King Lear

What is the play about?

In this section you will find extracts from the director Bill Alexander's notebook, information about the Annesley family and a discussion of the play's continuing relevance by Joy Leslie Gibson.

Extracts from the director Bill Alexander's notebook:

King Lear is about an old king who decides to give up responsibility for running his country and to divide that responsibility between his daughters and their husbands. He hopes to enjoy himself in his retirement while still being treated as a king. The play depicts the disastrous consequences that follow his decision, which are compounded by his failure to tell genuine love from false love in both his daughters and his advisors.

Lear doesn't know the difference between quantity and quality. For him kingship and masculinity and love are material possessions. Lear is a show off, a prankster full of tricks, someone who thinks he has a good sense of humour and is a good sport. But because of his emotional ignorance, there is cruelty in his jokiness.

Authority and love
If the play is about Lear as king, the play would be a play about what he does. If it is about Lear as old man, it becomes more about what is done to him. The play tells of Lear's descent into madness and his realising - too late - what he should have known all along about the true nature of Authority and Love.

Themes
The play touches on many themes, amongst them:

Nature and Nurture

the responsibilities of leaders

the relationship between gods and mankind

human sexuality

human capacity for cruelty and violence

the evil of poverty

the boundary of sanity and insanity

An enquiry into the human condition
King Lear is a play about Truth, Love and Justice, which enquires into the human condition and asks whether there is any such thing as absolute truth or only what is true for each self. It is a play, not only about a monarch and his divided realm, but about a father, his property and his three daughters.

In Shakespeare's play, Lear has been king for decades. With absolute power he has exercised authority without once using it to do good, to make his country better or more just, more happy or more equal. He has simply maintained the status quo, the balance of power. What he doesn't realise is that decades of wasted opportunities have driven him into a slightly deranged mental state. He has ruled without care and become unpredictable, eccentric and slightly insane. But he thinks he is good, kind and just, with a great sense of humour. Gonerill and Regan are terrified of Lear. Their emerging cruelty can only come from this fear.

Old order makes way for new
King Lear is exciting and funny as well as tragic. It is a play about changing times - from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance? Is the world of Lear one on the edge of brutal industrialisation? A rampant capitalism emerging from feudalism? Or has it been passed by? Old ways are giving way to new, old thinking to new thoughts. The Kents have had to give way to the Oswalds, the old generation to the new.

An important contemporary event involved Sir Brian Annesley and his daughters, the youngest of whom was named Cordell. An old servant of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Brian had a valuable estate in Kent. In October 1603 his eldest daughter, Lady Grace Wildgoose, attempted to have her father certified as incompetent so that she and her husband Sir John Wildgoose could take over the management of his affairs. The part played by his second daughter, Christian, is unknown, but Cordell opposed the plan, apparently successfully, by appealing to Sir Robert Cecil. She argued that given his loyalty and long service, her father deserved better than to be judged lunatic in his old age. Sir Brian died in July 1604 and the Wildgooses contested his will, in which he left most of his property and possessions to Cordell. One of the executors of the will was Sir William Harvey, third husband of the dowager Countess of Southampton, whose son was Shakespeare's early patron. The will was upheld and after the Countess of Southampton's death in 1607, Harvey married Cordell Annesley. It may be that the case was, in part, responsible for the revival of interest in the story of King Leir [sic] and its publication in 1605 and for Shakespeare rewriting it.

Joy Leslie Gibson writes about the play's continuing relevance.

According to Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (one of Shakespeare's sources for the play), Lear ruled Britain for 40 years around 800 BC. Some directors have chosen to set King Lear in a specific period but events in the play appear to unfold in a remote and pagan time. Does the play then have any relevance to life today?

Old Age
A key theme in the play is old age. A king, 'four score and upward' (i.e. more than 80 years old), weary of his life, gives his kingdom to his daughters, whilst yet hoping to retain his regal status. His two elder daughters, instead of humouring him and looking after him, do all they can to alienate him and send him out, homeless, to the heath. Should sons and daughters be responsible for their mothers, fathers and grandparents? Or should care of the elderly be the responsibility of the state? Such a solution would, inevitably, mean higher taxes. Shakespeare seems to indicate at the end of the play that a loving daughter should take care of her father. But he also seems to say that the father should be more reasonable in his demands: old age must learn to give way to the young and be content with a more simple life.

Power
The play is also about the use of power. Lear wants to retain a certain amount of power, but rejects its responsibility. Though he wishes to retain his train of knights he does not, according to his daughters, discipline them or make it possible for them to live in his daughter's house in a civilized manner. We also see the sadistic use of torture in the play: the blinding of Gloucester (Act 3 scene 7) is one of the most harrowing scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. Regan and Cornwall pervert their power to feed their own sadistic nature. In spite of the Geneva Convention, which forbids the torture of prisoners, torture continues today and has indeed been very much in the news of late, with harrowing tales and images emerging, for example, from 'post war' Iraq.

A bleak and terrible tale
It is the lack of loving-kindness in the major part of the play that makes it such a bleak and terrible work. The scene, so often cut in production, where Servants fetch flax and whites of eggs to bind Gloucester's eyes (Scene 14 in the Quarto Text & 3.7.105-6 in the Penguin edition) is the first indication of compassion. This is followed by Edgar assuming responsibility by taking care of his father despite the wrongs Gloucester has done him and the reconciliation between Lear and Cordelia, in which Cordelia shows not only love, but tact and diplomacy. It is a scene which can teach us how to treat other people, that is, with courtesy and kindness. In the end, Shakespeare seems to say that it is through acts of kindness that we can find redemption. King Lear is a play full of both political and social relevance. It illustrates the dire consequences when people fail to treat others with respect or to accord them dignity.

