King Lear by William Shakespeare

 King Lear by William Shakespeare


 

What can I add to the thousands of books written on King Lear? Nothing much, except for my feelings and thoughts on reading it.

I have first encountered Shakespeare’s characters when I was a teenager. I did not understand much at first, but I was impressed with the chivalry, manhood, nobility, posture, manner of speech, grandeur and appearance of many of the kings, lords and nobles appearing on stage.

These were BBC productions, like the one I listened to the other day. I have admired the British because of these plays, which present many of the qualities of the subjects of her Majesty the Queen.

I wish I have lived in Victorian days, somewhere in a castle, not in the gutter. Even if I know that imperialism is bad, with my subjective, positive views of the British, I admire the British Empire and think more (or only?) of the majesty of it, the civilizing role, the railways, bridges and schools they built and less (if ever) on the negative side of a colonizing power.

Shakespeare meant a lot to me, even when the things I loved about his play were much more appearance than substance, not the message but the dress. I think I liked villains and heroes alike, even worse, if a criminal was “likeable” I favored him against the good guy.

Richard III was one of my favorites: it starts with the famous booming, impressive:

“Now is the winter of our discontent

Turned into glorious summer by this son of York

And all the clouds that loured upon our sky

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried”

Especially the last sentence echoed in my ears for a long time…even now, when the idea is to write about King Lear…

Listening to the play again, I found myself empathizing with the “bad girls”…not 100%, maybe 10%.

I am referring to the escort, which may have been loud and annoying. I am sensitive to noise and have read that we adapt to many things, but we can’t stand and adapt to loud noise. When people, kids come to play football at my fence, I can’t bear it. So maybe King Lear’s daughter had a point complaining about the company he kept and the noise they made.

John Gielgud is a fabulous actor and he has the lead role in the production that I listened to. In the cast there were some other giants: Kenneth Branagh, his former wife –Emma Thompson, Judy Dench and Bob Hoskins- what a joy, what performances, what voices and interpretation: Nec plus ultra.

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