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in the Storm " by William Dyce ( 1806 - 1864 )]] ''King Lear'' is a play by William Shakespeare , considered one of his greatest tragedies, based on the Legend of King Lear of Britain . The part of Lear has been played by many Great Actors , but although Lear is an old man, the part is rarely taken on by older actors in stage versions because it is so strenuous both physically and emotionally. There are two distinct versions of the play: ''The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters'', which appeared in Quarto in 1608 , and ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', which appeared in the First Folio in 1623 , a more theatrical version. The two texts are commonly printed in a conflated version, although many modern editors have argued that each version has its individual integrity. After the Restoration the play was often modified by theatre practitioners who disliked its Nihilistic flavour, but since World War II it has come to be regarded as one of Shakespeare's supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship on a cosmic scale. SOURCES ]]Shakespeare's play is based on various accounts of the semi-legendary Leir , a King Of The Britons , whose tale was first written down by the Twelfth Century historian Geoffrey Of Monmouth . Shakespeare's most important source is thought to be the second edition of ''The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande'' by Raphael Holinshed , published in 1587 . Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' by Geoffrey Of Monmouth , which was written in the 12th century. The name of Cordelia was probably taken from Edmund Spenser 's '' The Faerie Queene '', published in 1590 . Spenser's Cordelia also dies from Hanging , as in ''King Lear''. Other possible sources are '' A Mirror For Magistrates '' ( 1574 ), by John Higgins ; ''The Malcontent'' ( 1604 ), by John Marston ; ''The London Prodigal '' ( 1605 ); ''Arcadia'' (1580-1590), by Sir Philip Sidney , from which Shakespeare took the main outline of the Gloucester subplot; Montaigne 's ''Essays'', which were translated into English by John Florio in 1603 ; ''An Historical Description of Iland of Britaine'', by William Harrison ; ''Remaines Concerning Britaine'', by William Camden ( 1606 ); '' Albion 's England'', by William Warner , ( 1589 ); and ''A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures'', by Samuel Harsnett ( 1603 ), which provided some of the language used by Edgar while he feigns madness. ''King Lear'' is also a literary variant of a common Fairy Tale , where a father rejects his Youngest Daughter on the basis of a statement of her love that does not please him.Soula Mitakidou and Anthony L. Manna, with Melpomeni Kanatsouli, ''Folktales from Greece: A Treasury of Delights'', p 100 ISBN 1-56308-908-4; see also D. L. Ashliman, " Love Like Salt: folktales of types 923 and 510 "''' DATE AND TEXT edition, published in 1608]] Although a precise date of composition cannot be given, many editors of the play date ''King Lear'' between that may have verbal resemblances with ''Lear'', Kermode concludes that "1604-5 seems the best compromise".Kermode, ''Riverside'', 1250. However, before , an Oxfordian denier of Shakespeare's authorship, saw numerous parallels between the play and the events of 1589-90, including the Kent banishment subplot, which she believed to parallel the 1589 banishment of Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth.Eva Turner Clark, ''Hidden Allusions in Shakespeares Plays'', 1930,pgs 866-888 The question of dating is further complicated by the question of revision (see below). The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, published in 1608 (Q1) and 1619 (Q2) The 1619 quarto is part of William Jaggard's so-called False Folio . respectively, and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F1). The differences between these versions are significant. Q1 contains 285 lines not in F1; F1 contains around 100 lines not in Q1. Also, at least a thousand individual words are changed between the two texts, each text has a completely different style of punctuation, and about half the verse lines in the F1 and either printed as prose or differently divided in the Q1. The early editors, beginning with Alexander Pope , simply conflated the two texts, creating the modern version that has remained nearly universal for centuries. The conflated version is born from the presumption that Shakespeare wrote only one original manuscript, now unfortunately lost, and that the Quarto and Folio versions are distortions of that original. As early as 1931, Madeleine Doran suggested that the two texts had basically different provenances, and that these differences between them were critically interesting. This argument, however, was not widely discussed until the late 1970s, when it was revived, principally by Michael Warren and Gary Taylor. Their thesis, while controversial, has gained significant acceptance. It posits, essentially, that the Quarto derives from something close to Shakespeare's foul papers, and the Folio is drawn in some way from a promptbook, prepared for production by Shakespeare's company or someone else. In short, Q1 is "authorial"; F1 is "theatrical." In criticism, the rise of "revision criticism" has been part of the pronounced trend away from mid-century formalism. The New Cambridge Shakespeare has published separate editions of Q and F; the most recent Pelican Shakespeare edition contains both the 1608 Quarto and the 1623 Folio text as well as a conflated version; the New Arden edition edited by R.A. Foakes is not the only recent edition to offer the traditional conflated text. PERFORMANCE HISTORY The first recorded performance on December 26, 1606 is the only one known with certainty from Shakespeare's era. The play was revived soon after the theatres re-opened at the start of the Restoration era, and was played in its original form as late as 1675 . But the urge to adapt and change that was so liberally applied to Shakespeare's plays in that period eventually settled on ''Lear'' as on other works. Nahum Tate produced his famous or infamous adaptation in 1681 —he gave the play a happy ending, with Edgar and Cordelia marrying and Lear restored to kingship. This was the version acted by Thomas Betterton , David Garrick , and Edmund Kean , and praised by Samuel Johnson . The play was