invoking the stereotype of the the antithesis of the stereotypical this time he would force them proud and rugged “Men of Kent” “man of Kent.” Such complex and together, creating an unusually as the “Vanguard of Liberty,” a contradictory local associations intimate and endearing bond, stereotype that was already well combine with the play’s attempt, in one that also depended on the established in Shakespeare’s day. both the main plot and the subplot personal familiarity and mutual It is a stereotype that seems, at to disengage inheritance and understanding of his two lead first glance, entirely consistent succession from familial affection actors. The poignancy of one of with the character Shakespeare (or rather, to display the tragic Lear’s most heartbreaking lines, creates, the volatile yet supremely consequences of linking them). written for Burbage – “and my loyal counselor, who insists that it is Without turning the play from a poor fool is hanged” – depends his duty to be “unmannerly/When political and familial tragedy into on it, reminding us not only of the Lear is mad.” But Wordsworth, a dramatized controversial tract, manner of Cordelia’s death but arriving late on the scene, and these features mark King Lear as also of the loss of his beloved Fool, writing in a highly compressed an intervention into contemporary Armin, who disappears from the form, tells only part of the story. debates about inheritance practice, action midway through the play. When Wordsworth refers to “the a defense of early modern charters that were [theirs] before,” England’s particularly strict system James Shapiro, The Year of Lear: he is referring to “gavelkind,” Kent’s of primogeniture. Shakespeare in 1606, New York: Simon & distinctive system of land tenure, Schuster, 2015 which dictated partible inheritance, Ronald W. Cooley, “Kent and Primogeniture rather than the prevailing English in King Lear,” SEL Studies in English GONERIL AND REGAN system of primogeniture. This Literature 1500-1900, vol. 48.2, 2008 How then can we call Regan and detail is especially interesting in Goneril double-dyed fiends? the context of Shakespeare’s King They played the hypocrite for a Lear, a play that turns on a divided kingdom; but which of us might patrimony. not? Having got what they wanted

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Responses to King Lear

The greatness of Lear is not the muscularity of the questions the word was a slang term for in corporal dimension, but in it asks. “What a piece of work is female sexual organs; because intellectual: the explosions of his man!” declares Hamlet in one of his an “O” was an unbroken circle passion are terrible as a volcano: well-known speeches. How noble it also, paradoxically, connoted they are storms turning up and in reason! How infinite in faculty! “everything.” Rotman, a disclosing to the bottom that sea, How admirable! The beauty of the mathematician, saw the relevance his mind, with all its vast riches. It earth! On and on. And then the of zero in this connection, and is his mind which is laid bare. This final demanding question, “And yet made the link from cultural history case of flesh and blood seems too to me, what is this quintessence to the play. insignificant to be thought on; even of dust?” What indeed. King as he himself neglects it. On the Lear continues this questioning Cordelia’s “Nothing, my lord,” is a stag we see nothing but corporal started by Shakespeare’s first powerful affirmation, if only Lear infirmities and weakness, the great tragedy. “Is man no more could hear it as such. She claims impotence of rage; while we read it, than this?” Lear asks in the that her love for him is right and we see not Lear, but we are Lear, — storm, considering the nearly natural – “according to my bond.” we are in his mind, we are sustained naked Edgar disguised as Tom What she resists is the love test, by the grandeur which baffles the o’Bedlam. “Thou art the thing itself; not the love. (And what Lear tests malice of daughters and storms; in unaccommodated man is no more is the love test, not the love.) When the aberrations of his reasons, we but such a poor, are, forked animal the scene is replayed, in the fourth discover a mighty irregular power as thou art.” act, and Lear again asks her the of reason. same question, tell me how much Archibald I. Leyasmeyer, “A Tragic World you love me, it is striking – to me Charles Lamb, “On the Tragedies of of Darkness, Fools and Demons,” originally – that she answers it again in the Shakespeare,” The Reflector, 1812 published in the Guthrie Theater’s Study negative. Guide for King Lear, 1995 It is useful to remember that the word theater has the same By the time Shakespeare came to The scene is perhaps the most root as the word theory. The write King Lear, the old system of moving episode in the whole best of theater operates in the roman numerals and calculation on play: Lear has awakened (“you do interrogative mode, asking and the abacus was on the way out, and me wrong to take me out of the posing questions about things the new system of Hindu/Arabic grave”) and does not know whether which fascinate us, amuse, mystify, numerals based on zero was on its he is alive or dead (“Would I were trouble, frighten, and terrify us. way in. So the play’s preoccupation assured of my condition”). Cordelia, Suzanne Langer has written that with questions of counting, heartbroken, kneels before him: one defines an age not necessarily fractions, worth, and “nothing” “No cause, no cause.” by the answers its people are able (not to mention whether anything to provide, but by the questions could actually come of nothing) Marjorie B. Garber, “King Lear,” Shakespeare they are able to propound. Bad was, we may say, “overdetermined.” and Modern Culture. New York: Pantheon, art simplifies and tames; great art That is to say, it came from many 2008 questions, challenges complexity motivations at once – from the old and enlarges both our vision and Lear story, from the new capitalism, perception. Ours is a complex and from the old theology, and from the The mime creates a scenic area: often bewildering age, and we new science and philosophy. the top and bottom of the cliff, the have asked innumerable troubling King Lear, in this sense, is a play precipice. Shakespeare makes use questions, returning again and about nothing. Shakespeare of all the means of anti-illusionist again to the most basic ones. King scholars had long discussed theatre in order to create a most Lear appeals to us because of its “nothing” in King Lear from realistic and concrete landscape. complexity, its unyielding refusal standpoints physical and A landscape which is only a to simplify and sentimentalize, metaphysical: in the Renaissance, blind man’s illusion. There is a

