Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: essay writing, king lear, Shakespeare, values
Your introduction must include:
- brief comment on values and how they alter with time and place
- brief description of Shakespeare’s world – early 17th century England
- your argument in response to the essay question (what values does the play King Lear explore)
- identifying the text and composer that will be discussed (also the year it was written)
The body of your essay should include:
- identification and discussion of at least TWO values held by the Elizabethan society that are reflected in the play King Lear
- For example:
- Family
- Goodness
- Harmony
- Honesty
- Honour
- Love
- Loyalty
- Personal Growth
- Power
- Respect
- Legitimacy
- For example:
- Service
- Stability
- Status
- Tradition
- Trust
- Truth
- Unity
- Wisdom
- Ambition
- an integrated discussion of contextual factors that lead to these values being held by individuals living during the Elizabethan era
- For example:
- The Wheel of Fortune
- The Renaissance movement
- Humanism
- The Great Chain of Being
- Providentialism
- Divine Right of Kings
- Dependence of women on men
- Reformation
- examples from the play that support the values being discussed
- This mean quotes. Each paragraph should contain at least TWO quotes to support the point being made.
- a discussion of the dramatic techniques used by Shakespeare to explore the values in the play King Lear
- For example:
- Symbolism
- Motifs
- Literary techniques (figurative language etc)
- Blank Verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
- Prose
- Imagery
- Soliloquy
- Asides
- Stage Directions
- Exits and Entrances
- Characterisation
- Setting
- Division into Acts/Scenes
- Structure
- Genre – tragedy (conventions of tragedy)
- Contrast
- Foil characters
- For example:
- For example:
NOTE: Each paragraph should focus on a value explored in the play (you might want to include two paragraphs per value), refer to at least ONE contextual factor influencing the significance of this value for the Elizabethan era , identify a stylistic feature Shakespeare uses to present these ideas (dramatic or literary technique)and include at least TWO quotes from the play as support .
LENGTH: You should aim for approximately 5-6 paragraphs for your essay – which should be around 5-6 pages.
Structure 1:
P1: Introduction – three values identified
P2: Value 1 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P3: Value 2 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P4: Value 3 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P5: Conclusion
Structure 2:
P1: Introduction – two values identified
P2: Value 1 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P3: Value 1 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P4: Value 2 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P5: Value 2 + contextual detail + dramatic/literary technique + 2 quotes
P6: Conclusion
The Board of Studies defines the noun ‘value’ as ‘a quality desirable as a means or end in itself’.
As part of this module you will explore how and why cultural values are maintained and changed. Looking critically at the prescribed text, King Lear, you will develop an appreciation of the dynamic relationship between text and culture – in our case, King Lear and the Elizabethan culture.
Key questions to be explored are:
- how does the language of King Lear shape and reflect values?
- how do shifting values of society impact our interpretation of a text?
- why/how King Lear has been valued in a range of contexts?
- why is King Lear seen as being culturally significant?
Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: context, Elizabethan era, king lear, Shakespeare
The work below is the result of our recent group research projects. Each group looked at a different aspect of context: personal, historical, social, cultural and workplace (Mnemonic: Pass the HSC to Work). As part of our current module, Shifting Values, you are required to demonstrate and understanding of how values alter over time and are reflected in texts. This means that for your study of King Lear you are expected to show an understanding of the values of Shakespeare’s context, how and why these are shifting and how this shift in values is expressed by Shakespeare in his tragedy, King Lear.
Personal Context
Kate discovered that:
Shakespeare’s upbringing in a wealthy family, his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1952, and lastly would be the death of his only son, Hamnet 1596 are the most important factors of this context, and have reflected in and influenced his works.
Tania discovered that:
Although Shakespeare attended Stratford Grammar, he never attended college despite becoming one of the most renowned playwrights. Shakespeare’s education has had a large impact on him and affected his career, including his work.
The bubonic plague which passed through Shakespeare’s town had an influence on Shakespeare’s work. Shakespeare began with writing comedies and was well-known for them, he later began to write tragedies which were filled and dominated by death. His tragedies were influenced by witnessing sickness and death through his society caused by the deadly bubonic plague.
Gemma discovered:
It is not actually known when Shakespeare started writing but it is known that by 1592 some of his plays were being staged in London. He was so well known in fact, that he was attacked in print by playwright Robert Greene:
…there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of this quote, but most can agree that Robert Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his “rank” and trying to match university educated writers of which he was not one.
Also during his lifetime outbreaks of the plague caused the closure of the theatres, war ravaged the continent and death plagued him and his family.
However, it should also be discussed that there are theories in which Shakespeare actually stole other writers’ works and tweaked them, that is, changed them to suit his own message or storyline so he would get the credit, although, this theory has never been proved.
Social Context:
Hillary discovered:
The main hierarchy of society and beliefs was the Great Chain of Being- which was Universal. The order of this was; God, angels, demons, man, woman, animal, plant and mineral. The greatest authority in this society was the Monarchy.
The Elizabethans believed in fate which was influenced by the Wheel of Fortune or Rota Fortuna and it is a medieval philosophy referring to fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna, who spins it randomly, changing the positions on the wheel- some lose and suffer while others gain. The Wheel of Fortune was a great part Shakespeare’s context values as the idea of fate belonged among their strongly-held beliefs. People believed everything was predestined/pre-written among the heavens and so it was never questioned by the people. Furthermore, Shakespeare refers to the wheel in King Lear when the Earl of Kent has been banished and has returned in disguise. He is then replaced in stocks overnight and laments this turn of events, “Fortune, good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel!”
