Here is an annotated bibliography for King Lear
King Lear
*Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations: King Lear. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
Bloom, Harold. “Introduction.” Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Ed. by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 1-8.
Shakespeare has molded our sense of reality as well as how we perceive reality. King Lear’s only worthy predecessor is the Book of Job in the Bible. Lear on the heath in the storm was compared to Job by Frank Kermode but Job’s trials far outweigh Lear’s. Bloom says Shakespeare probably intended us to see Job’s situation through allusions. But Lear is not as pious as Job, and he brings about his own trials. The storm does change Lear making him more compassionate toward others. Lear is not a Christian though Cordelia seems like a Christian personage. Bloom claims Act IV sc 6, the mad Lear with blind Gloucester scene, is not needed within the narrative structure but is very poetic in its language. Fool undergoes transformation from wise counselor to frightened child. Edmund also changes. [Bloom says Edmund may possibly be Shakespeare’s “sly portrait of Christopher Marlowe himself” (7)] and is a pure Machiavellian character. Lear and Edmund never speak and have no language in common. **
Topics covered: Lear, Edmund, Christian allusions
*Bonheim, Helmut. The King Lear Perplex. San Francisco: Wadsworth, 1960.
Booth, Stephen. “On the Greatness of King Lear.” Modern King Lear. 57-70.
Booth compares Goneril and Regan, shows similarities and differences. He explains “kindly” in “thy other daughter will use thee kindly” as “according to her kind or nature” (57) not “tenderly” and reminds us there are crab apples so comparison between the two as being different as a crab is from an apple is ambiguous also. They begin in accord, act as a single unit, but are in conflict by the end of the play. Booth claims this analogy of Goneril and Regan as alike and dissimilar represents the way all paired aspects of the play work together: Edmund/Edgar, prayers to Nature, Edgar and Poor Tom, Albany fighting for England and for Lear and Cordelia, Gloucester brought down because of his uncontrolled passions which resulted in Edmund. Booth also compares King Lear to earlier Gorboduc but Shakespeare was not as didactic as Sackville and Norton. Having Gloucester voice homilies as superstitious nonsense, Shakespeare undercuts easy answers. Moral high ground is not clean but punishments for transgressions seem out of proportion. Even Cordelia is not presented as purely good. He shows how the audience makes the same character misjudgments as Lear does. ***
Topics covered: characters, Goneril and Regan, Gloucester and Lear, Edgar, structure
Calderwood, James. “Creative Uncreation in King Lear.” Modern King Lear. 121-138.
Shakespeare was apparently fascinated by abduction and truancy, and Calderwood questions whether Shakespeare himself might be engaging in what he calls “creative uncreation.” He acknowledges the imagery, structure of the play, double plot and yet suggests a deconstructuralist view of Lear. He claims more creations begin with disorder and create the order. Lear, Calderwood claims, begins with order but Shakespeare makes us aware of how stale the institutions and rituals are by shaking them up. Something often comes of nothing in Lear (for Edmund, Edgar’s roles). Calderwood claims nothing comes from something also (Lear on the heath, Poor Tom). Edgar comments on actions in the subplot (“the worst is not . . .”) as the Fool does in the main plot. If the Fool and Cordelia were played by the same actor, each characters represents only part of the truth. The Fool is an “outsider within” trying to tell truths to a society that thinks it knows the truth. The Fool falls dumb and disappears after the storm because, after all, what truths could a court fool tell of the stark realizations forced on Lear on the heath? Gloucester’s death is easier to take than Lear’s because Edgar structures it for us through language. Edgar is a moral commentator on events in the last half of the play. Lear does not emerge from the storm with great wisdom, only with the conviction that he doesn’t know. Lear’s broken heart is presaged with lines throughout the play. Calderwood says the two plots move in opposite ways: the main plot toward madness, chaos; the subplot toward order, meaning (through Edgar’s reports). Lear ends with King Lear trying to see life in Cordelia (seeing motif). **
Topics covered: Fool, “nothing” motif, Edgar, structure
Cunningham, J.V. “Ripeness is All.” Approaches. 131-139.
Danby, John F. Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature: A Study of “King Lear.” London: Faber, 1948.
*Dodd, William. “Impossible Worlds: What Happens in King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1?” Shakespeare Quarterly 50.4 (Winter 1999); 477-507.
Dollmore, Jonathan. “King Lear and Essentialist Humanism.” Modern King Lear. 71-84.
