EA 190 Shakespeare & Japan Week 6 and 7 Lectures Videos: Kurosawa and Geometric Style Video: Kurosawa and Movement Bibliography assignment I. Shakespeare and the Conventions of Tragedy A. Is Shakespeare following the conventions of tragedy, or flouting them? 1. My position: Shakespeare expects you do know the conventions of tragedy, and he uses that knowledge to manipulate you. WIKIPEDIA ON TRAGEDY: “Tragedy must maintain a balance between the higher optimisms of religion or philosophy, or any other beliefs that tend to explain away the enigmas and afflictions of existence, on the one hand, and the pessimism that would reject the whole human experiment as valueless and futile on the other.” “As to the Classical unities, Shakespeare adheres to them only twice and neither time in a tragedy, in The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest. And through the mouths of his characters, Shakespeare, like Aristotle, puts himself on both sides of the central question of tragic destiny—that of freedom and necessity. Aristotle says that a tragic destiny is precipitated by the hero’s tragic fault, his “error or frailty” (hamartia), but Aristotle also calls this turn of events a change of “fortune.” Shakespeare’s Cassius in Julius Caesar says, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves,” and, in King Lear, Edmund ridicules a belief in fortune as the “foppery of the world.” But Hamlet, in a comment on the nature of hamartia, is a fatalist when he broods on the “mole of nature,” the “one defect” that some men are born with, “wherein they are not guilty,” and that brings them to disaster (Act I, scene 4).” B. The convention of exposition: that as quickly and smoothly as possible in the first act the playwright is supposed to give us our bearings, to let us know who's who and what's what, who we're supposed to root for, and who we're supposed to be booing. Watch the opening scene Act 1 Scene 1 (Gloucester, Kent and Edmund) 1. QUESTION: Do we know who to root for by the end of the scene? a. Would you think that Gloucester was the good guy and Edmund the bad guy just from this opening? b. What has Gloucester done for Edmund? c. What does this first impression do? d. Later point that Edgar (who tends to try to moralize everything) makes with regard to his father: “The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Watch Act 1 Scene 2 (Lear tests his daughters and banishes Cordelia) 2. QUESTION: What do we find out about Lear in Act 1 Scene 2? a. list characteristics
3. QUESTION: How long does it take us to really get that Goneril and Regan are bad? If you just looked at this scene, what negative things might you say about Cordelia? 1. Goneril and Regan 4. QUESTION: Why is Lear dividing his kingdom and marrying off Cordelia at the same time? a. One explanation along the lines of a Freudian family dynamic: daughters leave the household when they marry -- they switch their loyalty and love from their father to their husband. b. If Lear marries Cordelia off, where does he expect to go? c. Cordelia recognizes what Lear is doing, and refuses to go along with it. [1.1.105-115, p. 13] "Good my lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me: I 5. If Shakespeare was intending to show us who to root for, he appears to have failed. So what is he doing? a. We’ll see this in Ran as well. b. Right at the start, implicit criticisms of the inequalities of social structures such as marriage, primogeniture -- they are hidden causes of the subsequent tragic developments. Not just that Lear is ignorant or rash -- that the system is set up to fail. II. Belief and skepticism in King Lear From a modern perspective, King Lear seems to be asking the question: is there a god or gods who care what happens to human beings? Is there such a thing as justice in this world? This is a difficult question to ask straightforwardly in Shakespeare’s time because it would have been considered blasphemous. A. Not long before King Lear was written, using the lord’s name in vain or any kind of blasphemy (especially implying that there is no God) on stage was outlawed. How does setting the story in a prehistoric Britain allow Shakespeare to get around this? 1. Video: Ian McKellen talking about faith in gods in King Lear B. Two world views in King Lear (skepticism vs faith). In Ran we will see the conflicting views of skepticism and Buddhism. 1. World View 1: that the gods/fortune's wheel/stars-astrology determine our fate -- and that the gods punish those who are bad, and reward those who are good. There is divine intervention. 2. World View 2: the skeptics position; that human suffering is caused by humans, and that fortune or the gods or nature have nothing to do with it. 3. Who are the characters who seem to believe in skepticism, at least initially?
