If you take a look at the sources that influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (his first tragedy as well as his first Roman play), Seneca's Thyestes and Ovid's story of Philomela from Metamorphoses, you'll see that the bloodiness of his play didn't come out of nowhere. Even by today's standards, these works are nasty. Not that Shakespeare didn't match them in this regard: he did. In fact, thanks to his unequaled verisimilitude, he surpassed them, and created a play that is harrowing to watch or read. But as I mentioned in my previous post, I think recent audiences and commentators are getting past this fact and seeing some of the many qualities that the play contains. I also mentioned in my last post that I think the writing of the play was crucial to Shakespeare, and that I would try to demonstrate some of the influence the play had on his later career. Here we go: 1. In the storyline itself, there are strong parallels with Coriolanus (particularly the story of Lucius joining forces with an opposing army to subdue Rome) and King Lear (not only are the opening scenes very similar in terms of stagecraft, but the subplots involving Edmund and Aaron are introduced and then integrated into the main plots in very similar ways). 2. The scenes set in the Andronici mausoleum can be seen as precursors to those in the Capulet tomb in Romeo and Juliet. 3. In terms of the story's arc, a very clear parallel can be drawn with Macbeth, as the two title characters go from being highly decorated and respected warriors to infamy in the eyes of their societies, from which point they discover their inner natures. 4. The theme of madness, real or assumed, as it pertains to Titus, of course brings Hamlet to mind. 5. Tamora's first speech in the play, in which she begs for her son's life by describing the importance of mercy, is clearly the seed that led to Portia's famous words in The Merchant of Venice. 6. The four other works set in Rome that he was to write later (in order of composition, The Rape of Lucrece, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus), which treat in every case a major turning point in Roman history, can all be seen as an attempt to answer the central question posed by this play (and which may have influenced the title of one of the most famous works in the study of history, Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire): What happened?

Having just watched a highly entertaining football match (or, as it's better known to my fellow North Americans, soccer, a derivation of "association football"), the fact that the sport's first mention in print occured in King Lear came to mind. It comes as a result of the first meeting of Kent and Oswald in 1.4., when Oswald the steward, having been instructed by Goneril to behave in an insolent manner toward the king in the hope of instigating a confrontation, answers Lear's rhetorical, "... who am I, sir?" with a reply that is all the more insulting because it's the truth: "My Lady's father". This leads to a moment of incredulity from Lear followed by some name-calling and some blows which are met with another haughty reply ("I'll not be struck, my lord"). At which point, Kent (disguised as Caius, the rough-and-tumble servant) knocks him to the ground and says, "Nor tripped neither, you base football player". As first mentions go, it's a bit of an inauspicious one, I suppose, but there you have it: England's national game and the world's most popular team sport first appear in print as part of an insult.

The National Theater Live King Lear, presented on February 3 from London's Donmar Theater, which I saw on February 3 was apparently not live after all. It was a tape delay version rather (and of course If I'd thought about it for a moment it would've been obvious - a 7 pm start here would've meant a midnight one in London), because apparently there was a technical difficulty that resulted in a hold-up of seven minutes, of which we, in Montreal, were unaware. Finding out about it only increased my admiration for the splendid cast - they certainly didn't let it throw them off. Among the many terrific performances, one that stands out in my memory was Ashley Zhangazha as the King of France. It's a small part (he only appears in the first scene), but a very important one thematically, and the young actor delivered his lines with great power (Zhangazha also doubled in the role of the captain who is given the directive to hang Cordelia by Edmund in the final scene - which created an interesting juxtaposition). In fact, one of the character's statements not only strikes one of the central chords in the complex symphony of themes that make up the play, but is to me one of the most profound moments in all of Shakespeare. It comes as a consequence of his discovering that Cordelia, having offended Lear through a perceived slight in not answering his question in concert with her older sisters, has fallen in Lear's estimation from the heights to the depths in a matter of moments. The Duke of Burgundy, Cordelia's other suitor, is equally astonished by the developments, and the King of France asks him the following (and the middle sentence is the one that I was referring to above):

My Lord of Burgundy,

What say you to the lady? Love's not love

When it is mingled with regards that stands

Aloof from th'entire point. Will you have her?

She is herself a dowry.