suppressed in the late 18th and early 19th century by the British government, which disliked the dramatization of a mad monarch at a time when George III was insane''Shakespeare A to Z'' by Charles Boyce, Dell Publishing, 1990. The original text did not return to the stage till William Charles Macready 's production of 1838 .F. E. Halliday, ''A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964,'' Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 265-66. Other actors who were famous as King Lear in the nineteenth century were Samuel Phelps and Edwin Booth . The play is among the most popular of Shakespeare’s works to be staged in the twentieth century. The most famous staging may be Paul Scofield 's 1962 performance as Lear directed by Peter Brook , which was voted as the greatest performance in a Shakespearean play in the history of the RSC in a 2004 opinion poll of members of the Royal Shakespeare Company , and immortalized on film in 1971 . The longest running Broadway run of ''King Lear'' was the 1968 production starring Lee J. Cobb as Lear, with Stacy Keach as Edmund, Philip Bosco as Kent, and René Auberjonois as the Fool. It ran for 72 performances. No other Broadway production of the play has run for as many as 50 performances. Other famous actors to play King Lear in the twentieth century are:
The first great 21st century Lear may be Christopher Plummer , who became the first actor to receive a Tony Award nomination for playing King Lear in the 2004 Broadway production at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre . Ian McKellen (who had performed the play twice before in the roles of Edgar and the Earl of Kent, winning a Drama Desk Award for the former) has also been triumphant as King Lear after opening in the play at the Courtyard Theatre at Stratford-Upon-Avon for the Royal Shakespeare Company in April of 2007 before taking the production on a world tour with a cast that includes Sylvester McCoy as the Fool, Frances Barber as Goneril and Jonathan Hyde as the Earl of Kent. Other recent Lears were Stacy Keach in a production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and Kevin Kline in a critically reviled production at the New York Shakespeare Festival . CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS ]] The play begins with King Lear taking the decision to abdicate the throne and divide his . The King Of France however marries her, even after she has been Disinherited , since he sees value in her honesty, or perhaps a Casus Belli to subsequently invade England. Soon after Lear abdicates the throne, he finds that Goneril and Regan's feelings for him have turned cold, and arguments ensue. The Earl Of Kent , who has spoken up for Cordelia and been banished for his pains, returns disguised as the servant Caius, who will "eat no fish" (that is to say, he is a Protestant ), in order to protect the king, to whom he remains loyal. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan fall out with one another over their attraction to Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl Of Gloucester — and are forced to deal with an army from France , led by Cordelia, sent to restore Lear to his throne. A cataclysmic war is fought. The subplot involves the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, the good Edgar and the evil Edmund. Edmund concocts false stories about his legitimate half-brother, and Edgar is forced into exile, affecting lunacy. Edmund engages in liaisons with Goneril and Regan. Gloucester is Blind ed by Regan's husband, the Duke of Cornwall, but is saved from death by several of Cornwall's servants, who object to the duke's treatment of Lear; one of the servants wounds the duke (but is killed by Regan), who throws Gloucester into the storm in order for him to, "smell his way to Dover " after plucking out his eyes. Cornwall dies of his wound shortly thereafter. The storm scene is where Lear exclaims how he is "a man more sinned against than sinning". Edgar, still under the guise of a homeless lunatic, finds Gloucester out in the storm. The earl asks him whether he knows the way to Dover, to which Edgar replies that he will lead him. Edgar, whose voice Gloucester fails to recognise, is shaken by encountering his blinded father and his guise is put to the test. ]]Lear appears in Dover, wandering about raving and talking to mice. Gloucester attempts to throw himself from a cliff, but is deceived by Edgar in order to save him and comes off safely, encountering the king shortly after. Lear and Cordelia are briefly reunited and reconciled before the battle between Britain and France. After the French lose, Lear is content at the thought of living in prison with Cordelia, but Edmund gives orders for them to be Executed . Edgar, in disguise, then fights Edmund, fatally wounding him. On seeing this, Goneril, who has already poisoned Regan out of jealousy, kills herself. Edgar reveals himself to Edmund and tells him that Gloucester has just died. On hearing this, and of Goneril and Regan's deaths, Edmund tells Edgar of his order to have Lear and Cordelia murdered and gives orders for them to be reprieved - perhaps his one act of goodness in the entire play. Unfortunately, the reprieve comes too late. Lear appears on stage with Cordelia's dead body in his arms, having killed the servant who hanged her, then dies himself. Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his sons, the principal innovation Shakespeare made to this story was the death of Cordelia and Lear at the end. During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, this tragic ending was much criticised, and alternative versions were written and performed, in which the leading characters survived and Edgar and Cordelia were married. POINTS OF DEBATE Opening ]]Scene one features a ceremony in which King Lear bequeaths his kingdom to his daughters. The plain sense of the opening is that this is an auction giving his kingdom to the most admiring and flattering of his daughters, taking the form of a 'love test'. David Ball posits an alternate interpretation.Ball, David; (1983). Backwards & Forwards. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-1110-0 He bases this analysis on the conversation between Kent and Gloucester which are the first seven lines of the play and serve to help the audience understand the context of the drama about to unfold.
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