Littrature britannique 8.9.

2015
King Lear
The Sonnets of Shakespeare
Exam:
mid-term: oral November sur King Lear (shorter than final 10-15 mins de passage)
final: oral explication de texte soit sur King Lear soit sur 1 ou 2 sonnets qu'on a eu tudier (2h
prep; 30 min passage)
BE PREPARED!
BUY BOOKS!
Develop a detailed plan as HW p. 6 9 prepared for 10 mins presentation +
read act I scene II, vers 45 gloceter reading p. 17 p. 19 gloceter it is strange vers 116
It was illegal to alienate his kingdom/ pass it on to his daughters = mistake (Aristotle's view of
tragedy: always starts with a hero making a mistake)
The ethos- a group of ideas which people comply with
King elected by God
Mistake especially because of lying
Hierarchy (eldest to youngest)
Rhetoric is vain (empty)
ALL WORDS IN SHAKESPEARE ARE PACKED WITH MEANING
Words disconnection btw words and love (disconnection btw signs and signifides)
Miriad of signifides (denontation vs connotation)
Gonerill lies and tells the truth at the same time (use of very complex language)
If the daughters love their father most, they shouldn't be able to get married
Lear is blind to the way the elder daughters use rhetoric, he trusts his daughters and the power of
words, to the irony of his own words
Opposition btw 2 conceptions of language: King Lear taking everthing at face value; hypocritical
use of words
Lear's mistakes: divides kingdom; trusts words; destroying a link btw father and daughter
(bannishes Cordelia, treason of nature)
(Nature incooperates God; mistake ag order of nature = mistake ag God)
It was assumed that planets circulated around the earth
Contradiction Irony (swear by nature and commiting an unnatural act)
(Irony in the sense the classics used it- say sth and mean the opposite)
Love

Words
King Lear
Act 1 Scene 1

performed december 1606

2 storylines, linked through their geography and relation to king lear, but also through both
being betrayed by their children while another stands up for them
story before, after and during
characters
Kent as the voice of reason and the mediator between the characters

The rule of three linked with hierarchy

Rhetorical skills, play, keep audience's attention, having only 2 daughters would not have been as
effective and shows that the evil outweighs the good (in contrast with gloucester's sons)
Gonerill, our eldest speak first What says our second daughter? A third more opulent than
your sisters'? Speak!
hierarchy = order, marriage for political relations rather than love
Cordelia refuses to adhere bannished
The pervasion of nature
Here I disclaim all my paternal care
Love/ Trust /Blindness
Words do not conect with love, no meaning attached to the words (no connection btw signs and
signifides)
Irony
Love as an act of nature
Does blind trust equate to love?
Tragedy written 1606, story, words + their power and influence on choices
Uses of words
Lear thinks 1 word has only 1 meaning, Gonerill uses hyperbole, Regan says metal, lexical field of
price and worth, Cordelia understood the dual meaning of a word I cannot hieve my heart into my
mouth
Metal spirit and price / worth / cold / hard (not pliable) coldhearted / hardhearted
Sisters on a par with each other
A scene of paradoxes
Needs a map for his country (rules sth which is to him unknown)
Summons nature + unnatural (bannishing his own daughter)
Matter of nature and unnatural
How could Gonerill love a father more than liberty?
Lear puts himself above God dividing his kingdom and bannishing his daughter
Hecate God of witchcraft
Relinquishing the kingdom; It echoed the relation with Cordelia
topos topoi ( a theme and all that goes along with it)

Hubris a hero suffers from pride (hubris) so that he's going to oppose the God's will (greek hero
would often be blind)
He is creating his own nemesis (Nemesis Goddess of retribution)
Hamartia weakness failure / error / downfall
Lear suffers from hubris, being his hamartia and creating his own nemmesis ( which is Cordelia's
death)
Shakespeare seems close to the Greek view of theatre
Make good transitions and show progression
Lear commits 2 grave errors: Dividing his kingdom and bannishing his daughter (which is also a
foreshadowing of the death of Cordelia Cordelia = Jesus; deeply Christian about Cordelia)
Why? - Because he believes his 2 evil daughters and does not believe what Cordelia says
Cordelia = allegory of a bannished truth and the old Christian way, when this collapses nothing is
left
Transition: Blindness, blind to what? The functioning of words
Words
Transition: Old way of looking at things
Old vs Young
Conclusion: The scene announces the ruin of the old Christian system
L'arbitraire du signe, le nom c'est une voix qui remarque une chose le mot peut tre dissoci d'une
chose
Plato: a word has one singular meaning Cratylus - a discourse on language, talks with Socrates
and Hermogenes (belonging to the Gods), in the name there is the meaning of what you are
Socrates disagrees
Christianity was inspired by Socrates and Plato...
Ic est corpus meum (this is my body) the words echo the meaning of an object
Lear believes in this old conception of language (a word cannot lie, platonic theory)
The old vs the young

Act I Scene 2
first performed December 1606
2 storylines, linked through their geography and relation to King Lear, but also through both
being betrayed by their children while another stands up for them
story before, after and during
characters
Letter
what is the function of this letter? How does a letter represent the truth? It does not indicate any
gestures/ tones of voice/... no presence, You know the character to be your brother's? Blind
despite spectacles
trans: introduced by the spectacles blindness
Parrallel to Lear
Blind trust
Lying son whom he puts his trust in, mistrusting the most loved child (legitimate most loved)
trans: evil son (bastard)
Edmund's aim is not just greed, but he rebels against the social order that classifies him a bastard
and therefore denies him what his legitimate brother Edgar has access to
Edmund as the teller of the story, the introduction of the second plotline begins with his soliloquy,
Shakespeare addressing the audience, making them aware of the fact that it is a play catharsis