I've had the good fortune of seeing some excellent performances of King Lear over the years, but the best was the most recent: the National Theatre Live production from the Donmar theater in London starring the great Derek Jacobi, which I saw on Thursday. And I must admit that it was the first time that I had seen a live broadcast of a play from another location in a movie theater, though I know that they've become very popular. And it certainly won't be the last. Nearly all the excitement felt in attending an in-person performance was there. In fact, I was surprised.

Of course, it helped that the production was superb: it emphasized the action in the story through swift pacing and intense, physically active performances. I'm going to write another post on it this week, at which point I'll go into a little more detail, but for today, I just want to discuss the astonishing performance given by Jacobi in the title role. Even by his standards, it's a tour de force. When I think of him, the first things that come to mind are his great performances in the BBC Richard II, the BBC Hamlet, and Branagh's Henry V. But this performance displayed abilities that I hadn't seen from him before, largely due to the performance's aforementioned physicality. Not only was he at home in it, he seemed to be leading the way. Apparently, this production may be coming to Broadway (after a short tour of England, if I'm not mistaken): If you have any chance of seeing it, do so. It's the greatest version I've seen of the world's greatest play.

Further to Friday's post regarding the excerpt of Sir Thomas More, which may have been revised by Shakespeare, and Stanley Wells' book (Shakespeare: For All Time) which brought it to my attention (and which contains a reproduction of the manuscript) - a couple of things: 1. Wells rightly finds an echo of the last two lines ("... and men like ravenous fishes/ Would feed on one another") in a speech by Albany in 4.2 of King Lear ("Humanity must perforce prey on itself/ Like monsters of the deep"). And there are also Shakespearean touches in both the detailed descriptions of specific moments ("their babies at their backs") and the empathy that results. There is also the fact that the straightforward deployment of argument (as in debating) is so much a part of Shakespearean drama. Finally there is the example of word class conversion ("shark" as a verb) which shows Shakespeare's ability to transcend not only rules but expectations. I, for one, am convinced. The excerpt is the work of Shakespeare.

Metaphor is much more than a poetic device. It's a way of thinking. It encourages the mind to see a thing through another. It can be applied to every facet of human endeavour. It is one of the main reasons that reading Shakespeare can be of so much value to everyone, not only English majors, teachers and writers. In fact, it sometimes seems as if every aspect of his work is shot through with the idea. Today, let's consider once more (I wrote about this in a different context in my post of October 8, 2010) what is often called "word class conversion", the technique whereby one part of speech is used as another. Here's an example from act two, scene three of King Lear - the speech in which Edgar decides that the only way to avoid being caught by his father's forces (he's been framed by his half-brother, Edmund) is to disguise himself as a "Bedlam beggar". Check out the three successive nouns used as verbs in the ninth and tenth lines:

I heard myself proclaim'd,

And by the happy hollow of a tree

Escap'd the hunt. No port is free, no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape,

I will preserve myself; and am bethought

To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury, in contempt of man,

Brought near to beast. My face I'll grime with filth,

Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,

And with presented nakedness outface

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,

Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms

Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;

And with this horrible object, from low farms,

Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,

Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,

Enforce their charity. 'Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!'

That's something yet! Edgar I nothing am.

The attitude that Shakespeare had toward collaborators, sources, actors and other writers seems best described as one of appreciation. It's clear that he recognized that what he was engaged in was part of a larger framework, both as a playwright working in Elizabethan/Jacobean London, and as a literary artist "for all time", to use Jonson's famous words, and that to be successful (as he was) would require working with and learning from other people. His level-headed attitude toward himself is also a model to learn from. A series of accomplishments of the magnitude that we're considering here doesn't happen without a disciplined and philosophically advanced self-image. In fact, it's interesting to think of him, on a personal level, in contrast with some of his most famous characters, Lear or Hamlet for example, who have trouble seeing themselves accurately. Harold Goddard concludes his very interesting essay in The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951) by calling Shakespeare "an unfallen Hamlet", after having explained that the prince, the character most approaching the capacity of Shakespeare, having to choose between force and art, fatally selects the former. It's purely conjecture, but it must be said that it's difficult to imagine Shakespeare ever having done the same.

