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A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

theguardian.com

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Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#11

Post by ghaff »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

Note: the assertion that the experience of plague caused Shakespeare to change the ending of King Lear is really just speculation by one scholar. The evidence is circumstantial in the extreme. We know rather little about Shakespeare’s biography or inner life, and after two centuries of people combing over every scrap of archival evidence they can find we are not likely to discover much more. Which is fine by me reall…

I'm by no means a Shakespearean scholar but, in the context of his many earlier tragedies, wouldn't Lear with a happy ending have been something of an outlier?

>just read the plays!

And watch them!

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#13

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ghaff wrote: post #11
libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

Note: the assertion that the experience of plague caused Shakespeare to change the ending of King Lear is really just speculation by one scholar. The evidence is circumstantial in the extreme. We know rather little about Shakespeare’s biography or inner life, and after two centuries of people combing over every scrap of archival evidence they can find we are not likely to discover much more. Which is fine by me reall…

I'm by no means a Shakespearean scholar but, in the context of his many earlier tragedies, wouldn't Lear with a happy ending have been something of an outlier? >just read the plays! And watch them!

The play that Lear was based off of had a happy ending, and Shakespeare had obviously written things that were not tragedies, but yes if he said this one's a tragedy you were guaranteed lots of death and misery.

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#14

Post by ghaff »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #13
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm by no means a Shakespearean scholar but, in the context of his many earlier tragedies, wouldn't Lear with a happy ending have been something of an outlier? >just read the plays! And watch them!

The play that Lear was based off of had a happy ending, and Shakespeare had obviously written things that were not tragedies, but yes if he said this one's a tragedy you were guaranteed lots of death and misery.

But with some exceptions (perhaps most notably his late The Tempest), the elements of his plays mostly categorize them as either tragedies or comedies. Not to suggest there's no ambiguity though and certainly the fact that the source material differed from his play does at least raise some question.

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#15

Post by ghaff »

ocschwar wrote: post #12

In the source material (Geoffrey of Monmouth), Cordelia successfully rescues Lear and secures a dignified life for him. So something had to make him change the story.

Shakespeare had some plays that had at least tragic elements--Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale. Maybe The Tempest.--with happy or happyish endings. But he mostly didn't do "Hollywood Endings" on his tragedies. So the something may simply have been "great source material but that ending has to go."

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#16

Post by mav3rick »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

Note: the assertion that the experience of plague caused Shakespeare to change the ending of King Lear is really just speculation by one scholar. The evidence is circumstantial in the extreme. We know rather little about Shakespeare’s biography or inner life, and after two centuries of people combing over every scrap of archival evidence they can find we are not likely to discover much more. Which is fine by me reall…

Can you suggest a plain English adaption of his works ?

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#17

Post by briefcomment »

InvisibleCities wrote: post #7
marricks wrote: post #3

Huge aside but... if you like Tolstoy and Shakespeare reading Tolstoy's take down of Shakespeare is super interesting: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tolstoy_on_Shakespeare He specifically goes to town on King Lear and gets into some interesting discussions on how he thinks the earlier Lear Shakespeare referenced is structurally better. Also reveals Tolstoy's own perspective on writing as a moral endeavor which he fe…

> Also reveals Tolstoy's own perspective on writing as a moral endeavor which he feels Shakespeare failed at, as if Shakespeare had a morality it was "people should be good, but not too good" I couldn't agree more, which is why I like Shakespeare so much better than Tolstoy.

We need more writing where people are the best they can be. Imagine the good Shakespeare could have done by making his characters the best role models. People imitate, and Shakespeare has incredible reach.

As I get older, I have little patience for flawed characters, and love it when I see someone act good all the time in fiction.

Edit: Tintin, for example, is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. He is smart, athletic, capable, dependable, and, most importantly, always acts in good faith.

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#18

Post by mistrial9 »

mav3rick wrote: post #16
libraryofbabel wrote: post #8

Note: the assertion that the experience of plague caused Shakespeare to change the ending of King Lear is really just speculation by one scholar. The evidence is circumstantial in the extreme. We know rather little about Shakespeare’s biography or inner life, and after two centuries of people combing over every scrap of archival evidence they can find we are not likely to discover much more. Which is fine by me reall…

Can you suggest a plain English adaption of his works ?

I read some Shakespeare in class with a book that had translation notes on every page.. one page of play and one page of notes.. every page. The language is strange to everyone, which is part of what makes it "magical" sometimes ! It really is made to be performed, and often makes awkward reading I think. Lots of the drama is based on the personalities of the actors and actresses.. Some people make a show of learning the lines and shouting and such, which to me, is part of learning.. Plain language text in a book would lose almost all of that.. perhaps find a video to try?

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#19

Post by disown »

marricks wrote: post #3

Huge aside but... if you like Tolstoy and Shakespeare reading Tolstoy's take down of Shakespeare is super interesting: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tolstoy_on_Shakespeare He specifically goes to town on King Lear and gets into some interesting discussions on how he thinks the earlier Lear Shakespeare referenced is structurally better. Also reveals Tolstoy's own perspective on writing as a moral endeavor which he fe…

> Huge aside but... if you like Tolstoy and Shakespeare reading Tolstoy's take down of Shakespeare is super interesting: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tolstoy_on_Shakespeare

Holy shit.

"... nevertheless I will endeavor, as well as I can, to show why I believe that Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author."

Shakespeare isn't even an average author? Who knew Tolstoy was a grade A hater. Tolstoy is like a hater trying to convince you that Brady is an overrated below average system quarterback who lucked out in NE.

I think Tolstoy missed where much of Shakespeare's greatness lay - his use and command of the english language. Not just coining words, but how he said so much with so little. Brevity is the soul of wit. Tolstoy seemed oddly focused on the morals and realism of shakespeare's works.

My guess is that it was a language barrier. No matter how "fluent" Tolstoy was in english, it's hard to appreciate word play if english isn't your native language.

But man, tolstoy would have loved social media. He would have fit right in. Haters for life.

Re: A happy ending for King Lear? Trauma of plague caused Shakespeare to change it

#20

Post by barnacled »

I am seeing a trend recently of comparing the plague to covid 19 and it is rather frustrating. The case fatality rate of the black death was 30-60% pretty much across the board for the bubonic variant.

Covid 19 is 0.4% and really that is heavily skewed by those over the age of 70 and especially 80.

Covid 19, while enormously disruptive due to its infectiousness and tendency to put a big chunk of people in hospital, doesn't even begin to compare to what the plague did. Not far off of half of western Europe died. It was unimaginably catastrophic.

It's pertinent because people are not learning the biggest lesson of covid - this was nothing but a trial run for a serious pandemic. Bird flus can get up to the 40% mark or more and without the age variation.

The reality is if a black death like disease hit the modern world civilisation would likely more or less totally collapse.

The fact people are so incredibly lackadaisical about the origins of and behaviour around the outbreak not to mention any future efforts to at least reduce the odds of another novel virus pandemic seriously scares me.

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