Interpretations of King Lear To hav

It is tempting to take the simplified approach to interpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear as presented in popular volumes of his plays such as grace the shelves of "world's greatest literature" series everywhere; at its most simplistic reading, the play is about how three different children - Regan, Goneril and Edmund - destroy their fathers (Black xxviii-xxix). It is a Victorian interpretation that works well as a cautionary morality tale - until one actually thinks about the entirety of King Lear and realizes that the fathers themselves go a good way toward ensuring the degeneration and destruction of their children. One's age, personal and in terms of era, indicate differing interpretations. Or, as Edmund notes in Lear, "men / Are as the time is" (V, iii, 30-31). Our "time" has seen critical interpretations of King Lear travel from turn-of-the-century Romanticism, through a period of psychoanalytic theory, through to post-Holocaust/Cold War existentialism.

The Romantic interpretation of King Lear was grounded in the performing traditions of the time. "Star vehicles" for the likes of Sir Henry Irving in the 1870s up through John Barrymore in the 1930s, Shakespeare's plays were platforms upon which grand gestures and a very British sense of imperial destiny pervaded the English-language consciousness. Often as not, the star was also the producer. The text

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mselves at the mercy of the jealous second and third daughters (Goneril, Regan) and an illegitimate son (Edmund), none of whom would have felt much security in their lives within the English common law of primogeniture. Moreover, in any traditional interpretation of the play, even before he banishes Cordelia what Lear does is especially stupid, literally dividing up his kingdom among what would logically become competing power factions. (Gloucester has the semi-excuse of being fooled by Edmund's false letter; although, again, within the sphere of tradition he should have known that Edgar had no need to conspire against him since he would eventually inherit all as the old noble's only legitimate heir.) However, once one accepts the psychoanalytical concept of insecurity as a legitimate motivator, an impulse that can override rational logic, then the plot devices of King Lear fall into place. Insecurity is a two-way street: even powerful old warriors feel the need for reassurance - and fall under the spell of the most transparent flattery: GONERIL: Sir, I love you more than [words] can wield the matter... (I, i, 55) In the Freudian interpretation of Lear, one can easily imagine Marlon Brando as the aging king. "S
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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