I ended yesterday's post by using an unacknowledged quotation from Hamlet. (By the way, it seems as if Shakespeare is the only writer whom it's OK to quote without citation - otherwise we'd be swimming in footnotes.) It's from Ophelia's mad scene, and it's another fascinating example of how some of the passages containing the greatest wisdom come from some of the most unlikely sources: in this case a character who has gone mad, and who beforehand, had revealed of herself very little, and certainly not this kind of philosophical depth. The exact line is this: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be", and it is often overlooked because it's hidden between two lines more in keeping with our perceptions of how a mentally troubled person would speak: "They say the owl was a baker's daughter" and "God be at your table!". But just as Lear's madness brings out his most sane reasoning - as opposed to the beginning of the play when he's technically sane but his actions are the opposite - so does Ophelia's. For the first time in the play, she understands the horrific results of the ambition, treachery and violence that have infected the court and her life. And although it is too late for her, she passes from the play with words and actions "no stronger than a flower", but which have retained their beauty and depth in the imagination of everyone who has read or seen the play.

The first of the four considerations that enter into word choice, according to John Ciardi and Miller Williams' How Does a Poem Mean? (1959), is: "A word is a feeling". The main point here is that there is an emotional component in a word, its "connotation", as opposed to its literal meaning (i.e. dictionary definition) or "denotation". Thus, the word choice informs the reader about the attitude (or tone) of the writer, or speaker, in the case of drama. Let's take an example from King Lear. In act four, scene one Goneril (the daughter who swore her great love to him in the first scene) is in the process of starting a conflict with with the king, and as she accurately deduces, the best way to do so is to attempt to remove some of his royal trappings, in this case the hundred knights who follow him. And she also realizes that to take a formal and patronizing tone will help with it as well. Here is part of her lecture:

I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright.

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;

Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust

Make it more like a tavern or a brothel

Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy. Be then desir'd

By her that else will take the thing she begs

A little to disquantity your train,

And the remainder that shall still depend

To be such men as may besort your age,

Which know themselves, and you.

Note the condescending and distant (almost chilling) tone and how almost every word is calculated to achieve maximum emotional impact. "A word is a feeling" indeed.

Over the last couple of years, PBS has broadcast productions of King Lear starring Ian McKellan, Hamlet with David Tennant and Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. All three were splendid, with inspired performances from the lead actors and thoughtful interpretations by directors and casts. McKellen's Lear, for example, is so intense that at certain points I feared for his safety. It's a daring and exuberant performance, even by his standards. It's still available for online viewing at the PBS Great Performances website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/.

Tennant's Hamlet is equally "wild and whirling", full of humour and originality. Patrick Stewart is excellent as Claudius as well, and it's interesting to compare his work in the role with the one he did thirty years earlier in the BBC production starring Derek Jacobi. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available for online viewing in Canada at this point - if I do find it, I'll let you know right away, but libraries will have it.

Finally, the recent version of Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart in the title role, might be the best filmed version I've seen, which is saying something because this play has been done very well many times over. It's not to be missed: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/macbeth/watch-the-full-program/1030/

Most scholars agree that Othello was written in 1604, a year before King Lear. Yesterday's post was concerned with how Shakespeare used Pliny's Naturalis Historia as a source for a considerable amount of Othello's vocabulary. And he may have retained the content of Pliny's dedication of the work for an important moment in King Lear, as well. Pliny's dedication is an unusual one: it's to nature itself. Here it is:

Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise.

Now compare that with the first words spoken by Edmund, the treacherous half-brother of Edgar, and one of the most villainous characters in Shakespeare. Edmund, who believes in what might be called a dog-eat-dog or survival-of-the-fittest approach to life, is here delineating why his plan to frame Edgar and become the sole inheritor of his father's land and title is from his point-of-view "natural":

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stand in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother?

It certainly seems possible at least that the seed that created this unequaled subplot (the story of Gloucester, Edgar and Edmund) was planted as Shakespeare was reading for his work on Othello.