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perspective in it, light, men and would be completely obliterated. to give it enough magnificence things, even sounds. From the to impress him, yet keep it from height of the cliff the sea cannot Jan Kott, “King Lear or Endgame,” rivaling him? Why, by identifying be heard, but there is mention Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, Garden the storm with him, setting the of its roar. From the foot of the City, NY: Doubleday, 1964 actor to impersonate both Lear cliff the lark cannot be heard, but and – reflected in Lear – the storm. there is mention of its song. In this Of all Shakespeare’s plays Macbeth That, approximately, is the effect landscape sounds are present by is the most rapid, Hamlet the made when – the Fool cowering, their very absence: the silence is slowest, in movement. Lear drenched and pitiful, at his side – filled with them, just as the empty combines length with rapidity, — he launches into the tremendous: stage is filled with the mountain. like the hurricane and the whirlpool, The scene of the suicidal leap is absorbing while it advances. It Blow, winds, and crack your also a mime. Gloucester kneels in a begins as a stormy day in summer, cheeks! rage! blow! … This is no last prayer and then, in accordance with brightness; but that brightness mere description of a storm, but in with tradition of the play’s English is lurid, and anticipates the music and imaginative suggestion performances, falls over. He is now tempest. a dramatic creating of the storm at the bottom of the cliff. But there itself; and there is Lear – and here was no height; it was an illusion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Notes on King we are, if we yield ourselves – in Gloucester knelt down on an empty Lear,” Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and the midst of it, almost a part of it. stage, fell over and got up. At this Other English Poets, ca. 1817 Yet Lear himself, in his Promethean point disillusion follows. defiance, still dominates the scene. Lear’s progress – dramatic and Harley Granville-Barker, “King Lear,” The non-existent cliff is not meant spiritual – lies through a dissipation Prefaces to Shakespeare, Princeton, N.J.: just to deceive the blind man. For of egoism; submission to the Princeton University Press, 1946 a short while we, too, believed in cruelty of an indifferent Nature, less this landscape and in the mime. cruel to him than are his own kin; to The meaning of this parable is not ultimate loss of himself in madness. Lear’s society is primitive. On easy to define. But one thing is Consider the effect of this – of the the other hand, it is clearly not clear: this type of parable is not to battling of storm without and storm primitive Stonehenge because be thought of outside the theatre, within, of the final breaking of that if you go back to that you find or rather outside a certain kind of Titan spirit – if Shakespeare merely another falsity, which is that theatre. In narrative prose Edgar let us look on, critically observant. Lear is, at the same time, a very could, of course, lead the blind From such a standpoint, Lear is an sophisticated society. For it is not Gloucester to the cliffs of Dover, intolerable tyrant, and Regan and a society of people that live in the let him jump down from a stone Goneril have a case against him. open air surrounded by ceremonial and make him believe that he was We should not side with them; but stones. To put the play back to jumping from the top of a cliff. But our onlooker’s sympathy might that period is to lose the essential he might just as well lead him a hardly be warmer than, say, the cruelty, which is the cruelty of day’s journey away from the castle kindly Albany’s. And Shakespeare turning a man outdoors. The and make him jump from a stone needs to give us more than people who are indoors feel the on any heap of land. In film and sympathy with Lear, and something difference between the elements in prose there is only the choice deeper than understanding. If the and the man-made solid world from between a real stone lying in the verity of his ordeal is really to be which Lear is expelled. If the King sand and an equally real jump from brought home to us, we must, in is used to sleeping out of doors, the top of a chalk cliff into the sea. as full a sense as may be, pass the play is shattered. Furthermore One cannot transpose Gloucester’s through it with him, must make the the language of the play … is true suicide attempt to the screen, experience and its overwhelming language of high Renaissance. So unless one were to film a stage emotions momentarily our own. … it seems to me that the problem performance. But in the naturalistic, one has to face is that one has to or even stylized theatre, with the The storm is not in itself, moreover, create a pre-Christian society which precipice painted or projected onto dramatically important, only in for present-day audiences has a screen, Shakespeare’s parable its effect upon Lear. How, then, the smell of belonging to an early

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part of history. At the same time, King Lear, which was written This is the craftiest as well as the that early part of history has to about 1605, is by common most tremendous of Shakespeare’s be a moment of history where, for consent one of the very greatest tragedies. One can imagine these people, they were in as high of tragedies. It embodies the awestruck colleagues wondering a state of development as was the most comprehensive vision of what the author, with three Mexican society before Cortez or human experience in its heights great and wholly distinct tragic ancient Egypt at its peak. So Lear is and depths that Shakespeare ever achievements behind him, could barbaric and Renaissance; it’s those wrote. Its many characters live with possible do next. There is a finality two contradictory periods. intense, imaginative, and sharply about Lear; it even instructs us to individual life; and all is lifted to think that. Peter Brook, “Lear – Can it be Staged?,” the level of poetry by the power of (1962), The Shifting Point, New York: Harper Shakespeare’s language. Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language, & Row, 1987 New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000 Francis Fergusson, Shakespeare: The Pattern The Fool in the tragedy of Lear in His Carpet, New York: Delacourte Press, is one of the most wonderful 1958 creations of Shakespeare’s genius. The picture of his quick and Mythological and biblical stories pregnant sarcasm, of his loving about the creation of the world devotion, of his acute sensibility, from Chaos provide an informing of his despairing mirth, of his principle in King Lear. Such heartbroken silence — contrasted narratives familiar to Elizabethans with the rigid sublimity of Lear’s include Hesiod’s Theogony, Ovid’s suffering, with the huge desolation Metamorphoses, and the book of of Lear’s sorrow, with the vast and Genesis. A characteristic feature of outraged image of Lear’s madness these narratives is a cyclical pattern – is the noblest thought that ever of creation followed by destruction entered into the heart and mind of and the return to a state of man. chaos. Moreover, in classical and biblical accounts of creation, while Charles Dickens, “The Restoration of harmony among the elements that Shakespeare’s Lear to the Stage,” The make up the world is the desired Examiner, 1838 end, it is achieved only through their division or separation. King Lear has been called ‘a play about King Lear cannot possibly be the end of the world,’ but it is also acted, it is too titanic. At the a story of creation and destruction, beginning of the play Lear, and especially of separation and in his old age, has grown half division. But, whereas in the earlier mad, choleric and despotic, and myths the very world is born of therefore cannot brook Cordelia’s Chaos – of the void – of nothing silence. This play shows a state – central to the play is Lear’s of society where men’s passions assertion that ‘Nothing can come are savage and uncurbed. No play of nothing’ (1.82), an expression like this anywhere — not even the recognizable to Elizabethans as Agamemnon— is so terrifically both a commonplace saying, and a human. controversial doctrine, ex nihilo nihil fit, denying creation ex nihilo. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Some Criticisms on Poets, 1883 L.M. Storozynsky, “King Lear and Chaos,” Critical Survey, vol. 3.2, 1991