Dollmore claims on the heath “debasement gives rise to dignity” (71). He claims humanist view has displaced Christian view nowadays. He makes the distinction thus: “the Christian view locates man centrally in the providential universe; the humanist likewise centralizes man but now he is in a condition of tragic dislocation: instead of integrating (ultimately) with a teleological design created and sustained by God, man grows to consciousness in a universe which thwarts his deepest needs” (71). He is suggesting Lear’s and Cordelia’s suffering are not part of a divine plan. What is most important is not only that Lear suffers but that he is aware of his suffering and how he endures it. Dollmore claims that Lear does not feel pity until he has himself been wretched in the storm. Again the contrast with Gloucester is instructive—when “poor Tom” tells Gloucester he is cold, Gloucester’s response is simply to go into the hovel—he does not really understand, as Lear does when he notices the Fool is cold. Dollmore says Shakespeare is saying justice is too important to leave to empathy (since how often do princes truly feel what wretches do?). Dollmore claims Shakespeare repudiates stoicism in King Lear. Lear withstands the universe (storm) solely by his rage and endurance. Dollmore paraphrases J. W. Lever’s notion that the tragic flaw is not in the character of Lear but in the world (he speaks generally of Jacobean tragedy). Dollmore also discusses Lear’s madness as an underlying ideology in King Lear as it relates to power, property, and inheritance. Abdication of familial duty is seen in both the plot and the subplot. Family (far from supporting society) undercuts society through conflicts within the family. ***
Topics covered: world view of play, characters, comparisons
Dreher, Diane. “Shakespeare’s Cordelia and the Power of Character.” World and I 13.4 (April 1998): 287-301.
The relevance of the character of Cordelia is explored and her difficult moral choices evaluated.
*Elton, William R. King Lear and the Gods. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1988.
Goddard, Harold C. “King Lear.” Modern King Lear. 9-44.
The theme of King Lear is the same as the main theme in Greek drama—relation of the generations, “authority of the past over the present as symbolized by the Father” (9). He differentiates between worldly obedience and rebellion against the father as spiritual success or failure. Goddard claims Desdemona was most like Cordelia of the other Shakespeare heroines. Whereas in Hamlet the child is connected to the father’s code—blood vengeance, in King Lear the father becomes more like the child. Cordelia underplays her true love for Lear as much as Hamlet overplays his for his father. Goddard sees Hamlet and King Lear as parallel plays but claims Lear has the better answers. Another theme is unregulated passion has power to drive human nature to chaos. Unmastered passion causes a character to consume himself. The Golden Mean is seen as the ideal. King Lear shows how a king became a man. Goddard claims mad Lear pardons first then asks the offence. Goddard says it is important that Shakespeare included the title King in King Lear. Goddard has analyzed biological (father/child relationships), psychological and political themes but claims the most important is religious. He contrasts Gloucester/Lear on their roles and on madness. Key is in blinding of Gloucester scene and metaphor of seeing. The overall story is how Lear acquired better vision (from Kent’s “see, better, Lear”). For both Lear and Gloucester, affliction brings insight, more valuable than sight. Goddard claims III.iii (the heath scene) illustrates the truth that blindness and passion are connected. Lear and Falstaff both love life, never consider suicide. Goddard explains sense within nonsense of Lear’s ramblings. He does a thorough analysis of the last scene and questions whether Cordelia is really dead at the end, or rather that Lear perceives that Cordelia lives on after her death. ****
Topics covered: characters, father/child relationships, seeing motif
*Goldberg, S. L. An Essay on King Lear. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Shakespeare and the Exorcists.” Modern King Lear. 97-120.
Shakespeare was reading a book by Samuel Harnsett about illegal exorcisms done in 1985-86 as he wrote King Lear in 1603. Greenblatt argues that aesthetic interpretation of literature cannot be separated from the cultural context of that literature and claims that even deconstructionalism blurs the line between history and literature. From Harsnett, Shakespeare got the names of the foul fields Edgar calls on as Poor Tom. Greenblatt connects both texts to the struggle to redefine the sacred which led to civil war in the mid 17th Century. Harsnett’s exorcisms were identified with the Jesuit Catholic faith. This is the time of the inquisition and witch burning. Edgar was forced to counterfeit. In Lear there are no ghosts, witches, or demons but a man faking possession and madness (Edgar as Poor Tom). His violence is self-directed—masochism—not acts of viciousness as those done by Cornwall or psychologically hurtful as those done by Goneril and Regan and Edmund. Lear seems to want the storm to mean something symbolic, yet there is no evidence that it does. **
Topics covered: historical context, Edgar, Lear
Harbage, Alfred. “King Lear: an Introduction.” Shakespeare Tragedies 113-122.