In Northrop Frye's essay on King Lear, he gives a wonderful description of Shakespeare's handling of time, first in general and then specifically in the play. I'll give you the passage in its entirety:

"Many critics of Shakespeare have noticed that there often seems to be two time clocks in the action of his plays, the events in the foreground summarizing slower and bigger events in the background that by themselves would take longer to work out. It's a little like looking at the scenery from the window of a car or a train, with the weeds at the side of the road rushing by and the horizon turning slowly. In the foreground action the scene on the heath seems to take place in the same night that begins with Regan and Cornwall shutting Lear out. In the background we pick up hints that Albany and Cornwall are at loggerheads, but are forced to compose their differences and unite against a threatened invasion from France, partly encouraged by Cordelia, although in the foreground action nothing has yet happened to Lear that would justify such an invasion."

Amazing. And I mean both Shakespeare's technical virtuosity and Frye's description of it. Tomorrow, I'll discuss the critic commonly given credit for identifying this "double time" effect.

The death of King Lear is, perhaps, an example of what some critics call "telescoped" time. With this technique, the events of several months are shown to us in a few minutes of actual stage time. In this case, Lear seems to die of heartbreak right in front of our eyes, which considering his ordeal is plausible. But it's interesting to consider as a possibility his death occurring, say, two or three weeks after Cordelia's, and that we see that amount of time condensed into the two or three minutes of the end of the play. Looked at this way, Shakespeare is doing something much more advanced than simply allowing large periods of time to elapse between scenes - which anyone can do - he is allowing them to elapse during them. (More on this, and another example, tomorrow.)

Further to yesterday's comments about Enobarbus, the sophisticated and cynical follower of Antony: He has some of the most memorable lines in the play. For example, when Antony and Octavius are reaching a tenuous agreement to form an alliance with which to confront Sextus Pompey, Enobarbus gives them some humorous yet truthful advice. He says that they can continue their disagreements (and return to their true natures) after they have dealt with the immediate threats, and once they have more leisure. Antony, in a tricky spot, then takes out some of his tension on him, to which Enobarbus' replies are highly amusing:

ENOBARBUS

Or, if you borrow one another's love for the

instant, you may, when you hear no more words of

Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to

wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

ANTONY

Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

ENOBARBUS

That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

ANTONY

You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.

ENOBARBUS

Go to, then; your considerate stone.

His statement on telling the truth always makes me think of one made by another chorus-type character, the Fool in King Lear, when he says, "Truth's a dog must to kennel." Both characters show that humour is often used to camouflage its real purpose.

The great poet W.H. Auden was also a very astute Shakespeare critic. (By the way, I use the term in its more useful sense, which refers to one who attempts to help the audience enjoy a work more clearly, not a thumbs-up/thumbs-down type of writer. The latter does not apply to people like Shakespeare. Northrop Frye said it best: "When a critic comes up against something the size of Shakespeare, it is the critic who is being judged".) When lecturing on King Lear, Auden noted that at this point in his career, Shakespeare was writing about states of mind rather than trying to create "believable" characters. In other words, we are not likely to meet someone like Lear, but we are likely to have instances arise where an emotionally-overcharged decision can have serious consequences. Another example: it's interesting how the character of Hamlet is someone with whom no one living has anything in common (a member of a ruling, not symbolic, royal family who sees a ghost and must revenge a murder - I've never met anyone in that position, anyway), and yet is one that has helped innumerable people understand their lives and the workings of their minds more clearly. Quite an achievement, that.

Between yesterday's post and the present moment, I came across a far more elegant rebuttal to Tolstoy's attack on Shakespeare (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27726.bibrec.html) than I could ever write. It's by George Orwell, so no shame there. Here's the link: http://www.george-orwell.org/Lear,_Tolstoy_and_the_Fool/0.html

Further to this, two things: 1. Tolstoy's opinion seems to come partly from the position that I tried to describe yesterday: the idea that literature should be used to some end, or to instruct. I don't concur, and I don't think Shakespeare did either. (By the way, yesterday's post also stated that commentators are getting into hazardous terrain when they try to figure out Shakespeare's motivations. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be attempted, I often do it myself - I think it's important to try, but we have to remember that Shakespeare is always going to be out there ahead of us, to paraphrase Harold Bloom.) 2. Tolstoy was almost certainly the type of critic that T.S. Eliot was referring to in his essay entitled "Hamlet", i.e. the "most dangerous type of critic: the critic with a mind which is naturally of the creative order". Either that, or he was bonkers, as a commentator, anyway. Have a look at the two pieces above, and decide for yourself.