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Len Cariou as King Lear and Blair Brown as Cordelia with members of the cast. Sources of the Play

Chronologically following Hamlet (1600) and Othello The main source for Shakespeare’s play is an older (1603) and preceding Macbeth (1606), King Lear anonymous play called The True Chronicle History of ranks among Shakespeare’s four major tragedies of King Leir and His Three Daughters Gonorill, Ragan and his mature period. Its first recorded performance was Cordella. The Leir play likely predates Shakespeare’s in December 1606, but it may have been performed tragedy by at least a dozen years. In addition to this earlier and is usually dated to 1605. The first Quarto earlier play, Shakespeare would have been familiar was published in 1608, and King Lear was included with the story of King Lear from several other sources. in the Folio, which was published in 1623. There The oldest is Geoffrey of Monmouth’sHistory of the are significant differences between the Quarto and Kings of Britain written in the 12th century. Formalizing the Folio texts. The Quarto lacks 102 lines that the an extant British legend, Monmouth’s pseudohistory Folio contains while the Folio lacks 288 lines that places Lear’s reign in ancient Britain, some 3,000 years are included in the Quarto. (This does not take before Julius Caesar invaded Britain. In that version of into account many other differences, such as word Lear, the story of Shakespeare’s play can be discerned: substitutions, between the two versions.) an aging Leir, after 60 years of successful rule, divides his kingdom among his three daughters but first puts These differences in the Quarto and Folio have led them through a “love trial,” in which his youngest and some scholars to think the Folio is a revision by favorite daughter Cordeilla refuses to participate. Shakespeare’s own hand of the earlier Quarto script, Gonorilla and Regau marry and each gets half the perhaps influenced by seeing it in production. We kingdom. Cordeilla marries the king of the Franks and may never be able to verify if this is true, but the goes to Gaul. After some time, Leir’s sons-in-law rebel two versions offer many choices and options for a against him, he goes to Calais and sends a message producer of the play to evaluate. Typically what is to Cordeilla, who has Leir fed and clothed so he can performed on stage is an amalgamation of the two present himself to her at court with his former dignity. scripts, as is the case for the Guthrie’s production. Cordeilla restores Lear to his throne, and when he dies, she succeeds him to the throne. She reigns for five

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In writing King Lear, Shakespeare departed from both the earlier anonymous Leir play and from the historical sources in several ways. The most significant change is that both Lear and Cordelia die at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Lear is not restored to his throne, and Cordelia dies before Lear does. Additional alterations to the story by Shakespeare include renaming earlier characters from the anonymous play to their now-familiar Kent and Oswald, and the addition of the subplot of Gloucester and his sons, a storyline that parallels and contrasts the main plot in poetic and powerful ways. Shakespeare also added the storm, the presence of madness (both Lear’s genuine and Edgar’s feigned madness), the character of the Fool and the theme of folly that runs through the play.

Nahum Tate, a poet laureate of England during the 17th century, adapted King Lear in 1681 during the Restoration, making changes to suit contemporary tastes. Gone were the Fool and the tragic ending (Lear is restored to the throne) and added was a love story (Cordelia marries Edgar). Whatever popularity King Lear enjoyed during the 18th century and into the 19th, it was most likely Tate’s version, or one strongly influenced by it, that was performed in both the U.K. PHOTO BY MICHAL DANIEL and U.S. During the Regency (1810-1820), in which Richard Ooms as King Lear and Sally Wingert as Regan with George III was incapable of ruling Britain because he members of the cast. suffered bouts of insanity, King Lear was banned from the stage. years until her nephews rebel and imprison her, and The Guthrie Theater has produced King Lear twice she kills herself in prison. before. In 1974, acting company member Len Cariou played the king under the direction of Michael Another version of the history was included by Langham, and in 1995, Richard Ooms played Lear Raphael Holinshed in his Chronicles of England, under the direction of Garland Wright. Nathaniel Fuller Scotlande and Irelande (1577), which Shakespeare used and Stephen Yoakam, who alternate playing Lear in as a source for many of his history plays. Six stanzas our current production, played the Duke of Albany of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, in Book II and Earl of Kent, respectively, in the 1995 production. (see below), also tells the story of Leir (Leyr) with the In 2007, the Royal Shakespeare Company presented familiar ending of Leir’s restoration to the throne. its King Lear featuring Ian Kellen in the title role on the Guthrie’s thrust stage in a production directed by Other contemporary writing that is thought to have Trevor Nunn. influenced Shakespeare’s version of Lear includes Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, which may have inspired the subplot of Gloucester and his sons; Samuel Harsnett’s Declaration of Egrious Popish Impostures, from which the names of Edgar’s demons were taken; and Michel de Montaigne’s Essay “Of the Affection of Fathers to their Children,” which touches on many themes about parenting which can be seen in the play.