29.9.15
Situating the passage
Blindness to truth caused by hubris and illustrated by the peculiar character of edmund
old vs young
family crisis
clash btw conceptions of nature
tragic irony gives a different meaning to gloucester's statements:
prophecy
calls onto nature
the use of irony to show how Edmund is cleverly manipulating his father
Old replaced/ dismissed by the young
This policy of age...
Nature is at the core of the conflict btw the 2 characters, Edmund has a different relation to nature
(society turns him into a natural bastard)
Edmund progressive, breaks the order of things and rejects the laws of society for his personal
gain
Nature of the old and new conception of nature

Analysis of Edmund's rhetoric:

Suggestion followed by retraction
but retracting what he has been saying envisaging the opposite possibility
verbal miniplation
let's Gloucester come to the conclusion
the cunning of it that's the strange thing cheat you uses words that superimpose more than one
meaning
rhetorics are important aide la formation du citoyen, qqn qui peut metttre des ides en avant
quintilian l'institution oratoire
scientia bene dicendi la science de bien dire les choses, de dire le bien
The influence of machiavellic evil figure
machiavellian proponent of Machiavel's political views
a Machiavel published 1513 The Prince, text about the ruler, Machiavel demolishes the old
conception of a ruler as the representative of God on earth
Because God is infinitely good a ruler should be infinitely good (but the good of the kingdom
sometimes has to depend on evil actions to keep peace)
The Elizabeth theatre invented a character called the Machiavel
Gloucester sees things, but his fram of reference (bc he's old) doesn't enable him to make sense of it
The world he's confronted with evades his understanding
The play creates a sense of uneasiness, because some charachters, who embody a series of ideas
(Christian values: love; honesty), die
Their only guilt is their innocence
The sense of the tragic comes from the demolishing of a certain series of values, forming an
ideology, portrayed by young and old
Nothing creates a sense of the tragic
Problmatique annonucing the general conclusion
Problmatique: What creates a sense of tragic
Gloucester (old system) being gulled by his son
Act 1 Scene 4
p . 26 lines 95 177 Enter the fool I would fain learn to lie
Switching roles reversal of hierarchy mirror effect
Fool was allowed free speech
King Lear as a fool
Lear the one who asks questions and needs answers
Blindness
Fool as the commentator of events (chorus) (king's conscience)
Fool as a teacher, more enlightened, reminding Lear of his original mistakes so Lear opens his
eyes (epiphany?); guide/ mentor,
cathartic function on Lear
Confront Lear with his mistakes, but Lear doesn't understand the underlying meaning

Lear learns to see the world of nothing / the void

Madness may help him see the world more clearly
Erasmus of Rotterdam In Praise of Folly (about the wiseness of the fools)
Sarcasm and humour to ease the truth
1st time we have seen the fool
Fool folly
Connection btw Cordelia and the fool (p. 25 l. 70 +)
Kent has a similar function to the fool, both reminders and loyal (allegories of Lear's iner ideas and
of values such as love, loyalty, friendship, help)
Comic relief commical tone
Shakespeare on his comedies a gest with a sad brow - ~ pathetic
foppish foolish
apish to imitate (to imitate is not enough)
to eat fish = to copulate ^^
Problmatique: The tone of the passage
The role of the fool
compared to Kent
failed attempt at trying to make Lear see
The fool's rhetoric
Conclusion it's funny, but also serious, slightly sad, tone of the passage
Act III scene 4 p. 68
l. 44 Enter Edgar disguised as poor Tom...
l. 109 Enter Gloucester with a torch
Poor Tom is against nature, portraying the opposite of Edgar
hierarchy Pelican daughter
Tom in the nude, except a blanket
Meeting of various facettes of madness
Lear real mad
Tom - posessed simulates madness lines 49 ff, in cognito madness, destitute beggar
Fool foolish, but most sensible, observer
Lear :projects himself onto Tom, sees in Tom a reflection of himself misunderstanding
Tom pretending to be mad speaks like the fool (nonsensical when you take them at face value), his
rhethoric is calculated for Lear to identify with him
Fool is replaced by Tom as the reason for Lear
metaphorical hell Tom's using images metaphorical PoV
Kent and Edgar disguised and Fool cathartic function, guides to Lear

Lear wants to assimilate with Tom (tearing off his clothes), less blind, on the way to comprehension
disguising we need to go beyond appearances, images are more telling than plain words
clothing = identity, Tom's disguise is his nakedness
Dcartes: Man is a sensible animal instinct and reason
Pic della Mirandola: Neo-Platonist 1499 Of the dignity of man man is an image of God, a noble
creature, of reason and dignity
Shakespeare: man is no more than an animal
Unaccommodate ruled by the passions, free in the wild, unprotected
storm madness in the skies
p.67 houseless, roof = God man is just an animal
noone gives poor Tom charity, charity = love
Tom a parody of Christ
A play within a play (mise en abime) because Fool is just an observer, Christianity is put on stage
and parodied all that is left is a poor bare-forked animal