Holly discovered:
William Shakespeare’s intellect would have been influenced greatly by the social context he experienced. The Elizabethan era was a time associated with Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603), during which; Shakespeare lived and wrote. It is often considered to be the golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of English poetry, music and literature. Society during this era was rapidly changing; influencing many of Shakespeare’s masterpieces.
London in the 16th century underwent a transformation. Its population grew 400% during the 1500s, swelling to nearly 200,000 people in the city; the economy boomed. With this sudden population increase, came a strong sense of social class; belonging to a particular group because of occupation, wealth, and ancestry. Some families moved from one class to another, but most people were born into a particular class and stayed there. Social class could determine all sorts of things, from what a person could wear to where he could live to what jobs his children could get. The Classes included were usually the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry and the Poor.
The monarch of England during the Elizabethan Era was Queen Elizabeth I. During Shakespeare’s life, the monarch was a ruler, unlike those today. The monarch was the ultimate decider and was able to determine issues of national religion, when Parliament would sit and what it would discuss, when and if the country would go to war, matters of education, welfare of the citizens, what food they could eat, and what clothes they could wear. She also had various counsellors and officials to aid her rule.
These social aspects of the Elizabethan era would each have influenced Shakespeare’s writing immensely. The huge increase in London’s population, the social hierarchy which existed, and the significance of the monarch, as well as other aspects such as religion and fate would each have affected Shakespeare’s literary creations.
Cultural Context:
Jonny F discovered that:
The Renaissance period involved vast cultural changes from 1400 and 1600. Religion, Sexuality, King James and Morals all appear to have contributed to Shakespeare’s cultural context and ultimately his works.
Prior to the Renaissance God was considered to have absolute power, and this was forced upon by the Catholic Church. However with the change in times brought a change in attitude, not necessarily rejection of God, but rather people began to question humankind’s relationship with god. This greatly altered the well established social hierarchy and the greater focus on humanity created more freedom for artists, as they became more inquisitive about the world around them.
Shakespeare focused on creating more complex characters who questioned humanity and the world.
Shakespeare often aimed to emulate Elizabethan morals and values in his works. For example young love as a universal theme was explored throughout one of his most famous works Romeo and Juliet. Another example is the idea of exploring humanity and the world, which is explored in many of Shakespeare’s works.
Yuta H discovered that:
Although traces of humanism, where one could move from class to class with effort, was gradually integrating itself, the social structure of high, mid and low class was more than apparent. Although being born into a social structure would have affected him personally, it would have more so affected his writing; it’s content.
Workplace Context
Emily discovered:
William Shakespeare grew up in the countryside, in Stratford. Throughout his childhood in the countryside Shakespeare was surrounded by animals, wildlife and nature and consequently his writing was influenced by nature. As a result of this, his writing was often filled with natural imagery.
Shakespeare wrote in blank verse. Iambic Pentameter refers to the rhythm “da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum”. Shakespeare made sure the plots of the plays were not lost by using this rhythm. This rhythm was used to emphasise the most important syllables spoken because it was unlikely in a Shakespearean theatre to hear all of the play due to the raucousness of the crowd.
Tania discovered:
Queen Elizabeth impacted on all major art forms as she loved the arts.
She guided many artists such as Nicholas Hilliard as well as Marcus Gheeraerts in creating stylised imagery which portrayed elegance, power and wealth. William Shakespeare had to compete with other artists to impress the Queen to receive commission for his work. It is evident in Shakespeare’s work that he has included other art forms and imagery to impress the Queen, e.g. embroidery in his actors’ costumes.
Christopher Marlowe, an artist, was also another one of Shakespeare’s influences. Marlowe reintroduced the idea and use of iambic pentameter and blank verse. Marlowe’s influence is clear as in Shakespeare’s work both iambic pentameter and blank verse are used in order to communicate and be heard by the audience.
The Elizabethan era saw the rise in the popularity of theatres and during this time the staging of plays moved from renovated inn-yards to the building of huge outdoor amphitheatres, such as the Globe theatre.
Holly discovered:
The term ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth, and refers to an intellectual, literary and artistic movement that began in Italy in the fourteenth century and culminated in the 16th century. During this time, scholars, writers and artists including Shakespeare, rediscovered and reinterpreted the great classical heritage of the Roman Empire- its architecture, sculpture, philosophy, art and literature.
In the 1580s, the writings of the University Wits (Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Kyd, and Peele) defined the London theatre. Though grounded in medieval and Jacobean roots, these men produced new dramas and comedies using Marlowe’s styling of blank verse. Shakespeare outdid them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with classical sources, enriching the admixture with his imagination and wit.
There is no doubt that Shakespeare was a man of brilliance, yet his intellectual talent would have been influenced by the context in which he wrote, including that of the workplace.
Thank you to the fantastic students who submitted their research reports! :0)
Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: characterisation, language, Shakespeare, themes, tragedy, values
In King Lear by William Shakespeare, the characterization of the traits can be observed by the use of its language. Such use of language is like the application of imagery, metaphor, simile, and other kind of figurative language in the text that could portray the characters’ trait. The other figurative language is consist of paradox, personification and hyperbole.
The use of imagery in King Lear could be found as animal characteristic that is applied in the character’s dialogue to refer to other person or to speak for oneself. When Lear said “Come not between the Dragon and his wrath” (I, i, 121), he could be read as an arrogant man with full of confidence. The use of dragon as the imagery shows great power and viciousness as dragon is known as a most powerful monster in myth. Thus, it is imagined Lear as a man who is capable of causing immense disaster.
