B Shakespearean Tragedy: King Lear and Its Theatrical Contexts

Question 1

The Characteristics of Shakespearean Tragedy and Elizabethan Theatre
The Genre of (classical) tragedy

Answer 1

The tragic Protagonist
- high social rank –> fall of princes
- tragic flaw in his character / misreading of an important situation -> leads to the protagonist’s downfall
- desired effect on the audience: catharsis (emotional purification, pity and fear) through identification with the protagonist

• very hierarchical, fixed places for every being, no possibility of change
• interdependency of different realms
  -> violations of this order affect other realms too

Question 2

The Genre of (classical) tragedy - plot development
The Three Unities of Classical Drama

Answer 2

three unities of classical drama:
1. unity of time (no gaps)
- chronological order of plot; in king lear time gaps exist (there’s a lot of time between the acts) but Shakespear honors the unity of time the most
2. unity of place ( one of very few locations)
- play takes place in various locations, which can be categorized; in king lear, the tsory jumps from one place to another
3. unity of action (coherence, concentration)
- there are scenes where the protagonist “Lear” is not present; the whole plot about Gloucester and his two sons is considered a subplot

Question 3

The Genre of (classical) tragedy - plot development
Freytag’s Triangle/Pyramid

Answer 3

exposition -> rising action -> climax -> falling action -> catastrophe
-> more detailed: retarding moment/moment of last suspense shortly befor catastrophe

• overall effect: symmetry (usually 5 acts), regularity, continuity
• ending is often foreshadowed already in Act 1
  -> we get the sense that Lear is gonna make a mistake

Question 4

The Genre of (classical) tragedy - plot development
Freytag’s Triangle/Pyramid => King Lear

Answer 4

rising action: Goneril and Reagan treat Lear worse and worse

climax: Lear on the heath in the storm, oscillating between insight and madness (Act 3) -> protagonist understands that he has done something wrong; he gains insight into his mistake(s)

retarding moment/moment of last suspense: gives hope to the audience -> the french army led by Cordelia and her reunion with Lear let’s them hope that everything will be good

catastrophe: all the main characters die, survivors (minor good characters) gurantee a sense of continuity, villian Edmund repents and affirms the social order

Question 5

King Lear
Textual History + plot

Answer 5

• first printed in 1608
• third appearance in First Folio in 1623
• modern editions tend to conflate the two versions

plot:
King Lear divides his kingdom among the two daughters who flatter him and banishes the third one who loves him. His eldest daughters both then reject him at their homes, so Lear goes mad and wanders through a storm. His banished daughter returns with an army, but they lose the battle and Lear, all his daughters and more, die.

Question 6

Lear as Tragic Protagonist
What is his tragic flaw?

Answer 6

• vanity, inability to distinguish between flattery and true love
• second possibility: evaluation of his behaviour related to the cultural context of Shakespeare’s time -> he wants to split the kingdom and wants to see who is fit to rule

Question 7

Elizabethan Theatre

Answer 7

• around 1500-1600
• theatre is not considered ‘art’ in Shakespeare’s times but (popular) entertainment
• spectators behaved accordingly
• closely connected to location of most London theatres: outside the ‘respectable’ parts of the city -> not where you’d find instituations of study or literature

Question 8

Elizabethan Theatre
characteristics

Answer 8

• large audiences, often rather unruly
• theatre attended by all social groups and classes
• hierarchical structure in terms of the different seating areas (e.g. groundlings - stand close to the stage)
• proscenium stage: close spatial proximity (an often interaction) between actors and audience
• no female actors
• hardly any scenery or stage props
• no curtain
• performances in daylight

Question 9

Elizabethan Theatre
Consequences for Shakespeare’s Play

Answer 9

• different kind of spectators (social class, educational background) have to be addressed in one play
  -> use different social ranks offering identification, distinguished by the use of verse (usually iambix pentameter) and prose
• use of ‘comic relief’ in tragedy (funny parts in between the sad or serious parts of the play)
• possibility of multiple readings of one scene
• ideological ambiguity (potential ploitical criticism)