Watching a live production of "King Lear," which I also wrote about in yesterday's post, set me off on a frenzy of reading about the play and Shakespeare in general.
One interesting fact stood out: Cordelia doesn't die in versions of King Lear, spelled "Leir," before Shakespeare. Her death is a stunning example of Shakespeare's genius, obviously immensely raising the tragic stakes. While Cordelia's death is an overwhelming dramatic conception, I also wondered if polticial realities of the time influenced Shakespeare's decision. Several commentaries pointed out that the play was written soon after King James I united the kingdoms of England and Scotland, and one of the themes of the play is the benefits of a unified kingdom. In the play, Cordelia is the queen of France and leads an army that invades England, so she could be seen as a traitor her selft, disrupting political unity. Lear also curiously turns against the country he had previously led, joining with the French forces. So, their deaths are justified by the laws of tragedy; they both take actions against the right balance of things.
However, this raises another conflict. In the predominant version of the play, Edgar makes the final speech and becomes the king of England. Yet he earlier appeared allied with the French forces, or at least with Lear. Wouldn't he like Cordelia and Lear be considered as a disturber of the established order, making him unable to rule England? One version of the play has the slowly redeemed Duke of Albany (Scotland) become the king, which would be more logical.
All of this is quite muddled in the play. The production I saw, at Ga. Shakespeare, made it even more confusing by apparently cutting an explanation of why the King of France is absent from the battle, leaving it to Cordelia and the previously muddled king to lead the French forces.
One of the production's interpretations that I found jarring was presenting Cordelia as a kind of Joan of Arc in drag, weaing a mannish khaki uniform with trousers and boots. Another interesting reading was, after her death, having Lear carry her in over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes. He also comes from the aisle in the audience. My impression from other productions is that Lear usually carries Cordelia in his arms, Pieta style, and comes from behind the stage. I thought this conception effective, since it makes logical sense that Lear would have cut down the hanging Cordelia and had her fall across his shoulder.
In reading about the play, I consulted the huge commentaries by Yale dynamo Harold Bloom and Harvard's Marjorie Garber. Bloom's is "The Invention of the Human," and Garber's "Shakespeare After All." Both write in an arching, academic, lit-crit style. I usually lie Garber's commentaries on Shakespeare's plays, but her piece on Lear flung mightly toward big generalizations that rarely hit the mark.
Garber makes insightful comments about how much Shakespeare depends on Christian symbolism and references in "Lear." With such bleak moments as Cordelia's death and the blinding of Gloucester, the play is often considered nihilistic, the origin of existentialism's belief in the meaninglessness of life. Garber makes a strong case that the play expresses Christian values of love.
Garber takes a more balanced view of Shakespeare than the flamboyant Bloom, who grandly sees Shakespeare as the inventor of our modern consciousness, "the invention of the human. " Shakespeare is surely a great writer, and uncannily anticipates our moral and intellectual perplexities, yet Bloom overstates his case. Along with his giddy assertions, wild, pontificating statements and amusing condemnations of the "school of resentment" and feminist views of Shakespeare (perhaps targering Garber), Bloom displays a deep understanding of Shakespeare's plays, especially how he uses language.
In my burst of research, I rediscovered the most entertaining book on Shakespeare, W.H. Auden's "Lectures on Shakespeare." The book consists of a student's recollections and notes from a serious of lectures Auden made on Shakespeare's plays and sonnents for a course at the New School in New York.
Highly opinionated, Auden approaches Shakespeare with a refreshing lack of reverencee, seeing him as a working writer with faults and strengths and who slowly, painstakingly developed his craft. Himself a considerable literary genius, Auden brings a working poet's perspective to his writing, more practical and grounded than the high-flying critical academic viewpoint of Bloom and Gerber. He also shows a deep knowledge of English history and literature, which Gerber and Bloom also have. Auden, though, is not as theoretical and abstract.
Finally, I consulted the Royal Shakespeare Company's edition of Shakespeare's "Collected Works" and gained a few more insights, more from the point of view of producing the play. The type was quite small for my now aching eyes.
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