Critics Views

Question 1

How did Samuel Johnson regard Cordelia’s death?

Answer 1

He was so shocked by Cordelia’s death that he “knew not whether he endured to read the last scenes of the play again”

Question 2

How did Samuel Johnson view Nahum Tate’s Cordelia?

Answer 2

She always “retired with victory and felicity”

Question 3

What was Joesph Addison’s take on poetic justice?

Answer 3

“King Lear is reformed to the chimerical notion of poetic justice that hath lost it’s beauty”

Question 4

Whose view conflicts with that of Joseph Addison?

Answer 4

C.J. Sisson

Question 5

How did Charles Lamb and August Schlegel view the ending of the tragedy?

Answer 5

Lear has to die in a tragic ending, and not in peacefulness and happiness, as there would be no significance in his story

Question 6

What was S.T. Coleridge’s critical analysis of Act 3, Scene 4?

Answer 6

The madness of Lear, the “feigned madness” of Edgar, the “babbling” of the Fool and the “desperate fidelity” of Kent all “convulse” in the storm

Question 7

What did Edward Dowded have to say about Shakespeare’s original play?

Answer 7

Shakespeare “seared to represent the most solemn mysteries of life without offering an explanation for them”

Question 8

What events of King Lear support Dowded’s view of unexplained mysteries of life?

Answer 8

Cordelia dies an undeserved death
Lear dies after redemption

Question 9

Who’s critical viewpoint can contrast that of Edward Dowded?

Answer 9

Charles Lamb
August Schlegel

Question 10

What was G. Wilson Knight’s opinion on Lear’s misjudgement?

Answer 10

Lear “trains his ind to think that he can’t be wrong and then finds that he is always wrong”

Question 11

What is Lear’s “purgatory” in the view of G. Wilson Knight?

Answer 11

“To be a purgatory of the mind”

Question 12

What view did Enid Welsford take on the Fool?

Answer 12

Offering his coxcomb sets a problem, the Fool asking:
“What am I? What is madness?”
“It is a central question which revolves itself into a question about the universe”

Question 13

What did Northrop Fryre explore?

Answer 13

The link between nothingness and identity in King Lear

Question 14

What was Northrop Fryre’s perspective?

Answer 14

“What is the identity of a king who is no longer king?”
- Lear questions his identity early in the play, The Fool saying that his identity is “Lear’s shadow”
- Is Lear’s identity fractured due to no kingship and no power?

Question 15

What is a comparison that is made by feminist critics?

Answer 15

Lear’s attitude towards his daughters and Gloucester’s attitude towards his sons

Question 16

In what quote shows male disgust in female sexuality?

Answer 16

“Into her womb convey sterility”

Question 17

What is Kathleen McLuskie’s feminist view of King Lear?

Answer 17

There is a connection between insubordination and anarchy, that suggests explicit misogyny

Question 18

What is Martha Burns perspective of Regan and Gonerill?

Answer 18

“Women are just as obsessed with power as men, and when they are, they are seen as evil and not formidable. R + G are formidable”

Question 19

How can Martha Burns’ ideas apply to the comparison between Gloucester and Lear’s families?

Answer 19

Both R + G get their need for power from their father, who gives his away but still expects his entitlements. This is the reason that they are “formidable”

Question 20

How is Lear interpreted through a Marxist lens?

Answer 20

He is a feudal lord only interested in self-power. He exploits relationships and neglects them, which is seen in his love test for the biggest share of the kingdom, which can be regarded the same as shares in a business economically

Question 21

How does Davide Walsh interpret Lear’s peripeteia?

Answer 21

“Family tragedy turns into something else when discovering a greater tragedy than his own, which is seen when he is stripped of all his privilege”

Question 22

What is effect of the transformations of Gloucester, Lear and Edgar?

Answer 22

The play destroys ideologies that support unequal distribution of wealth and power

Question 23

How does Paul. W. Kahn interpret Edmond?

Answer 23

“Edmond begins from a cause we cannot identify as unjust, though he rejects the fate the fate that law had dealt in him”

Question 24

What is primogeniture?

Answer 24

The right of the eldest legitimate son to inherit title and land from their father

Question 25

What is a marxist view of primogeniture?

Answer 25

That it is fair, they disagree with Edmond.
This would make a pro-marxist more supportive of Edmond