Other than that, there is also animal imagery spoken by Fool, who throw a sarcastic remark to Lear “Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out when the Lady’s Brach may stand by th’fire and stink” (I, iv, 110 – 112), he is actually referring the Lady’s Brach to Lear’s two elder daughters. Brach is a hound bitch which is associated with flattery, while the other dog is whipped and should belongs to it’s kennel, the brach gets to sit by the fire. They had indeed flatter Lear to the extent of foolishness. Fool is indicating that Goneril and Regan flatter to gain their part of land, while Cordelia speaks of truth but is disclaim as a daughter.
In Act 1, Lear has cursed Goneril, “…she may feel How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child!…” (I, iv, 287 – 288). Lear has cursed Goneril for her to be childless and if it is not, she would be present with a child that gives burden to her all life. By this line, Lear has also meant to say that Goneril is the thankless child and the cause she made to her father is much more painful than a serpent’s bite. A serpent’s bite may kill at once, but what more can be worse than death, except the great pain and suffering one must endure which made one longed for death. This is how Goneril is being portrayed, the cause of suffering worse than death itself.
From this line and the line when Lear disowns Cordelia “…Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me…” (I, i, 111 – 114) show that Lear is a rash person, a man with a lot of curses in hand. This could also indicate that Lear is undergoing his time of old age, although by the end of the play he could still be able to carry Cordelia’s body which is an achievement for an old man.
“…like a vulture…” (II, iv, 133), is what Lear told Regan of her sister Goneril is like the ferocious bird that feeds on flesh. Lear is indicating of Goneril’s cruelty on him which he explained as though Goneril feeds on Lear’s heart. This is just really indicating that Goneril has made an action of banishing Lear out of her castle and causes the man to feel hurt by his daughter’s mean deed. This line could also be the use of hyperbole in the text. That is to make an overstatement on Goneril’s feeding on Lear’s heart.
There is also another bird imagery that explains much the same as the vulture. Lear identifies his daughters as ‘Pelican daughters’ (III, iv, 76). Pelican younglings would peck their parents during feeding time and it is thought that the younglings attack its parent in order to feed on its parent’s flesh and blood. In a way, this explains Goneril and Regan action in banishing away their own father after gaining what they wanted from him. They peck him hard that could eventually lead to his senility and in powerless degree.
There is also another reference of the two elder daughters’ characteristic which is made by Kent, “…To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting His mind venomously…”, (IV, iii, 45 – 46). Dog-hearted is defined as pitiless and the action of stinging is like a bee that stings venomous poison which could be define wholly as pitiless daughters that wish to cause worst damage to their own father.
Other than animal imagery, there is also other imagery involved in defining the characterization of the characters. For an instance, Cordelia is said to be ‘The jewels of our father’ (I, i, 267) indicating that she has been the favourite out of the three to Lear. Though we know that Cordelia does not much with words, we could tell that she gains Lear’s favouritism by her own actions which shown her true sincerity.
Gloucester has used the nature imagery and as well as animal imagery which signify Regan and Cornwall’s cruelty. “…Rash boarish fangs. The sea, with such storm…he holp the heavens to rain. If wolves had at thy gate howled that dearn time…” (III, vii, 55 – 64) reveals Regan and Cornwall’s brutality towards Gloucester. Their violence is portrayed like boar and wolves. Their actions in plucking Gloucester’s eyes out are wild like a stormy sea. However, Gloucester shows his belief to the astronomical and divine power by believing that the treatment he faced could even make the heaven cry.
In King Lear, there is also the use of paradox in the text to show characterization. This could be found when France made a statement on Cordelia “Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!” (I, i, 249 – 250). France’s choice of words shows the opposite of each point on Cordelia. She is most rich with love but is poor in wealth, she has the most choice to choose her groom, but now she is abandoned and, she was most loved by Lear, but now is despised by her own father.
The use of metaphor in King Lear could be found when Cordelia meet her father who has gone senile, “Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With hardocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers…” (IV, iv, 3 – 5), explains Lear’s behaviour at the moment of time. He was crowned with bitter and poisonous flowers as if reflecting the causes of his insanity. The poisonous ‘stings’ and the bitter experiences he faced caused by his other two daughters had actually drove him to madness. He might have chosen these flowers and weeds particularly because he found them related to his wretched feelings.
With the figurative language used in this play, it shows the traits of each character well. Other than making it straight forward as how Goneril addresses Fool as all-licensed Fool, Shakespeare has made it more visual and fully lived the characteristics. One may see the traits as differently from others, but the end of the play, one still would agree that Lear is the tragic hero, Cordelia as the loving daughter, Goneril and Regan as the evil sisters.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Aziz_Rabiatul
Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: essay, king lear, Shakespeare, soliloquy, tragedy
Probably the best-known lines in all Western drama begin a soliloquy: To be or not to be. Shakespeare’s work is full of them, from Juliet’s soliloquy on the balcony, Macbeth’s troubled musings – indeed, about half of everything Hamlet says seems to be a soliloquy. But what exactly are they?
A definition
A soliloquy is an extended speech, directed to the audience rather than to other characters, in which the speaker explores their thoughts and feelings. It can deal with big, generalised issues, such as Hamlet’s To be or not to be. (Act 3. Scene i.), in which he considers life, death and suicide; react to events such as O what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (Act 2, Scene ii), when he compares himself with the Player King and berates his own inaction; or ponder future action, as in Now might I do it pat, now he is praying (Act 3, Scene iii).
