King Lear (Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages)

369 Pages·2007·1.63 MB·English

by  Harold Bloom

Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
Hamlet
Henry IV (Part I)
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
The Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night

Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages
KI NG LEAR
Edited and with an introduction by
Harold Bloom
Sterling Professor of the Humanities
Yale University
Volume Editor
Neil Heims
Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: King Lear
Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing
Introduction © 2008 by Harold Bloom
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616.
King Lear / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom ; volume editor,
Neil Heims.
p. cm. — (Bloom’s Shakespeare through the ages)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7910-9574-4 (acid-free paper) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616.
King Lear. 2. Lear, King (Legendary character)—Drama. 3. Inheritance and succes-
sion—Drama. 4. Fathers and daughters—Drama. 5. Kings and rulers—Drama.
6. Aging parents—Drama. 7. Britons—Drama. I. Heims, Neil. II. Bloom, Harold.
III. Title.
PR2819.A2B55 2008
822.3’3—dc22 2007029708
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C
ONTENTS
q
Series Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix
Volume Introduction by Harold Bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
Biography of William Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Summary of King Lear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Key Passages in King Lear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
List of Characters in King Lear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
CRITICISM THROUGH THE AGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
t
King Lear in the Seventeenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
1681—Nahum Tate. From Th e History of King Lear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
1699—James Drake. From Th e Antient and Modern
Stages Surveyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
t
King Lear in the Eighteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
1710—Charles Gildon. From Remarks on the Plays
of Shakespear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
1715—Lewis Th eobald. “Remarks on King Lear,”
from Th e Censor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
1735—Aaron Hill. From The Prompter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
1753—Joseph Warton. From Th e Adventurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
1768—Samuel Johnson. From Notes on Shakespear’s Plays . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
1775—Elizabeth Griffi th. “Lear,” from Th e Morality
of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
vi Contents
1784—William Richardson. “On the Dramatic
Character of King Lear,” from Essays on Some
of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
t
King Lear in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
1809—August Wilhelm Schlegel. “Criticisms on Shakspeare’s
Tragedies,” from Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
1812—Charles Lamb. “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare,”
from Th e Refl ector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
1817—William Hazlitt. “Lear,” from Characters
of Shakespear’s Plays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
1818—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Lear,” from Lectures
and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
1818—John Keats. “On Sitting Down to Read
King Lear Once Again” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
1833—Anna Jameson. “Cordelia,” from Shakspeare’s Heroines:
Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, & Historical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
1838—Charles Dickens. “Th e Restoration of Shakespeare’s
Lear to the Stage,” from Th e Examiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
1864—Victor Hugo. William Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
1875—Edward Dowden. “Lear,” from Shakspere:
A Critical Study of His Mind and Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
1880—Algernon Charles Swinburne. From A Study
of Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
1883—Alfred Lord Tennyson. From Some Criticisms
on Poets, Memoir by His Son . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
t
King Lear in the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
1904—A. C. Bradley. “King Lear,” from Shakespearean Tragedy . . . . . 141
1906—Leo Tolstoy. “On Shakespeare” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
1913—Sigmund Freud. “Th e Th eme of the Th ree
Caskets,” from Imago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
1920—Alexander Blok. “Shakespeare’s King Lear:
An Address to the Actors” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Contents vii
1930—G. Wilson Knight. “Th e Lear Universe,”
from Th e Wheel of Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
1947—George Orwell. “Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool,”
from Polemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
1949—John F. Danby. “Cordelia as Nature,”
from Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear . . . . . . . . . . 200
1951—Harold C. Goddard. “King Lear,” from
Th e Meaning of Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
1966—William R. Elton. “Deus Absconditus: Lear,”
from King Lear and the Gods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
1974—Joyce Carol Oates. “ ‘Is Th is the Promised End?’:
Th e Tragedy of King Lear,” from Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
1986—Northrop Frye. “King Lear,” from Northrop Frye
on Shakespeare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
1988—Harold Bloom. “Introduction,” from King Lear
(Modern Critical Interpretations) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
1992—Harold Bloom. “Introduction,” from King Lear
(Major Literary Characters) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
t
King Lear in the Twenty-fi rst Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
2004—Sean Lawrence. “ ‘Gods Th at We Adore’:
Th e Divine in King Lear,” from Renascence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

S I
ERIES NTRODUCTION
q
Shakespeare Through the Ages presents not the most current of Shakespeare
criticism, but the best of Shakespeare criticism, from the seventeenth century
to today. In the process, each volume also charts the flow over time of critical
discussion of a particular play. Other useful and fascinating collections of his-
torical Shakespearean criticism exist, but no collection that we know of contains
such a range of commentary on each of Shakespeare’s greatest plays and at the
same time emphasizes the greatest critics in our literary tradition: from John
Dryden in the seventeenth century, to Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth cen-
tury, to William Hazlitt and Samuel Coleridge in the nineteenth century, to
A.C. Bradley and William Empson in the twentieth century, to the most per-
ceptive critics of our own day. This canon of Shakespearean criticism empha-
sizes aesthetic rather than political or social analysis.
Some of the pieces included here are full-length essays; others are excerpts
designed to present a key point. Much (but not all) of the earliest criticism
consists only of brief mentions of specifi c plays. In addition to the classics of
criticism, some pieces of mainly historical importance have been included, often
to provide background for important reactions from future critics.
Th ese volumes are intended for students, particularly those just beginning
their explorations of Shakespeare. We have therefore also included basic
materials designed to provide a solid grounding in each play: a biography of
Shakespeare, a synopsis of the play, a list of characters, and an explication of
key passages. In addition, each selection of the criticism of a particular century
begins with an introductory essay discussing the general nature of that century’s
commentary and the particular issues and controversies addressed by critics
presented in the volume.
Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time,” but much Shakespeare
criticism is decidedly for its own age, of lasting importance only to the scholar
who wrote it. Students today read the criticism most readily available to them,
which means essays printed in recent books and journals, especially those journals
made available on the Internet. Older criticism is too often buried in out-of-print
books on forgotten shelves of libraries or in defunct periodicals. Th erefore, many
ix