Links to related sections: 'Themes' in the 'Learning' section.


			In this section you will find extracts from the director Bill Alexander's notebook, information about the Annesley family and a discussion of the play's continuing relevance by Joy Leslie Gibson. Extracts from the director Bill Alexander's notebook: King Lear is about an old king who decides to give up responsibility for running his country and to divide that responsibility between his daughters and their husbands. He hopes to enjoy himself in his retirement while still being treated as a king. The play depicts the disastrous consequences that follow his decision, which are compounded by his failure to tell genuine love from false love in both his daughters and his advisors. Lear doesn't know the difference between quantity and quality. For him kingship and masculinity and love are material possessions. Lear is a show off, a prankster full of tricks, someone who thinks he has a good sense of humour and is a good sport. But because of his emotional ignorance, there is cruelty in his jokiness. If the play is about Lear as king, the play would be a play about what he does. If it is about Lear as old man, it becomes more about what is done to him. The play tells of Lear's descent into madness and his realising - too late - what he should have known all along about the true nature of Authority and Love. The play touches on many themes, amongst them: Nature and Nurture the responsibilities of leaders the relationship between gods and mankind human sexuality human capacity for cruelty and violence the evil of poverty the boundary of sanity and insanity King Lear is a play about Truth, Love and Justice, which enquires into the human condition and asks whether there is any such thing as absolute truth or only what is true for each self. It is a play, not only about a monarch and his divided realm, but about a father, his property and his three daughters. In Shakespeare's play, Lear has been king for decades. With absolute power he has exercised authority without once using it to do good, to make his country better or more just, more happy or more equal. He has simply maintained the status quo, the balance of power. What he doesn't realise is that decades of wasted opportunities have driven him into a slightly deranged mental state. He has ruled without care and become unpredictable, eccentric and slightly insane. But he thinks he is good, kind and just, with a great sense of humour. Gonerill and Regan are terrified of Lear. Their emerging cruelty can only come from this fear. King Lear is exciting and funny as well as tragic. It is a play about changing times - from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance? Is the world of Lear one on the edge of brutal industrialisation? A rampant capitalism emerging from feudalism? Or has it been passed by? Old ways are giving way to new, old thinking to new thoughts. The Kents have had to give way to the Oswalds, the old generation to the new. An important contemporary event involved Sir Brian Annesley and his daughters, the youngest of whom was named Cordell. An old servant of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Brian had a valuable estate in Kent. In October 1603 his eldest daughter, Lady Grace Wildgoose, attempted to have her father certified as incompetent so that she and her husband Sir John Wildgoose could take over the management of his affairs. The part played by his second daughter, Christian, is unknown, but Cordell opposed the plan, apparently successfully, by appealing to Sir Robert Cecil. She argued that given his loyalty and long service, her father deserved better than to be judged lunatic in his old age. Sir Brian died in July 1604 and the Wildgooses contested his will, in which he left most of his property and possessions to Cordell. One of the executors of the will was Sir William Harvey, third husband of the dowager Countess of Southampton, whose son was Shakespeare's early patron. The will was upheld and after the Countess of Southampton's death in 1607, Harvey married Cordell Annesley. It may be that the case was, in part, responsible for the revival of interest in the story of King Leir [sic] and its publication in 1605 and for Shakespeare rewriting it. Joy Leslie Gibson writes about the play's continuing relevance. According to Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (one of Shakespeare's sources for the play), Lear ruled Britain for 40 years around 800 BC. Some directors have chosen to set King Lear in a specific period but events in the play appear to unfold in a remote and pagan time. Does the play then have any relevance to life today? A key theme in the play is old age. A king, 'four score and upward' (i.e. more than 80 years old), weary of his life, gives his kingdom to his daughters, whilst yet hoping to retain his regal status. His two elder daughters, instead of humouring him and looking after him, do all they can to alienate him and send him out, homeless, to the heath. Should sons and daughters be responsible for their mothers, fathers and grandparents? Or should care of the elderly be the responsibility of the state? Such a solution would, inevitably, mean higher taxes. Shakespeare seems to indicate at the end of the play that a loving daughter should take care of her father. But he also seems to say that the father should be more reasonable in his demands: old age must learn to give way to the young and be content with a more simple life. The play is also about the use of power. Lear wants to retain a certain amount of power, but rejects its responsibility. Though he wishes to retain his train of knights he does not, according to his daughters, discipline them or make it possible for them to live in his daughter's house in a civilized manner. We also see the sadistic use of torture in the play: the blinding of Gloucester (Act 3 scene 7) is one of the most harrowing scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. Regan and Cornwall pervert their power to feed their own sadistic nature. In spite of the Geneva Convention, which forbids the torture of prisoners, torture continues today and has indeed been very much in the news of late, with harrowing tales and images emerging, for example, from 'post war' Iraq. It is the lack of loving-kindness in the major part of the play that makes it such a bleak and terrible work. The scene, so often cut in production, where Servants fetch flax and whites of eggs to bind Gloucester's eyes (Scene 14 in the Quarto Text & 3.7.105-6 in the Penguin edition) is the first indication of compassion. This is followed by Edgar assuming responsibility by taking care of his father despite the wrongs Gloucester has done him and the reconciliation between Lear and Cordelia, in which Cordelia shows not only love, but tact and diplomacy. It is a scene which can teach us how to treat other people, that is, with courtesy and kindness. In the end, Shakespeare seems to say that it is through acts of kindness that we can find redemption. King Lear is a play full of both political and social relevance. It illustrates the dire consequences when people fail to treat others with respect or to accord them dignity. Links to related sections: 'Themes' in the 'Learning' section.