A soliloquy is not just an extended, emotional speech, however. For example, Portia’s The quality of mercy is not strained in The Merchant of Venice (Act 4, Scene i) is not a soliloquy, as it is delivered to Shylock, attempting to persuade him not to exact the pound of Antonio’s flesh specified in the bond. In technical terms, this is a example of “forensic oratory” – a persuasive speech made in court.
Soliloquies and asides
A soliloquy should also be distinguished from a “dramatic aside”, which is a comment spoken during a passage of dialogue, though not meant to be heard by the other characters. It usually comments on, or contrasts with, the dialogue it accompanies. For example, Shylock’s lengthy aside beginning Yes, to smell pork (Act 1, Scene iii) is obviously directed at Bassanio, though he is not intended to hear it, and is slotted into the dialogue of the scene. It is also part of the time-scheme of the dialogue; there is often a feeling in soliloquy that a character has stepped “outside time” to reflect, whereas Shylock’s comments occupy a brief and specific moment in the dialogue.
Soliloquies on stage
Soliloquies can seem awkward or unrealistic in modern productions, as modern theatre-goers have become used to a relatively illusionist theatre – we are uncomfortable with characters who pretend they cannot hear what someone is saying whilst standing right next to them, or actors who turn to take the audience into their confidence, breaking through the “fourth wall” which separates them from the spectators. However, there were no such problems in Shakespeare’s theatre, which made less attempt to produce an illusion of real life, and played in full daylight on a stage which jutted out into the audience, producing a much closer relationship between audience and actor. Under these conditions, the soliloquy was a flexible and effective dramatic tool for a writer of Shakespeare’s talent.
Read more at Suite101: Soliloquy Basics: The Conventions of a Shakespearean Dramatic Technique
Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: essay, king lear, Shakespeare, tragedy
King Lear is at once the most highly praised and intensely criticized of all Shakespeare’s works. Samuel Johnson said it is “deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakespeare” yet at the same time he supported the changes made in the text by Tate in which Cordelia is allowed to retire with victory and felicity. “Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles.”1 A.C. Bradley’s judgement is that King Lear is “Shakespare’s greatest work, but it is not…the best of his plays.”2 He would wish that “the deaths of Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Gloucester should be followed by the escape of Lear and Cordelia from death,” and even goes so far as to say: “I believe Shakespeare would have ended his play thus had he taken the subject in hand a few years later….”3
Many critics have sworn that the story is too fantastic and cruel to be true and that it should be viewed only as an allegory or fantasy. Yet Johnson called it a “just representation of the common events of human life” and C.J. Sisson has cited historical evidence from the lives of several men which closely resembled Lear’s division of his kingdom and tragic rejection by his daughters.
Despite its undeniable greatness, throughout the last four centuries King Lear has left audiences, readers and critics alike emotionally exhausted and mentally unsatisfied by its conclusion. Shakespeare seems to have created a world too cruel and unmerciful to be true to life and too filled with horror and unrelieved suffering to be true to the art of tragedy. These divergent impressions arise from the fact that of all Shakespeare’s works, King Lear expresses human existence in its most universal aspect and in its profoundest depths. A psychological analysis of the characters such as Bradley undertook cannot by itself resolve or place in proper perspective all the elements which contribute to these impressions because there is much here beyond the normal scope of psychology and the conscious or unconscious motivations in men. Nor can a broad holistic approach such as G. Wilson Knight’s which portrays the dramatic milieu of the play without clearly revealing the lines of causality, the role of character and the relationship between symbol and reality, art and life.
We can see in Shakespeare’s works a gradual development which in a sense parallels the historical development of dramatic literature. In his early comedies plot is the sole or major element and character remains a minor or insignificant determinant. As his art develops, the delineation and individuality of character becomes more prominent and is able to exert a major influence on the course of action. In his later works, Shakespeare transcends even the boundaries of individual character, giving his works a still wider amplitude. The character, atmosphere and forces at play in the social milieu are portrayed and integrated with the plot. Not only man but physical nature–the animals, climate, stars, seas–are related to and become expressions of the human experience. A power or powers greater than man, forces of universal life, good and evil, the gods and fate–influence and even determine the course of events overriding human motives and action. But always the portrayal remains faithful to the realities and potentialities of human nature. This is the impression we get from Shakespeare’s greatest works, the impression of an all-embracing vision of human existence in its widest cosmic context.
King Lear is not only a consummate artistic masterpiece. It is also Shakespeare’s most all-encompassing portrayal of human life. Character, atmosphere, dramatic techniques are all employed and inextricably bound together in an effort to give living reality to his vision. Like nature herself, Shakespeare has created a world which is in its essence and major outlines, in its portrayal of human personality and social interrelations, in its expressions of simultaneity and sequence and in many other respects true to life. The challenge that he poses before us is to discover the nature of the correspondence between his work and nature’s own creation and, once that correspondence is known, to see in and through his work the character of life itself.