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Another Version of the Story of King Lear

From Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto X, 1590

Next him king Leyr in happie peace long raynd, But true it is that, when the oyle is spent, But had no issue male him to succeed, The light goes out, and weeke is throwne away: But three faire daughters, which were well uptraind So, when he had resigned his regiment, In all that seemed fitt for kingly seed: His daughter gan despise his drouping day, Mongst whom his realme he equally decreed And wearie wax of his continuall stay. To have divided. Tho, when feeble age Tho to his daughter Regan he repayred, Nigh to his utmost date he saw proceed, Who him at first well used every way; He cald his daughters, and with speeches sage But when of his departure she despayrd, Inquyred, which of them most di love her parentage? Her bountie she abated, and his cheare empayred.

The eldest, Gonorill, gan to protest The wretched man gan then avise too late, That she must more than her owne life him lov’d; That love is not where most it is profest; And Regan greater love to him profest Too truly tryde in his extremest state. Then all the world, when ever it were proov’d; At last, resolv’d likewise to prove the rest, But Cordeill said she lov’d him as behoov’d: He to Cordelia him selfe addrest, Whose simple answere, wanting colours fayre Who with entire affection him receav’d, To paint it forth, him to displeasaunce moov’d, As for her Syre and king her seemed best; That in his crown he counted her no hayre, And after all an army strong she leav’d, But twixt the other twain his kingdom whole did To war on those which him had of his realme bereav’d. shayre. So to his crowne she had him restord againe; So wedded th’ one to Maglan king of Scottes, In which he dyde, made ripe for death by eld, And thother to the king of Cambria, And after wild it should to her remaine, And twixt them shayred his realme by equall lottes; Who peaceably the same long time did weld, But without dowre the wise Cordelia And all mens harts in dew obedience held; Was sent to Aggannip of Celtica. Till that her sisters children, woxen strong, Their aged Syre, thus eased of his crowne, Through proud ambition against her rebeld, A private life ledd in Albania and overcommen kept in prison long, With Gonorill, long had in great renowne, Till weary of that wretched life her selfe she hong. That nought him griev’d to beene from rule deposed downe.

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The Language of the Play

Editor’s note: The language in the line the unit, the sentence and with the decrease of rhyme. In King Shakespeare’s plays is written in phrase coinciding with the line Lear four kinds of prose may be two forms, poetry and prose. The (end-stopped verse), and to use distinguished: form of his verse is called blank five perfect iambic feet to the line. verse or iambic pentameter, with In plays of the middle period … (1) The prose of formal documents, five unstressed-stressed pairs of written between 1596 and 1600, the as in [Edmund’s] forged letter; syllables per line. Prose sounds blank verse is more like that of Kyd Goneril’s letter [to Edmund]; and more like everyday speech, and and Marlowe, with less monotonous the Herald’s proclamation. In is most often used by lower-class regularity in the structure and an Shakespeare, prose is the usual characters, characters assuming a increasing tendency to carry on medium for letters, proclamations, lower status or characters engaged the sense from one line to another and other formal documents. in more casual conversation. Below without a syntactical or rhetorical is more information about how pause at the end of the line. … (2) The prose of ‘lowlife’ and the these forms are used in King Lear. Redundant syllables now abound, speech of comic characters, as and the melody is richer and fuller. in the Fool’s speeches. This is a In Shakespeare’s later plays the development of the humorous BLANK VERSE blank verse breaks away from prose found, for example, in bondage to formal line limits, and Greene’s comedies that deal with The greater part of King Lear is sweeps all along with it in freedom, country life. in blank verse, the unrhymed, power, and organic unity. iambic five-stress verse, or In the 2238 lines of blank verse (3) The colloquial prose of iambic pentameter, introduced in King Lear are found stress dialogue, as in the talk between into England from Italy by Henry modifications of all kinds. There are Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund, Howard, Earl of Surrey, about 1540, 67 feminine (or double, redundant, when the play opens. and used by him in a translation hypermetrical) endings, 5 light of the second and fourth books of endings, 90 speech endings not (4) The prose of abnormal Vergil’s Aeneid. Nicholas Grimald coincident with line endings, and mentality. It is an interesting fact (Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557) employed 191 short lines, the greatest number that Shakespeare should so often the measure for the first time in of short lines in any Shakespeare make persons whose state of mind English original poetry, and its roots play. Such variations give to the is abnormal, or seemingly so, speak began to strike deep into British verse flexibility and power, in in prose. soil and absorb substance. It is addition to music and harmony. … peculiarly significant that Sackville and Norton should have used it Henry Norman Hudson, editor of King Lear as the measure of Gorboduc, the PROSE by William Shakespeare, New York: Ginn and first English tragedy. About the Co., 1911. Shakespeare Online: http://www. time when Shakespeare arrived In the development of the English shakespeare-online.com/plays/ learscenes. in London the infinite possibilities drama the use of prose as a vehicle html of blank verse as a vehicle for of expression entitled to equal dramatic poetry and passion were rights with verse was due to [John] being shown by Kyd, and above all Lyly. He was the first to use prose by Marlowe. Blank verse as used by with power and distinction in Shakespeare is really an epitome of original plays, and did memorable the development of the measure in service in preparing the way for connection with the English drama. Shakespeare’s achievement. … It In his earlier plays the blank verse is a significant fact that in many is often similar to that of Gorboduc. of his earlier plays there is little or The tendency is to adhere to the no prose, and that the proportion syllable-counting principle, to make of prose to blank verse increases