When we speak of Shakespeare as "using poetry" or "writing in verse", I think we may be missing the point. Shakespeare's brilliance is largely due to the fact that he was always thinking poetically, not simply employing it as a device, and over the next few posts, I'm going to try to prove this contention. Today, I'd like to consider Shakespeare's use of metaphor.

When something new is brought to the mind's attention, one of the processes that it employs in its apprehension is to compare it to something that it already knows. The flip side to this also happens, where something familiar can be understood differently, and often more deeply, by comparison with something new. Therefore, writing (which is, in one sense, simply recorded thinking) based on the metaphorical concept will lead to places that "realistic" writing won't. Here is an example from the opening scene of King Lear. This occurs as Lear is in the act of disowning Cordelia because he did not get the answer from her that he was expecting, either in form or content, to his question about the quantity of her love. The Earl of Kent, a nobleman of great personal loyalty to Lear, attempts to intercede and prevent disaster:

KENT

Royal Lear,

Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,

Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,

As my great patron thought on in my prayers-

LEAR

The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.

KENT

Let it fall rather, though the fork invade

The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly

When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?

Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound

When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom;

And in thy best consideration check

This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,

Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound

Reverbs no hollowness.

The last lines contain a metaphor of astonishing power: Kent points out that the heart of a person who does a lot of talking about love or loyalty can be like a barrel that produces more sound when it is less full. So here's the question: Would this remarkable observation have come into being if Shakespeare was not thinking poetically? My own feeling is that the poetry is more often the cause rather than the effect of moments like this one.

Perhaps the most famous image in drama is Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull (another contender would be the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet), at which point he closes his conversation with the jester's memory by saying: "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that." The concision and directness of the final sentence is truly remarkable, and certainly part of the reason for the scene's renown. There is a scene that is of a similar nature in King Lear, where Lear, in the storm, confronted by Edgar in his disguise as the madman, Poor Tom, says the following:

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy

uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than

this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast

no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three

on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated

man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.

The entire passage is of great interest, but the line that I'm thinking of in this context is: "Thou art the thing itself", which rivals the above example from Hamlet in terms of briefness and power. In another sense though, the protagonists are looking in quite different directions. Hamlet's epiphany (like several of his others) concerns the all-conquering power of death, whereas Lear's is a realization about human life, and how much of it he has missed.

Here are two interesting thoughts on the ending of King Lear: Fintan O'Toole in Shakespeare Is Hard But So Is Life (2002), writes that the ending, and more specifically the "gratuitous" death of Cordelia is meant to show that if there is no justice in a society, then what does it matter if there is a happy ending to a story about a bunch of powerful people? Marjorie Garber, in Shakespeare After All (2004) points to the idea that drama and its rituals have often been used for purposes other than aesthetic ones, and that one of these is to help prevent errors in judgement, like the ones made by Lear, that can have catastrophic results. Thus literature can (and should) have an "ameliorative" and perhaps "educative" purpose that helps in "warding off danger".

I strongly agree with both of these points, and the thought that I would add to them is this: I think the setting of the play is very important, and that it is meant to show a world without many of the concepts and institutions that we take for granted - and that it is also meant to make us consider the reasons why such things as philosophy, art and education were created. So yes, the ending of the play is a most tragic one, but in my opinion it's intended effect is not nihilistic, but rather deeply moral. It presents life unadorned to its audience and asks, "What are you going to do about it?"

The ending of King Lear, and particularly the death of Cordelia, is still a controversial one. It is so dark, and so tragic, that even words as strong as "nihilistic" have been used in discussing the play. In fact, one Norman Tate went so far as to "improve" it by re-writing it with a happy ending (Edgar and Cordelia get married - I'm not sure what happens to the King of France), and this version, apparently, was the one you would have seen in a theater at any point between 1681 and 1838.

Well, I'm giving my King Lear lecture tomorrow, so I'm not going to give away my thoughts on the matter just yet, but over the next couple of posts, I will - with assistance from some of the splendid criticism I've read recently. Or you could come to the lecture and hear it in person.

(Wednesday, September 29 - 11 am: King Lear

The Atwater Library: 1200 Avenue Atwater, Westmount, Quebec

(514) 935-7344

Admission: $20

georgewalllectures@gmail.com for further information, or to reserve a seat.)