*Hawkes, Terence. William Shakespeare King Lear. Plymouth, England: Northcote House, 1995.
*Heilman, Robert B. Magic in the Web. Lexington, KE: University of Kentucky Press, 1966.
*Holahan, Michael. “’Look, her Lips’: Softness of Voice, Construction of Character in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48.4 (Winter 1997): 406-431.
Holahan compares Lear to Cordelia in the last scene and suggests that he takes on some of her characteristics, notably her softness of voice.
**Hughes, John. “The Politics of Forgiveness: A Theological Exploration of King Lear.” Modern Theology 17.3 (July 2001): 261-287.
*Kennedy, Joy. “Shakespeare’s King Lear.” The Explicator 60.2 (Winter 2002): 60-65.
Knight, G. Wilson. “King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque.” Shakespeare Tragedies 123-128.
Kott, Jan. “’King Lear’ or ‘Endgame.’” Modern. 360-384.
Knowles, Richard. “Cordelia’s Return.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50.1 (Spring 1999): 33-50.
Knowles explores Cordelia’s reasons for returning to England though she is safe in France. He postulates that she is angry on Lear’s behalf and at her sisters’ treatment of their father.
*Mack, Maynard. King Lear in Our Time. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972.
Markels, Julian. “Shakespeare’s Confluence of Tragedy and Comedy: Twelfth Night and King Lear.” Twentieth Twelfth Night. 63-69.
Muir, Kenneth. “King Lear.” Bibliographical. 241-258.
Newman, Neville F. “Shakespeare’s King Lear.” The Explicator 60.4 (Summer 2002): 191-195.
*Nielson, Christopher T. “Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear.’” The Explicator 52.1 (Fall 1993): 16-21.
Nielson examines Edmund’s last speech to see if he did indeed change his character or if he was suggesting to kill the captain who was carrying out his commandments about Lear and Cordelia.
Novy, Marianne. “Patriarchy, Mutuality, and Forgiveness.” Modern King Lear. 85-96.
As Othello evaluates patriarchal behavior of a husband, King Lear does the same for the father. Lear and his daughters need each other. Lear needs forgiveness. An overbalance of power results in male domination and coercion and female deception (as in the 1st scene, Lear offers power and property in exchange for love). Goneril and Regan reply as expected. They and Cordelia are often interpreted in Western literature as resembling devil and angel/ Eve and Mary figures. There is not much complexity to Goneril and Regan despite their important position in the text. Cordelia’s tears seem as representative of her forgiveness, compassion. She cannot forestall the political consequences of Lear’s folly but does much to heal his emotional pain. Mutuality is also representative of the relationship between actors and audience but the ending of Lear paradoxically also shows separateness as we can empathize but not feel Lear’s pain. But Cordelia’s forgiveness has mediated between Lear and the audience so that we can accept him, even with his faults. The end image is often compared to the Pieta, with Lear in the female role, holding the dead body of the child. The audience’s sympathy connects them to remaining characters who can do nothing for Lear but sympathize. ***
Topics covered: parent/child relationships, daughters, audience’s role
*Ridden, Geoffrey M. “’King Lear’ Act III Folk-tale and Tragedy.” The Review of English Studies 49.195 (August 1998): 329-403.
Ridden suggests the third act of King Lear may be based on the Revesby Play, a folk-tale about the sacrifice of a central character, the Fool. It also echoes the play in the plot of children turning on their parents.
Sewell, Arthur. “Character and Society in King Lear.” Shakespeare Tragedies 139-147.
Stampfer, J. “The Catharsis of King Lear.” Modern Essays. 361-376.
Warren, Michael J. “Quarto and Folio King Lear and the Interpretation of Albany and Edgar.” Modern King Lear. 45-56.
Warren discusses how these two versions are very different: 283 lines in the Quarto are not in the Folio; 100 in the Folio but not in the Quarto. So some have assumed that there is some ideal King Lear from which both are corruptions. Warren disagrees and claims the Quarto may be an authoritative version (with Shakespeare’s blessing) or the Folio could be a revision (again revised by Shakespeare himself). Warren uses the exchange between Lear and Kent is in the stocks as an example of how editors usually combine the two versions. Then he argues a significant difference in the interpretation of Albany and Edgar between the Quarto and the Folio, especially in the last scene. This suggests Shakespeare reworked the play. Albany is stronger in the Quarto; Edgar in the Folio. Edgar in both is a Romantic idealized hero whose world view (in the scene before entrance of blind Gloucester) reveals his own limitations of vision—he thinks he is at the worst only to have things made worse for him.
Topics covered: Edgar, Albany, language, creative process