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Edgar’s Devils

When disguised as Poor Tom, Edgar mentions five In Harsnett: fiends that torment him. The names are derived from Maho was general Dictator of hell; and yet for Samuel Harsnett’s A Declaration of Egregious Popish good manners sake, he was contented of his good Impostures, published in 1603, in which Harsnett nature to make show that himself was under the details cases of public exorcisms when priests check of Modu, the grand devil in Ma: Maynie. encountered people in Buckinhamshire in the 1580s These were all in poor Sara at a chop, with these who were possessed by demons. Harsnett, writing on the poor soul travelled up and down full two years behalf of the Anglican Church, was a skeptic about together, so as during those two years, it had been possession, and his ironic tone is present throughout done all one to say, one is gone to hell, or he is the Declaration, but Shakespeare drew on Harsnett’s gone to Sara Williams: for the poor wench had all characterization of the demons, which might have hell in her belly. And had had it still to this day for been familiar to many audience members of the first anything we know, if it had not pleased Fat Weston performances of King Lear. and his twelve holy disciples to have delivered her of that devil-child. Flibbertigibbet a dancing devil, who makes faces (“mopping and mowing” as Edgar describes it) and can cause eye diseases and harm crops. Harsnett calls him Fliberdigibet, a name previous used by others for a Smulkin mischievous gossip. a minor devil, perhaps in the form of a mouse or a cat. Frateretto Edgar externalizes this demon, as though it is a demon the name of a fiend, associated with a fiddler, meaning following him rather than possessing him. He’s called “little brother.” That Frateretto and Nero, emperor of Smolkin in Harsnett’s text. Rome, are mentioned together by Edgar suggests that Frateretto has seen a damned Nero in hell; and Nero is, ~ From Harsnett’s A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures and of course, most famous for fiddling as Rome burned, Shakespeare’s Demonology: A Dictionary by Marion Gibson and Jo so there is a natural connection between the two. Ann Esra.

In Harsnett: Fratterato, Fliberdigibbet, Hoberdidance, Tacobatto were four devils of the round or Morris; whom Sara [Williams, a possessed maid] in her fits, tuned together, in measure and sweet cadence. And least you should conceive, that the devils had no music in hell, especially that they would go a-maying without their music, the Fiddler comes in with his Taber & Pipe, and a whole Morris after him, with motley visards for their better grace. These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves do confess.

Mahu a general dictator of hell. Edgar describes him as a fiend “of stealing.” Modo another name for the devil, grand commander over the seven deadly sins. Edgar describes him as a fiend “of murder.”

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Selected Glossary of Terms

“Of this child-changèd father!” A avouch (Cordelia, 4.6.15) declare, assert, affirm addition “I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty clotpoll the honor or title Regan gives followers?” (Regan, 2.4.184) blockhead: clot – a clod of earth; Edmund poll – head “More than in your addition.” B “Call the clotpoll back.” (Goneril, 5.3.49) (Lear 1.4.30) base football player affected tennis was played by aristocrats, coxcomb favored, liked football by the lower classes jester’s cap; often it featured a “I thought the king had more “Nor tripped neither, you base crest made of red flannel in the affected the Duke of Albany than football player” (Kent 1.4.57) shape of a cock’s comb, though Cornwall.” (Kent, 1.1.1) it might also have had a bell, ass’s beard ears and/or feathers attached. all-licensed symbol of an old man’s reverence; “Let me hire him, too. Here’s my free to do/say anything it was an extreme insult to pluck a coxcomb” (Fool, 1.4.62) “Not only, sir, this your all-licensed beard fool” “Art not ashamed to look upon cur (Goneril, 1.4.124-25) this beard?” (Lear, 2.4.146) contemptuous: worthless dog “My lord’s knave, you whoreson anatomise Tom o’Bedlam dog, you slave, you cur!” dissect common name for a real or (Lear, 1.4.53) “Let them anatomise Regan” pretended madman; Bedlam is (Lear, 3.6.37) short for Bethlehem Hospital, a D London lunatic asylum Apollo “My cue is villainous melancholy, darker From Greek/Roman mythology: the with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam.” more secret, unrevealed god of the sun, archers, music and (Edmund, 1.2.101-102) “Meantime we shall express our prophesy, also the god of diseases darker purpose.” (Lear, 1.1.25) and their cure. begot “Now by Apollo, king, thou fathered, bred, reared, educated Dover swear’st thy gods in vain.” “You have begot me, bred me, seaport in southern England (Kent 1.1.137) loved me.” (Cordelia, 1.1.81) situated on the English Channel; it is the closest English port to the arraign Continent, and presumably the to interrogate, examine; to call up C place the French army has landed on to answer to a criminal charge “There is a litter ready. Lay him “I will arraign them straight.” child-changèd in’t / And drive towards Dover” (Lear, 3.6.13) changed by his children (Gloucester, 3.6.49-50)

