king lear context
- Created by: Abi Crew
- Created on: 04-06-22 09:39
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- king lear context
- jacobean england
- written in 1605, between othello and macbeth
- setting KL in an ancient land deflected accusations of criticising london society and kept the monarch as a supporter
- the globe and shakespeare would not have survived without the king's support
- contemporary issues with inheritance
- shortly before the play was written, 3 sisters tried to have their elderly father declared insane so that they could take his property
- the mayor of london was treated poorly by his 3 daughters after dividing his wealth among them
- the political landscape
- years of civil war/political upheaval
- civil and religious chaos after the death of henry viii, conflict between catholicism and protestantism resulting in many deaths (esp. under mary i)
- elizabeths rule was good, but people were worried because she was unmarried, refused to select an heir and technically a *******
- solved in 1603 when elizabeth appointed james, to the relief of citizens who did not want a repeat of the last transfer of power
- shakespeare's sources
- derived from the myth of leir of britain
- KL first performed on st stephens day 1606
- in the original source work, cordelia does not die
- bedlam beggars
- 'tom o bedlam' is an anonymous poem in the 'mad song' genre
- 'tom o bedlam' and 'bedlam beggar' were terms used in early modern britain and later to describe beggars and vagrants who feigned mental illness
- 'bedlam' is a morphed pronunciation nickname for the bethlehem mental institution of elizabethan london
- the nature of tragedy
- aristotle
- the audience must know that justice is served to heighten moral evaluations
- according to 'poetics', a tragedy should be a single serious complete action with ornate language,
- a.c. bradley
- a shakespearean tragedy evokes pity, fear and mystery
- focuses on the internal conflict of a 'hero', whose downfall has wide reaching consequences
- catharsis and humour used to enhance moments of visceral tragedy
- aristotle
- jacobean england
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