26:38 King Lear

Day 26 of 38:38
King Lear

I know this is somewhat blasphemous, but Lear's never been one of my favorites. I always find myself far more interested in the subplot -- Goneril, Regan, Edmund, the gouging of Gloucester, than with King Lear running around on the heath and the fool saying nonsensical things. But I don't think it's because the play isn't well written, or because Lear isn't an amazing character -- I just think it points to the difficulty of the play and the role. I've seen it produced several times, and so far Ian McKellan has been the only actor who managed to make me care about Lear. That production, directed by Trevor Nunn, was superb. It was long, long, long, but I was not once bored. The cast was nearly perfect. With the exception of Cordelia, every actor on that stage was remarkable.

Reading this plays in the ?order? they were written reveals that Shakespeare later in his career kept returning to the theme of madness. What could a person endure before he or she broke? We see this question explored in Hamlet, here in Lear, on day 28 with Macbeth, and a variation with the madness of jealousy with Othello and, coming up, Winter's Tale. Shakespeare humanizes madness, which seems quite remarkable in an era when mental illness was simply not understood or treated well.

As I was reading Lear this time around, a speech of Edgar's struck me as being somewhat similar to Richard II in the deposition scene. Through this speech, Edgar literally erases his identity and remakes himself:

While I may ’scape
I will preserve myself; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast; my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
...
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.


In a way, Richard does the exact same thing:

Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
...
What more remains?

-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Goneril
Favorite Male Character:
Edmund

Laugh out loud:

"That's what she said!":
Regan But have you never found my brother's way
To the forefended place?

How insulting:
Kent You base football player.

Kent A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave.

Shakey loves his meta:
Lear When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

Oh, misogyny:
Fool For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

Boys are silly:
Regan I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.

Favorite Moment/Line:
Edmund Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate:—I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!