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dowers G proverbial; e.g. many things said in dowries; properties or wealth given jest turn out to be true with a wife gauntlet (Regan, 5.3.52) “Thy truth then be thy dower” a challenge, in the form of a thrown (Lear, 1.1.95) glove Jupiter “There’s my gauntlet. I’ll prove it From Roman mythology: the king on a giant.” (Lear, 4.5.67) of the gods (modeled on Zeus in E Greek mythology) Go to “By Jupiter, / This shall not be earnest an exclamation: “Quiet! Enough!” revoked.” (Lear, p.155-56) earnest-money, payment to set a “Go to, say you nothing.” bargain (Gloucester, 3.3.6) “There’s earnest of thy service.” K (Lear, 1.4.61) H knave entertainment young fellow, a boy; or menial, reception and care of guests Happily servant, lackey; also scoundrel, “Which shall be needful for your Perchance, haply, maybe rascal, rogue entertainment” (Regan, 2.4.160) “Happily when I shall wed / That “Though this knave came lord who hand must take my something saucily to the plight…” (Cordelia, 1.1.85-86) world before he was sent for,” F (Gloucester 1.1.13); “My lord’s horns knave, you whoreson dog, you fain referring to the cuckold’s horns slave, you cur!” (Lear, 1.4.53) gladly, willingly “… and leave his horns without a “I would fain think it were not” case.” (Fool, 1.5.19) (Edmund, 1.2.55) L fen-suck’d fogs I the vapors created by the sun liege hitting swampy fens were thought invest lord, sovereign; superior to whom to be infectious give authority, empower allegiance is due “Infect her beauty, / You fen- “I do invest you jointly in my “I shall, my liege.” sucked fogs.” (Lear, 2.4.126-127) power.” (Lear, 1.1.110) (Gloucester, 1.1.24) forsooth issue In truth, certainly; an expletive offspring; result, consequence M generally used by persons of lower “I cannot wish the fault undone, status the issue of it being so proper” Marry “Yes, forsooth, I will hold my (Kent 1.1.11) common exclamation, derived from tongue, so your face bids me” “To thine and Albany’s issues / Be the oath “by the Virgin Mary” (Fool, 1.4.122) this perpetual.” (Lear, 1.1.52-53) “Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece” (Fool, 3.2.28) full-flowing stomach fully angry or full of resentment J matter and impertinency “Else I should answer from a full- sense and nonsense flowing stomach” (Regan 5.3.54) jakes “O matter and impertinency privies, toilet mixed, / Reason in madness.” “I will tread this unbolted villain (Edgar, 4.5.125-126) into mortar and daub the walls of jakes with him” (Kent, 2.2.48-49) meet fitting, proper Jesters do oft prove prophets “If your honor judge it meet, I will

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 21 place you where you shall hear us “Nothing will come of nothing” confer” (Edmund, 1.2.72) Proverbial: Ex nihilo nihil fit S (Lear 1.1.75) milky gentleness scanted mild and gentle course of action nuncle slighted; been sparing of Milk-livered a contraction of “mine uncle”; the “You have obedience scanted, and white livered, i.e. cowardly. customary address of a licensed well are worth the want that you Cowardice was believed to be fool to his superiors have wanted.” (Regan 1.1.243) caused by lack of blood in the liver. “Mark it, nuncle.” (Fool, 1.4.72) Milk is associated with maternal spirit gentleness P unnatural being, demon “This milky gentleness and course “Come not in here, nuncle; of yours” (Goneril, 1.4.225-228) patrimony here’s a spirit.” (Fool, 3.4.27) “Milk-livered man, / That bear’st inheritance a cheek for blows, a head for “Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, sway wrongs;” (Goneril, 4.2.32-33) patrimony.” (Regan, 5.3.56) power of government revenue mother pelican income common name for hysteria proverbially the pelican was known “the sway, / revenue, execution of Histerica passio for feeding its children with its own the rest, / Belovèd sons, be yours” Passio Histerica was another name flesh, and the pelican’s young were (Lear, 1.1.115-117) for hysteria (passio means painful) cruel to their parents climbing “’Twas this flesh begot / hysteria was thought to originate in Those pelican daughters.” T the womb, then works its way up to (Lear, 3.4.53-54) the stomach and the heart and the temper throat plight in proper mental condition “O how this mother swells up troth-plight; solemn promise to “Keep me in temper; toward my heart! / Histerica passio, marry I would not be mad.” (Lear, 1.5.31) down, thou climbing sorrow, / They “Happily when I shall wed / toward place is below.” (Lear, 2.4.44-46) That lord who hand must take coming, about to happen my plight…” (Cordelia, 1.1.85-86) “There is some strange thing toward, motley Edmund.” (Gloucester, 3.3.14) a fool’s costume, clothing plighted “The one in motley here” pleated, folded, hence concealed (Fool, 1.4.96) “Time shall unfold what plighted U cunning hides.” (Cordelia 1.1.245) N Unaccommodated practices Not clothed, naked Nature plots, machinations “Unaccommodated man is no multiple meanings here and “A credulous father, and a more but such a poor, bare throughout the play: Edmund as brother noble / On whose foolish forked animal as thou art.” illegitimate is the “natural” son of honesty / My practices ride easy.” (Lear, 3.4.73-74) Gloucester; Nature as a vital force; (Edmund 1.2.131-33) the Natural state of being before organizing or civilizing structures V “Though, Nature, art my goddess.” R (Edmund, 1.2.1) varlet rage rogue, rascal, knave naught madness, frenzy “What a brazen-faced varlet art worthless, wicked “Lest his ungoverned rage thou” (Kent, 2.2.18) “Beloved Regan, thy sister’s naught” dissolve the life / (Lear, 2.4.101) That wants the means to lead it” vassal (Cordelia, 4.3.11-12) servant; person owing homage and loyalty to a feudal overlord

22 \ GUTHRIE THEATER miscreant, villain, wretch, rascal “O vassal! Miscreant!” (Lear, 1.1.138) KENT’S ABUSE OF OSWALD: INSULTS EXPLAINED

W three-suited servingman were allotted three suits of clothes wanton cruel hundred-pound “As flies towanton boys are we to a large sum (may or may not be a swipe at James I’s creation of th’gods;” (Gloucester, 4.1.32) knights for this amount)

weeds lily-livered clothes cowardly “These weeds are memories of those worser hours” (Cordelia, glass-gazing 4.6.7) vain, given to self-admiration, looking at mirrors

word super-servicable password ready and willing to serve beyond one’s duties, even dishonorably; Sweet marjoram over-officious possible allusion to the flowers Lear wears; marjoram is also a one-trunk-inheriting remedy for diseases of the brain inheriting only enough things to fill up a trunk and head “Give the word.” “Sweet marjoram.” composition “Pass.” (Lear, Edgar, 4.5.68-70) combination

worth the whistle pander worth finding, seeking out pimp, procurer “I have been worth the whistle.” (Goneril, 4.2.30) mongrel of different breeds

