King Lear

King Lear is something of a white whale in Shakespeare studies. Critics seem united in proclaiming its greatness, and its powerful, often painful insights into the human condition, but they seem at pains to say why. Samuel Beckett claimed that the play was perfect, and he could therefore say nothing about it. A.C. Bradley would call it “Shakespeare’s greatest achievement”, but qualify this by saying “it seems to me not his best play.”

The play focuses on a King who is losing his mind, and decides to divide his kingdom between his daughters, according to which one can say she loves him the most. This disastrous decision sums up his difficulties, and the play (as happens so often in Shakespeare) examines both regal and human issues through the same prism.

King Lear is profoundly pessimistic and bleak– qualities which kept it off the stage for around 200 years, as it was rewritten with a “happy” ending by Nahum Tate. Its black humor and mingling of sincerity with farce have led some critics to cite it as a forerunner of the Theater of the Absurd movement of the twentieth century.

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