Numerous theories have been put forth to explain the sequence of tragedies Shakespeare wrote during this same period by linking it to some experience of melancholy, anger, despair in the author himself. But such theories overlook the fact that it is in this very same period, in fact, in these same tragic works that he has portrayed the heights to which human nature can rise in its purest and noblest if not happiest terms. Surely the creation of so much light alongside the darkness and the perfection of the artistic medium through which he gives them expression argue against them having been written in a state of melancholy or any other condition which is a drain on the mental energies. It is not the dark side of human nature which is Shakespeare’s chief concern at all. His effort is to portray human life in its fullest, widest and profoundest context; to reveal not only the dark depths but also the treasure rooms of our being; to pierce beneath the superficial motives and forces of our surface behaviour, social and cultural expressions, to the deeper levels of individual character and human nature; and to place these aspects of human existence in their true relation to the wider field of universal life. He chose the medium of tragedy because at his time man had not yet emerged sufficiently from the lower and darker portion of nature which he inherited from his animal ancestors. The greatest intensities of which human life was capable were suffering, hatred and evil and it was through such experiences that they most fully realized their place in the cosmic scheme. Certainly love, joy, nobility, loyalty, self-giving were developed, in some individual cases to a very high pitch, but they were not yet able to establish themselves in the consciousness of humanity to the extent of the negative forces in nature.
In King Lear Shakespeare transcends the natural boundaries of drama to express life beyond the limits of his artistic medium. For this reason Bradley calls it his greatest work but not his best play. Its failure as a play is a success at a higher and wider level. In Macbeth Shakespeare represents destruction at the physical level–war, murder, etc. In Lear it is faith, love, hope and expectation that are destroyed–things of the mind. It is psychological destruction in the wider plane of life, destruction of values not just bodies.
The forces expressing themselves in King Lear are of universal dimensions. Both good and evil find their purest and most powerful expressions but it is the impression of evil which is most predominant and enduring. Kindness and goodness were not sufficiently developed to get expressed on that scale. It can be seen that Shakespeare’s evil, cruel characters are always more powerful than his good ones. Even in The Tempest where he portrays the power of good victorious, it is only by magic that it conquers, not as a normal power in life. The expression he gives to good, though it reaches a high beauty, is less compelling, inevitable and realistic because he is expressing conditions which human consciousness is not yet fully able to realize. The intense expression of positive forces is made possible by a further development of human culture.
The universal character of King Lear by which we do not refer merely to its general application to all mankind but to the intensity and extensity of the forces at play, is indicated in many ways. The unbearable nature of Lear’s suffering, its prolonged and unrelieved continuity, the destruction of not merely family but of the deep emotional bonds between father and child, the disruption of an entire kingdom and Lear’s loss of his sanity, all point to the action of very powerful forces. The swiftness with which the issue leads to calamity is another indication. The King’s entire initiative is compressed into a few short moments and all else is but an inevitable working out of that initiative by life. Finally, even the forces of physical nature expressing themselves in the storm play a role in his suffering. The intensity of evil has saturated that plane of life and nature itself responds to the movement. On learning of Edgar’s betrayal, Gloucester gives a superstitious but nonetheless accurate expression to the conditions pertaining in the land.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg’d by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack’d, twixt son and father. (I.ii.100)
Bradley reflects this universality of the forces at work and their evil nature: “…these terrible forces bursting into monstrous life and flinging themselves upon those human beings who are weak and defenceless, partly from old age, but partly because they are human and lack the dreadful undivided energy of the beast.”4
When we recover from the shrinking of our senses at the horror which is presented, we discover that though evil is by far the most intense and penetrating force represented here, it is not either during the course of action or in the end a dominating influence against which all others are helpless. Rather we find that this evil has been released into the atmosphere by a chain of events it did not initiate and that after a brief but terrible period of destruction those who were its instruments are themselves destroyed. A still deeper insight into the life portrayed here will reveal that what we took to be a thoroughly pessimistic portrayal of evil, suffering and destruction contains within it a process of growing human consciousness and evolving social life.
Source: “Shakespeare’s King Lear – A World too Cruel?.” 123HelpMe.com. 16 May 2010
Filed under: Uncategorized
by David Patterson
Heritage Lecture #545
October 19, 1995
The Undermining of a Family: Shakespeare’s King Lear
King Lear is a drama about the premature collapse and failed recovery of a monarch’s household. While Homer’s epic generally unfolds in the external geography of adventure, Shakespeare’s play focuses more on the internal struggle of a soul trying to regain a native ground that has crumbled out from under him. But what exactly threatens the home and family of the King and, indeed, brings them to ruin?
The home and family in this drama come to ruin as the result of a fundamental confusion about nature and natural law, where natural law may be understood much as Thomas Aquinas understands it. Natural law, he explains in the Summa Theologiae, is “the participation in eternal law by rational creatures,” and eternal law is defined as “the rational governance of everything on the part of God.” The idea here is that God operates by design and that, since they bear the image of divine being, human beings have a responsibility to become part of that design. The rational governance of Providence implies an ordering of the world with the aim of pursuing the Good, that is, with the aim of attesting to what is most precious in life. Natural law, therefore, establishes a bond between the human being and divine being; it summons humanity to take up a path that would nurture and sanctify life, as God sanctifies life when He pronounces it to be “very good.” Inasmuch as the relation between the holy and the human finds its first expression in the home and family, the life that unfolds in this realm bears witness to a natural law expressive of a sacred aim in life.
King Lear’s confusion, then, is a fundamental confusion about the life that unfolds in the home, and it is revealed in his relation to the surviving members of his family, his daughters Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia. In the play’s opening scene Lear does not offer his daughters a loving embrace expressive of a higher relation, according to the family bond determined by natural law. Instead, he arranges a business transaction, whereby he tries to purchase their words of affection by offering them portions of his wealth. Two of his daughters, Regan and Goneril, are eager to exploit this confusion that undermines the family: They exchange the testimony to life as determined by natural law for lifeless property. And so the seeds of death are sown.