“A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy knave; alily-livered , whoreson glass-gazing, super- serviceable rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave that art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch” (Kent, 2.2.10-14)

Sources include Shakespeare’s Words by David Crystal and Ben Crystal; Shakespeare Lexicon by Alexander Schmidt; Oxford English Dictionary; and notes to the Arden, Cambridge and Oxford editions of the play.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 23 BUILDING THE PRODUCTION

PHOTO BY LAUREN MUELLER From the Director: Joseph Haj

King Lear is about a lot of things, but what I think sleds. There are a handful of big gestures in it that the play is mostly about is how close our worser we felt to be important. And I wanted this enormous selves are to our better selves and how little it takes scaled room in which we can allow the actors to do for a very civilized world to become a very barbaric what actors do best and what I think a thrust most world. This seems to be a good theme to explore in invites, which is actors in space. Because finally what this moment. The play is, of course, about power: this play is about is the people within it and what what people will do to gain it, what it means to lose those relationships are. it, land, wealth, lovers, power to govern, power to govern one’s own mind, cognitive power. For all of Early on in the conversation with designers, while King Lear’s vastness, scale and scope, kingdoms and we know that King Lear is a vaguely historical kings, it seems to me a profoundly interior play. It’s personage, we thought if we put it in a pre-history, a domestic play. It’s about fathers and daughters, pre-Christian Britain, it’s not easy for the play to fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, friendship, loyalty become something, it just is something. So if you’re and infidelity. It’s about what happens when we can’t in a Stonehenge-y world, in a pre-civilized world, govern our own rage, when we can’t govern our own then there’s no way to track toward the barbarity minds. that comes in the production. This decision led us to a place where we wanted a hyper, ultra-civilized I wanted a container for the play, but I didn’t want a world to begin the play, a functional world. And then hundred moving parts to the set. There’s not a lot of the play can become something as that begins to fall flying in and out, nothing’s tracking and there are no apart.

24 \ GUTHRIE THEATER BUILDING THE PRODUCTION

PHOTO BY LAUREN MUELLER

From the Costume Designer: Jennifer Moeller

Our King Lear costumes are early ’30s-ish, Europe- cold. This is a cold world. One of the things that Joe is ish. What’s nice about the ’30s is the glamor and the really keen on is that when Lear is thrust out onto the civilized-ness of it. And if there was ever a play about a heath and into the world, it is cold out there. There’s a fall, it’s this one. So we need a place to fall from. real danger to him being out there, there’s an urgency to get him to safety. Gloucester needs to get out there So the first scene in court is this glamorous white-tie and help him. So there’s going to be a lot of coats event. The men are all in their white and black, very and scarves and sweaters and hats and cold-weather stark, very structured, tailored, buttoned up, masculine accessories. world. Into which there are these three lovely ladies out there, in their glamorous evening wear. But the color palette is really compressed. The women are still in this black, white and grey world; they’re contained in this masculine world.

When the men are all coming into Albany and Goneril’s home following the hunt, they’re tromping through the house in their big boots and they’re carrying their dead animals and throwing off their jackets and scarves, very much as when you come in from the

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 25 The Role ofaLifetime Carla Steen abouthow alifetime oftheater, love andloss hasprepared themfor January, they stopped by ourKitchak DonorLounge to talkwithProduction Dramaturg Now they share Shakespeare’s most titanicrole. Afew weeks into rehearsals this Between them,actors Nat FullerandStephen Yoakam share 80years ofGuthriehistory. Carla Steen Stephen Yoakam and From left:Nat Fuller, 26 \ GUTHRIE THEATER the play now that we’re botholder. there’s just adeeperconnection to experience andlove andloss, our lives andjust hadmore life individually have gotten olderin STEPHEN YOAKAM: title character isanagingman? changed asyou’ve aged,since the CS: god. NAT FULLER: since you did production]. It’s been22years as Kent Wright’s inGarland 1995 [Fuller asAlbany andYoakam in CARLA STEEN: BUILDING THEPRODUCTION King Lear Hasyour view oftheplay before at theGuthrie Hasitreally? Oh,my You’ve bothbeen Lear Aswe here – SY: NF: SY: prepare for it? head around that? How doyou How do you beginto getyour you’re bothplaying andsharing. CS: SY: have athankless child,” asLear says. sharper thanaserpent’s tooth itisto when Iknow we’ve bothfelt “how joy. Butthere have beenmoments NF: Myfeeling isthat my, andour, [laughs] That’s true. Right. Andourdaughters have beena This isaniconic role that Andwe bothhave daughters. role ever written, insurmountable – the most popularplay, thegreatest greatest play inEnglish literature, how gigantic apiece NF: great deal ofrespect. approach itvery humbly andwitha but attempting to dothisrole. I attacking …no, notattacking, us inorder to even thinkabout art andmakingtheater behind also to have thelifetime ofmaking enough to beable to doit,and It’s taken this long, first to getold role hasbeenourentire careers. collective apprenticeship to this You hear over andover again Lear Lear is–the .

PHOTO: LAUREN MUELLER CS: Would you want to watch NF: That’s the part we have to the other’s? imagine. NF: If we know the part well CS: What have you found are the enough, we’ll be taking our own particular challenges in sharing journey through it, which will the role? be fully alive for us. Maybe if I’m hitting a part where I’m going, NF: I think the biggest challenge is “This isn’t working for some just not having as many repetitions reason,” I might sneak up and see as the other actors. There are times how Steve’s doing it. when we have to sit and watch. On the other hand, we learn things by CS: So is this the first time you’ve sitting and watching. been in a rehearsal room with Joe Haj since 1990 when you were all SY: We’re picking stuff up from cast members in Shakespeare’s each other, which is great. History Plays here at the Guthrie?