4. Who are the characters who believe in the gods, at least initially? C. Examples of Skepticism: 1. Edmund [1. 2. 108-121 p. 35] Gloucester talks about eclipses as omens. video (Trevor Nun production): 21:14 video: Raul Julia 23:46
“This is the excellent foppery of the world...” video (Trevor Nun production): 21:40 2. Fool: "Fortune that arrant whore, Ne'er turns the key to th' poor" [2.4.58-59, p. 101] D. Characters who believe in fortune/astrology/gods: GLOUCESTER: 1. As noted above, [1.2.108-121, p. 35] Gloucester comes in and says that oracles predict disaster. “These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us...` (Do these things come true?) 2. Before his eyes are put out he says 3. Gloucester comes to believe that the gods are simply playing with man: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, Basically saying this is like the story of Job -- God and Satan making a wager. EDGAR: 1. Continuously moralizes both as himself and as Tom o'Bedlam. Typical moralizing speeches by Edgar: "Take heed o' th' foul fiend. Obey thy parents, keep thy [3.6.111-120, p. 157] [4.1. 1-6, p. 171] Even after his father shows up blind, instead of revealing himself to his father, and comforting him, he goes off with him to Dover to help him "commit suicide." Why? "Thy Life's a Miracle" [4.6.69, p. 199] But what happens when he finally reveals himself to his father? [5.3. 217-234, pp. 249-51] LEAR: 2. Divine right of kings [1.1.120. p. 15] Swears to the gods an oath banishing Cordelia Video: McKellan on Lear and faith [1.4. 289-303, pp. 59-61] Cursing Goneril with sterility [2.4.180-190, p. 109] (cursing Goneril again) [2.4.313-315, p. 117] [2.4.218, p. 111] Act 3 Scene 2 [3.2.1 p. 127] [3.2.52-63 p. 131] KENT: [4.3.38-41, p. 187] C. Which position does Shakespeare take? 1. Are any prayers heard? Are any attempts to explain events shown to be true? 2. Fortune's wheel becomes a rack in which Gloucesters eyes are gouged out; or a metaphorical wheel of fire that Lear is being tortured upon at the end of the play. 3. Edgar's attempts to teach his father to believe through miraculous jump from cliffs of Dover a. fail in the long term 4. What happens in the end? Why does Cordelia die? Edgar: [5.3.204-207, p. 249] Edmund: And after Edgar describes his father’s death, Edgar says: “This speech of yours hath moved me, When Edmund hears that Goneril and Regan are dead: Then Kent walks in and asks where Lear and Cordelia are (the obvious question). Albany: Great thing of us forgot!/ Speak Edmund, where's the King? And where's Cordelia?"[5.3.282, p. 253] Edmund says [291-295]: Albany says "The gods defend her!" The silence of “nothingness” that is played upon throughout the play, becomes the silence of the gods at the end: Lear But Cordelia is Kent: Is this the promised end? Weak last moralizing attempt by Albany: "All friends shall taste the wages of their virtue, and all foes/ And then one more moral by Edgar. "The weight of this sad time we must obey, 6. Many early critics objected to the ending: Bradley: the catastrophe, "does not seem at all inevitable...In fact it seems expressly Is there any supranatural or supernatural force that will intercede for human beings? II. So what is the lesson learned, if any? A. Class discussion B. Metaphor of motherhood: Edgar says about himself: But is Edgar “pregnant to good pity?” C. Does Lear learn compassion? The Fool tells him: Lear: [2.4. 62-64, p. 101] Scene outside Tom o' Bedlam's hut p 137 Lear tells the fool to go into the hovel first [3.4. 32-41. p. 137] Gloucester, after his eyes are gouged out, and thinks he is going to commit suicide offers his purse to Edgar, thinking him a mad beggar: [4.1. 74-80, pp. 175-76] IV. Class discussion on imagery in King Lear I'd like you to think about imagery in King Lear. Pick ONE of the following kinds of imagery in the play and note all the instances you can find (lines and page numbers). Pick two of the images you've found (not just the first two you run into please!), quote the lines in which the image appears, and discuss what you think the image means in that specific context and in the wider context of the play. c. Clothing and nakedness: how do clothes "make the man" in King Lear? How are clothes related to power? Why does Lear take off his clothing when he goes mad? d. Nothing and nothingness: When Cordelia replies "nothing" to her father's request to tell him how much she loves him, he says "Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again." From this moment onward, the idea of nothing, nothingness, naught, zero (a mathematical concept which had only just been introduced) appears repeatedly. What is the effect of all this nothinginess? e. Animal imagery: used to describe Goneril and Regan, especially.
|