The bond of love that is established by natural law to sustain the family, on the other hand, is precisely what Cordelia invokes when she declares to her father,
“I love your majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.” (I.i)
It is not that Cordelia knows her place, but rather that she knows what is placed on high. Inclined toward a higher responsibility, she obeys the commandment of natural law, and not the whim of the King. But Lear insists upon the false authority of his own whims: Rejecting Cordelia’s simple affirmation of her bond, he refuses what natural law commands. Refusing the commandment of natural law, he loses his relation to the eternal law that sustains the home and sanctifies the family. And so he is left homeless, turned over to the merciless power of the elements as exemplified by the storms in the fields. There he has no dwelling place, for there he is exiled from the truth of natural law.
Usurping the authority of natural law, Lear loses his identity both as the king of a realm and as the father of a family. Here we realize that the task with which natural law confronts us is not simply to follow some rule, but to be who we are. And who we are is defined by the eternal truth that sanctifies the family. Thus, as soon as Lear violates his family by casting out Cordelia, his daughter Regan notes that “he hath ever but slenderly known himself” (I.i). For he knows himself only by the power of manipulation, and not by the truth of family relation. Once he becomes powerless in the face of his daughters’ deception, Lear himself cries out, “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” (I.iv). He does not know himself because he does not know himself as a father, and he is a father before he is a king. To know himself as a father would be to know the natural law that binds him to his daughters in truth, and not through power.
Therefore, as we recall, Cordelia alone speaks the truth, for she alone knows the bond of nature that ties her to her father and, through her father, to a higher truth. Hence, it is she, says Shakespeare,
“Who redeems nature from the general curse
Which twain have brought her to.” (IV. vi)
Cordelia works this redemption by restoring to Lear the relation between father and child — and with it the higher relation — that her sisters have undone. But this undoing was also Lear’s doing. Like most of those who exchange the truth of natural law for the power of human arrogance, he reaps what he has sown. The man who had understood himself only in terms of the power he could wield is overpowered and eventually crushed by the two daughters who would wrench power away from him.
The corruption of nature and the destruction of the family exemplified by Regan and Goneril manifests itself not only in their treatment of their father, but also in the violence that they bring down upon Gloucester by blinding him. The central figure in the play’s subplot, he is a father who is betrayed by his child Edmond and who mistakenly suspects his son Edgar of betrayal. Like Regan and Goneril, it is the bastard son Edmond who is the “unnatural villain” (I.ii), as Gloucester states it, and whose villainy includes the betrayal not only of his father, but also of Cornwall and Albany, the husbands of Regan and Goneril, respectively. For part of his power play involves making promises to take up with each of these wives who are Lear’s daughters. And, having betrayed their father, they are all too willing to betray their husbands and chase after Edmond.
Thus, the violation of the relation between parent and child entails the violation of the relation between husband and wife: The family is assaulted at every turn by those who would be a law unto themselves in a usurpation of natural law. And so when Albany suspects his wife’s treachery, he says to her,
“O Goneril,
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. I fear your disposition:
That nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.” (IV. ii)
That nature which contemns its origin — the child who dishonors her father — is a perverted nature that despises the family. Despising this origin of humanity, such a nature has nothing to limit its contempt for humanity. Goneril, then, divorces herself from all the limitations of natural law, which, as we have seen, is our link to the eternal law that sanctifies the family and all of humanity. Thus divorced from the family, Goneril is cut off from the origin of all that is holy in human life and ends by murdering her two sisters. And the murder of Cordelia, of course, results in the death of her father Lear.
Set in a time that came long before Shakespeare’s time, this play continues to speak to us in our own time. As a commentary on our own humanity, it sheds light on the ways in which we, too, stand by and tolerate the assault on the family. It tells us, for example, something about the sickness of a society that hides away its parents to die in “homes” that are the antithesis of a home and that leaves the care of its children to people who are not their parents. It reveals to us a connection between murder and adultery, between the hand that steals, the mouth that lies, and the eye that covets. For all of these things belong to a nature that contemns its origin and therefore has nothing but contempt for the family. All of them result from the undermining of the natural law that lies at the center of the home and that links the life of the family to the life of the eternal.
In these last five transgressions I have mentioned you will recognize the second five of the Ten Commandments. Here we may recall an ancient Jewish teaching, according to which the Ten Commandments were written on two tablets in order to designate two realms of relation. The first five commandments pertain to the relation of adam la Makom, or the human relation to the divine, and the second five pertain to the relation of adam l’adam, or the human relation to other human beings. What is of interest to the concern at hand is this: The commandment to honor mother and father belongs to the first category. Which means: The integrity of the family belongs to the integrity of the divine. Holding to the sanctity of the family, therefore, is prior to the sanctification of all other realms of human relation. Once Lear’s daughters violate the family and destroy the home, there is no crime that they cannot commit. And justify.
Thus, the truth that comes to us through King Lear arises in an antiquity that long precedes it and lives in a modernity that far exceeds it. Truly among the permanent things, this truth finds another expression in a literary masterpiece that appears nearly three centuries after Shakespeare’s play.
Source:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/HL545.cfm
Filed under: Module A: Shifting Values, Uncategorized | Tags: context, elizabethan, king lear, Shakespeare, values
In his influential book, The Elizabethan World Picture (first published in 1943), E.M.W. Tillyard details the way in which Elizabethans viewed their world order. One of the key beliefs in this world picture is what Tillyard calls The Chain of Being, much of which worked its way into the literature of the time, including Shakespeare’s plays. Familiarity with the chain of being can do much to enhance our reading of Shakespeare’s plays.