NF: And we also can share each SY AND NF: Yes. other’s insights. CS: You two have such a long SY: Getting the role into your body history together, and then you have is key at this point in the rehearsal this shared history with Joe – does process. And when you don’t get that help with shorthand or are you as many reps, you get up and you sort of learning each other again? kind of go, “OK, what did I do SY: Unactable. last time? Oh, right, right, right.” NF: I think it helps that Joe knows I haven’t asked any of the other us and he also trusts us. He’s also NF: Unactable. Ultimately though, actors what it’s like for them yet. had a great deal of experience with it is an acting job. And we have to the thrust stage so he’s very aware figure out what the story is and NF: No, we’re too busy! of how to stage the play. And he’s how we want to tell it together. a very collaborative director. And then we have to act, moment SY: I’m actually curious what to moment. I don’t think there’s an that experience is for the rest SY: Very. individual emotion in the play that of the cast. I imagine once we Steve and I haven’t acted before get into doing runs and into the NF: He really listens. He’s got plenty at some point. It’s still a challenge, performances that it’ll be a real kick of his own ideas, but we feel like but we know what the challenges for them because it’ll keep it very we’re working together to work are. So every day I’m going to fresh, and it’ll be new every night. it out. come in and do my work, because it doesn’t do me any good to think CS: And when you’re not playing SY: Joe’s very generous. Because about how monumental it is. Lear, you’re playing the Old Man. he was an actor and he comes from the repertory experience as well, SY: I think, like we were saying, that SY: Which means we’re in the show he knows how plays get made and life experience is a huge part of it, every day. That’s great. We stay how, without true collaboration, too. We’ve both been through the in touch. you don’t get very far. He’s a very phase now of caring for and losing loving, generous guy, who has a parents, and that’s huge in terms of NF: Although, the scene that we great sense of humor, which goes being able to relate to what Lear’s do as the Old Man is not a scene for miles in the rehearsal room. going through. with Lear. So unless we want to Yes, this is King Lear, but we find go down into the vom, we won’t ourselves laughing a lot as well. NF: We’ve never been kings. be watching each other’s Lear performance. SY: [laughs] Only in plays.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 27 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For Further Reading and Understanding

EDITIONS OF KING LEAR Eyre. BBC. Ian Holm as Lear. 1998 Straus, Giroux, 2000 King Lear directed by Michael King Lear by William Shakespeare, Elliott. Granada TV. Laurence Scheeder, Louis and Shane Ann edited by Kenneth Muir, The Arden Olivier as Lear. 1984 Younts, All the Words on Stage: Shakespeare, London: Routledge, King Lear directed by Grigori A Complete Pronunciation 1972 Kozintsev. In Russian with Dictionary for the plays of William subtitles. Jüri Järvet as Lear. 1971 Shakespeare, New York: Smith & King Lear by William Shakespeare, King Lear directed by Peter Brook. Kraus, 2001 edited by Stanley Wells, The Paul Scofield as Lear. 1971 Oxford Shakespeare, Oxford: King Lear directed by Andrew WEBSITES Oxford University Press, 2000 McCullough. Orson Welles as Lear. 1953 Folger Shakespeare Library King Lear by William Shakespeare, www.folger.edu edited by Jay L. Halio, The BOOKS FOR GENERAL The wealth of resources found on New Cambridge Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE STUDIES this site include lesson plans, study Cambridge: Cambridge University guides, and interactive activities. Press, 2005 Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (two volumes). New Internet Shakespeare Editions King Lear: A Parallel Text Edition, York: Avenel Books, 1970 http://internetshakespeare.uvic. edited by René Weis, London: ca/index.html Longman, 1993 Auden, W.H. Lectures on Collection of materials on Shakespeare. New Jersey: Shakespeare and his plays, an BOOKS ABOUT KING LEAR Princeton University Press, 2000 extensive archive of productions and production materials. Bradley, Lynne. Adapting King Coye, Dale F. Pronouncing Lear for the Stage. Burlington, VT: Shakespeare’s Words: A Guide The Global Electronic Ashgate Publishing Company, 2010 from A to Zounds. Westport, Shakespeare Conference Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998 www.shaksper.net Halio, Jay L., editor. Critical Educational mailing list for all Insights: King Lear. Pasadena, Crystal, David and Ben Crystal, things Shakespeare, edited by Calif.: Salem Press, 2012 Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary Hardy M. Cook. and Language Companion, New Kozintsev, Grigori. King Lear: The York: Penguin Books, 2002 Shakespeare Uncovered Space of Tragedy, the diary of a http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ film director. Berkeley: University Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare shakespeare-uncovered/ of California Press, 1973 After All, Pantheon, 2004 A series that goes in-depth into one play per episode. A host Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces investigates the text, and its of Lear. Berkeley: University of to Shakespeare. Princeton, N.J.: interpretations, visiting companies California Press, 1972 Princeton University Press, 1947 in rehearsal and in performance. Shapiro, James. The Year of Lear: (King Lear preface originally Full episodes can be viewed Shakespeare in 1606. New York: published in 1927) online. Simon & Schuster, 2015 Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the MIT Shakespeare: The Complete FILMS World: How Shakespeare Became Works Online Shakespeare, New York: W.W. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/ King Lear directed by Trevor Nunn. Norton and Co., 2004 RSC production. Ian McKellen as Lear. 2008 Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s King Lear directed by Richard Language. New York: Farrar,

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