King Lear, widely regarded as one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, is also often seen as a play which challenges ideas of justice, social order, and morality amidst an apparently harsh and barbarous world. Yet these questions were also concerns contemporary to Shakespeare’s times. Indeed King Lear was written in a period of profound cultural changes, amidst social, political, philosophical and spiritual conflicts and crises, in a world in which older certainties were fading and new questions and challenges coming to the fore.
Thus King Lear can be read not merely as a timeless, profound and powerful tragedy but also as a set of responses to the challenges thrown by these changing notions: what is nature, and what is humanity’s place in it? Is this world governed by a meaningful and distinguishable order, or are human lives rather placed at the mercy of pitiless and indifferent forces? And finally, the play also stages powerful moments of love, friendship, loyalty, courage and forgiveness – what are we to make of those instances and what light do they throw on the world of King Lear?
This course explores the complex and startling responses King Lear offers to these enduring questions. Each session will begin with a short informal lecture which will present the themes of the play in the light of how these issues were being approached in the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. We will then move on to group discussion and close textual group reading and interpretation. Vital aspects of this course are close, careful reading of the text as well as the sharing of ideas and interpretations. Enthusiastic, open-minded and spirited discussion will be very much encouraged.