THE ORDER OF THINGS
The chain of being is a complicated and somewhat fluid concept. Put simply, Tillyard’s explanation is that everything on earth and in the universe is linked in a particular order – everything has its place. The most heavenly beings are placed at the top of the chain, seated at the foot of God. The basest creatures are at the bottom, furthest away from God. The best way of envisioning this is probably to think of a ladder. At the bottom of the ladder are one-celled micro-organisms. Above them are plants, then, in ascending order:
- animals/plants/metals/liquids
- man
- the elements
- stars and fortune
- angels and ether
However, just as there was a class system within Elizabethan England with Queen Elizabeth at the top of the chain and the poorest working person at the bottom, within each sub-class in the chain of being there is an hierarchy as well. For instance:
- gold, silver, and diamonds are the highest-rated metals and jewels
- a rose is the most precious flower
- the eagle is the noblest of birds
- the lion is the king of beasts.
This ranking of objects and animals is something society continues to this day:
- the precious metals are used in jewellery and traded on commodities markets and diamond rings are given as tokens of love
- long-stemmed red roses are signs of undying affection
- the eagle and the lion are still considered kings in their class.
The human section of the chain was likewise divided into a chain with monarchs, leaders, heads of state at the top and the dispossessed at the bottom – extremes illustrated in King Lear when Lear, still ‘every inch a king’ [4.6.107] meets ‘Poor Tom’ on the heath.
Before dividing his kingdom, Lear, at the top of his particular chain, had absolute power. This enabled him to do the unthinkable, i.e. give up his kingdom and ‘retire’ – a notion which, to an Elizabethan audience, would have been earth-shattering. It is only in relatively recent times that allegiance to one’s ruler has been widely questioned and republican views considered acceptable. In 1936, King Edward VIII, who was also head of the Church of England, had to abdicate when he chose to marry a commoner, the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. And it was only in 1946 that the Emperor of Japan renounced his divine status. Until 1945, emperors of Japan, direct descendants of the sun god, were considered not human, but divine.
THE LINKS
Tillyard breaks down the chain of being into five ‘links’, or broad categories:
Angels and ether
Angels and the ether were the closest things to God in the chain of being. Lear as monarch is closely related to the angels and Lear’s knowledge of his rightful place in the chain – his primacy over his kingdom – can be seen at many points during the play. For example, in this extract from Lear’s speech when he banishes Kent:
LEAR
To come betwixt our sentence and our power,
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
[1.1.170-171]
Even in the midst of his madness, Lear knows his place
LEAR
Ay, every inch a king.
When I do stare see how the subject quakes.
[4.4.107-108]
It is his displacement in the chain that leads to Lear’s tragedy. He did the unthinkable (as an Elizabethan audience would see it) by abdicating his divine right to rule, an act which resulted in chaos throughout the chain.
The stars and fortune
EDMUND
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune – often the surfeits of our own behaviour – we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on.
[I.ii.118-126]
Tillyard states that the Elizabethans believed it was the stars that were responsible for the fluctuations in fortune that happened to human beings. The phrase “lucky star” can probably be traced back at least as far as Elizabethan times. People continue to “thank [their] lucky stars” today. Edmund here is rejecting the premise that anything that goes wrong in life is the fault of the stars, the moon, or the sun. According to Edmund, fortune – either good or ill – is not controlled by anything in the heavens, but that we ourselves are responsible for our actions. In this Edmund is propounding very modern views. In the world of King Lear, however, Edmund is discrediting the world order and helping to tip the chain of being into chaos. Thus Edmund, after initial success, succumbs to fortune and the world order is restored at the end of the play:
EDGAR
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us:
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.
EDUMND
Th’hast spoken right. ‘Tis true. The wheel is come full circle; I am here.
[V.iii.168-172]
Elements
LEAR
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
[III.ii.14-17]
The elements that Lear refers to in this passage are fire and water. There are four elements in total, earth and air are the other two. In fact, fire and water are two opposite elements which both repel and attract each other. The elements, in man, were thought to be mixed into a proper balance and if the balance was disturbed, it was that which caused mental or physical abnormalities. The way the Elizabethans thought of the elements can probably best be illustrated in Antony’s eulogy of Brutus from Julius Caesar:
ANTONY
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’
[Julius Caesar V.v.73-75]
Antony is saying that, because the elements were mixed in Brutus to perfection, that Brutus was indeed a man to be admired by all. Lear, by contrast, is saying that his children are unnatural, because they are not made up of elements – “Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters”.
Man
All paths in the chain of being lead to man. He was the nodal point or, as Tillyard puts it, a kind of Clapham Junction (Britain’s busiest railway station) with tracks from every direction converging in him. Another way to describe this concept is to picture the spokes on a bicycle, with man at the centre where all the points converge and with the spokes representing, for instance, the various items in the chain of being I’ve already mentioned: roses, diamonds, lions, eagles, micro-organisms. Tillyard shows that man is the ultimate being because man possesses the divine ability to reason (speech and cognitive thought which separates man from the animals), and because of this, man is able to bridge the gap between matter, or the physical world. and spirit, or the soul.
LEAR
How now? What art thou?
KENT
A man, sir.
