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The Earth Centered Theme of Shakespeare's King Lear
King Lear is a complicated, apocalyptic play with parallel plots, moral ambiguity, and a messy ending. The play's events were politically charged and historically informed when they were performed in seventeenth century England, as they continue to be to today. Whatever his intentions, Shakespeare has given us several universal truths to consider. One I like to consider is how beneath all the sinister and bold machinations of man lies the gentle earth, from which we, and all life, spring. Some critics note that Shakespeare was skeptical about God and the role of religion in one's life. I believe King Lear is the product of a writer with a solid cosmology, but one centered in earth and humanity. I hesitate to label Shakespeare a pagan, or anything other than brilliant. Yet there is evidence enough in the text for me to argue an earth-centric thesis. A close reading reveals those who employ common wording or down-to-earth speech as embodiments of goodness, whereas characters that insist on the perfectly controlled, artificial utterances of the feudal court are corrupt at best, if not evil. The gods above are shown to be fickle and uncaring, if not bloodthirsty. Shakespeare also weaves in certain utopian visions into the fabric of King Lear, earth-based ideals, not only pre-Christian like the play's setting, but pre-historic; thus supporting the argument for an earthen cosmology and humanistic political consciousness, freely exhibited and often applied in the work.
Unnatural Edmund
Edmund rejects the very idea of baseness, or what we might think of as earthiness. He is skillfully used in the play to oppose to all that is common and good. His famous soliloquy in Act 1, Sc...
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... manifest values of personal humility, caring, and wise stewardship of the land.
Works Cited
Elliot, Michael. King Lear by William Shakespeare. Princeton: Films for the Humanities. 1988. Starring: Laurence Olivier and John Hurt.
Oates, Joyce Carol. " 'Is This the Promised End?': The Tragedy of King Lear." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. (Fall 1974) URL: http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/southerr/lear.html.
Schneider, Ben Ross, Jr. "King Lear in Its Own Time: The Difference that Death Makes." Early Modern Literary Studies 1.1 (1995): 3.1-49 URL: http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/emls/01-1/schnlear.html.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Edited by David Bevington. New York: Bantam. 1980.
Smiley, Jane. A Thousand Acres. New York: Fawcett Columbine. 1991.
Toole, John Kennedy. A Confederacy of Dunces. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. 1980.
“Last Call,” provides the answers and explanations to these two questions and the historical viewpoint on the Prohibition Era. Daniel Okrent, who has authored four other books and is the first public editor of The New York Times, views Prohibition as one clash in a larger war waged by small-town white Protestants who felt overwhelmed by the forces of change that were sweeping their nation. He explains that this is a theory that was first proposed by the historian Richard Hofstadter more than five decades ago. Though many books and historical accounts have been written about Prohibition since then, Okrent offers an original account, which shows how its advocates combined the nativist fears of many Americans with legitimate concerns about the...
Young, Rowland L. "A Powerful Change in the Minds of Men." American Bar Association Journal 62, no. 1 (January 1976): 90. International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2011).
In all probability, no one thing gave more character to the era known as the ‘Roaring 20s’, than what was called ‘the long dry spell’ (a.k.a. Prohibition). Prohibition was the result, of the longstanding efforts, by largely Protestant religious groups, who had preached temperance since the early colonial period. What had been known as the temperance movement came to be a drive for all out prohibition right about the turn of the century. From about 1900-1904 there was a dramatic turn of events in which the Anti-Saloon League changed its goals from social reform to legislate reform, and came to have a fair amount of influence in this country’s politics. The League originated in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1887-88. At the time it was called the Local Option League. This early league enjoyed a fair amount of success and the idea of a state league came into being. In 1893, the Ohio Anti-Saloon League was formed and two years later merged with the district of Columbia League to form the National Anti-Saloon League (p.186 Southern Communication Journal 1996 v61n3). The League was to be an incredible force in the legislation of the 18th amendment.
"The Fiasco of Prohibition." : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education. N.p., n.d. Web.
In King Lear, Shakespeare portrays a society whose emphasis on social class results in a strict social hierarchy fueled by the unceasing desire to improve one’s social status. It is this desire for improved social status that led to the unintentional deterioration of the social hierarchy in King Lear. This desire becomes so great that Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall were willing to act contrary to the authority of the social hierarchy for the betterment of their own position within it. As the plot unfolds, the actions of the aforementioned characters get progressively more desperate and destructive as they realize their lack of success in attaining their personal goals. The goals vary, however the selfish motivation does not. With Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall as examples, Shakespeare portrays the social hierarchy as a self-defeating system because it fosters desires in its members that motivate them to act against the authority of the hierarchy to benefit themselves. A consideration of each characters actions in chronological order and the reasons behind such actions reveals a common theme among the goals for which morality is abandoned.
Bevington, David, "Introduction to King Lear." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
He seems to suggest, however, that it is not impossible for one to move from one end of the spectrum of human nature to the other, as multiple characters go through somewhat of a metamorphosis where their nature is changed. In this paper, I analyze and present Shakespeare’s account of human nature in King Lear in comparison with other authors that we have read throughout our year in the Aquinas program. Let us begin by looking at the role of human nature in King Lear more closely. It is clear from the beginning of King Lear that Cordelia has an entirely good nature, she remains constant throughout the play, never wavering in her morals. The play begins with Lear deciding that he will have his daughters compete for their divisions of his kingdoms based on which of them can impress him the most with their proclamations of love.
'Serial murder'; has long been a term used to describe those human beings that repeatedly commit heinous crimes. It is rare that the average person probes the mind of a serial killer without bias. However, what lies behind the eyes of a serial killer deserves more than the cold hard look that society so often gives (Aaronson, Inter...
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New world and William Shakespeare's King Lear, the reader will find that both works use similar motifs that mirror each other to increase further the similarities and
Hole, S. (1968). "The Background of Divine Action in King Lear." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 8(2): 217-233.
Bullough, Geoffrey. "King Lear". Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.
King Lear is at once the most highly praised and intensely criticized of all Shakespeare's works. Samuel Johnson said it is "deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakespeare" yet at the same time he supported the changes made in the text by Tate in which Cordelia is allowed to retire with victory and felicity. "Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles."1 A.C. Bradley's judgement is that King Lear is "Shakespare's greatest work, but it is not...the best of his plays."2 He would wish that "the deaths of Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Gloucester should be followed by the escape of Lear and Cordelia from death," and even goes so far as to say: "I believe Shakespeare would have ended his play thus had he taken the subject in hand a few years later...."3
King Lear is a tragic playwritten by William Shakespeare. It is a play about the suffering of two families that are caught in a struggle of greed, lust, and cruelty which eventually results in extreme amounts of pain and destruction for all the characters. In King Lear, there is a circular relationship between the characters' behavior and nature. That is, the destruction of the two families results from human behavior breaking accepted laws of nature, and the disturbances in nature result from the disturbances in human behavior. Shakespeare portrays this theme by demonstrating the damage Lear and Edmund create when they break the laws of nature, and of course, nature itself in the form of the storm in King Lear.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / they kill us for their
Bengtsson, Frederick. “King Lear by William Shakespeare.” Columbia College. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.