[I.iv.9-10]
Kent’s answer frequently gets a laugh from the audience, probably because we hear a flippant answer coming from Kent because we can all see he is a man. To the Elizabethans, however, his answer has a different connotation. Man is the noblest creation of all God’s creations and Kent is asserting the fact that not only is he a person, he is the key element. In King Lear, while most other characters are subverting the natural order of the chain of being, Kent continually tries to uphold it, most notably when he is admonishing Lear for disinheriting Cordelia and when he stands up to Lear’s daughters, actions which lead to first his banishment and, later, a spell in the stocks.
Animals, plants, metals
LEAR
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favoured
When others are more wicked.
[II.iv.251-252]
LEAR
And thou all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’the world,
Crack Nature’s moulds, all germen spill at once
That makes ingrateful man!
[III.ii.6-10]
CORDELIA
Alack, ’tis he! Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud,
Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With hardokes, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
[IV.v.1-6]
For in the universe there are gods, the four elements, the dumb beasts, and the plants. Of all these man possesses the faculties: for he possesses the godlike faculty of reason, and the nature of the elements, which consists in nourishment growth and reproduction.
Photius, Life of Pythagoras.
Tillyard explains that this lowest echelon of the chain of being existed because it was a mirror to Man. Man’s function was unique in that it bound together all creation and linked matter with spirit. All things existed because of Man and in animals, plants, and metals are perceived to be human characteristics. When the natural order of the chain of being is upset, those human upsets also occurred in the lowest chain. The passages above illustrate this, as do many other lines within the play. In II.iv, Lear dehumanises his daughters by calling them ‘creatures’ and inferring that the real creatures in the world look appealing when put next to his daughters. In Act 3 scene 2, the storm is a manifestation of the chaos that Lear has created by overturning the natural chain of being-this fifth rung on the chain of being is mirroring the chaos in the kingdom created by Lear’s abdication. In Act 4 scene 5, Cordelia equates a ‘vexed sea’ and his crown of plants with Lear’s madness, relating the natural world to Lear’s humanity.
by Jami Rogers
Filed under: Uncategorized
A persuasive appeal is one of many rhetorical devices. Persuasion, according to Aristotle and the many authorities that would echo him, is brought about through three kinds of proof (pistis) or persuasive appeal:
Logos: The appeal to reason.
Pathos: The appeal to emotion.
Ethos: The persuasive appeal of one’s character.
Logos names the appeal to reason. Aristotle wished that all communication could be transacted only through this appeal, but given the weaknesses of humanity, he laments, we must resort to the use of the other two appeals. The Greek term logos is laden with many more meanings than simply “reason,” and is in fact the term used for “oration.”
Pathos names the appeal to emotion. Cicero encouraged the use of pathos at the conclusion of an oration, but emotional appeals are of course more widely viable. Criticism of rhetoric tends to focus on the overemphasis of pathos, emotion, at the expense of logos, the message.
Ethos names the persuasive appeal of one’s character, especially how this character is established by means of the speech or discourse. Aristotle claimed that one needs to appear both knowledgeable about one’s subject and benevolent. Cicero said that in classical oratory the initial portion of a speech (its exordium, or introduction) was the place to establish one’s credibility with the audience.
Other common rhetorical devices
Metaphor
- A comparison made by referring to one thing as another.
- from meta “beyond, over” and pherein “to carry”
- Related figures:
- Simile (Like a metaphor, a simile involves making a comparison, except it does so explicitly)
- Allegory (An allegory is an extended metaphor that goes through a whole narrative)
Intimation
- Hinting at a meaning but not stating it explicitly.
Repetition
- Repetition is a major rhetorical strategy for producing emphasis, clarity, amplification, or emotional effect. Words, phrases and ideas can be repeated, as well as letters/sounds (e.g. using alliteration or assonance)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Restoration/ Enlightenment:
- monarchy in England is restored in 1660
- the press and some literature is censored just as some religious sects are outlawed
- the culture seems to subscribe more to the values of a shame culture rather than a guilt culture (external experience, social reputation, etiquette, and courtliness)
- the Age of Reason
- hierarchy, convention and the status quo are valued
- the emphasis on reason also leads to the precepts of eighteenth-century humanism, which set up the values that facilitate the French Revolution
- humanist notions:
- there is a stable, coherent, knowable self. This self is conscious, rational, autonomous, and universal—no physical conditions or differences substantially affect how this self operates.
- this self knows itself and the world through reason, or rationality, posited as the highest form of mental functioning, and the only objective form.
- the mode of knowing produced by the objective rational self is “science,” which can provide universal truths about the world, regardless of the individual status of the knower.
- 4. The knowledge produced by science is “truth” and is eternal.
- 5. The knowledge/truth produced by science (by the rational objective knowing self) will always lead toward progress and perfection.
- 6. Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true, and therefore of what is right, and what is good. Freedom consists of obedience to the laws that conform to the knowledge discovered by reason.
- 7. In a world governed by reason, the true will always be the same as the good and the right (and the beautiful); there can be no conflict between what is true and what is right (etc.).
- 8. Science thus stands as the paradigm for any and all socially useful forms of knowledge. Science is neutral and objective
- 9. Language, or the mode of expression used in producing and disseminating knowledge, must be rational also. To be rational, language must be transparent; it must function only to represent the real/perceivable world which the rational mind observes. There must be a firm and objective connection between the objects of perception and the words used to name them (between signifier and signified).
- Fundamental premises of humanism, or of modernism serve to justify and explain virtually all of our social structures and institutions, including democracy, law, science, ethics, and aesthetics
Source: Felluga, Dino. “General Introduction to Postmodernism.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.
Language Matters 