King Lear, a tragedy by Shakespeare, is based on the legend of King Leir. It explores complex father-son relationships and ends tragically. The play’s popularity has fluctuated, with adaptations including a happy ending. It has been adapted in film and TV over 17 times and is considered one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, written between 1603 and 1606. The first recorded performance was on December 16, 1606. Due to the play’s extremely tragic ending, its popularity has waxed and waned over the years, and it has even led to some wholly contradictory adaptations.
Shakespeare’s play is believed to be based on a popular legend of its time. In The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed and Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffery Of Monmouth, there is a story of a King Leir who rejects his daughter because he refuses to show her love for him, leading to the deaths of both . It is likely that Shakespeare had heard versions of this story, inspiring him to write his own play.
Shakespeare’s version involves a double story about the complex relationship between fathers and sons. King Lear is an arrogant man who wants to abdicate the throne, divides his land to his three daughters according to which she makes the best verbal declaration of his love for him. Unfortunately, Lear prefers the flowery speeches of his eldest daughters, Goneril and Regan, to the pure, unassuming love of his youngest, Cordelia. King Lear disinherits Cordelia and exiles her, leading to her eventual downfall and resulting in Cordelia’s death only after the king realizes her mistake.
In a mirror subplot, the Duke of Gloucester prefers his illegitimate son Edmund to his faithful, if bland, legitimate son, Edgar. Edmund is actually a traitor who plots to supplant his father and brother as duke. Edmund manages to overthrow Father and Gloucester ends up being tortured and blinded before dying of his wounds. Yet Edgar, the good son who helps his dying father and discovers Edmund’s treachery, is the play’s only surviving major character and is assumed to lead the country after the death of King Lear and all three of his daughters.
King Lear is considered an exceptional tragedy because it does not conform to the end of the legend known in Shakespeare’s time. In nearly all recorded versions of the story, Lear, having repented of his arrogance, is restored to the throne and Cordelia becomes his heiress. In Shakespeare’s version, Lear begins the play as a vain and extremely foolish man, undergoes a remarkable transformation and, instead of receiving a reward for repentance, dies. Even her daughter Cordelia, an innocent character unjustly disowned by her father, receives no reward for her modesty and morality, and she too dies.
The sheer tragedy of the finale was so disturbing to the audience, that the play has rarely been performed since Shakespeare’s death. Nearly eighty years after the play’s debut, Irish poet and playwright Nahum Tate rewrote the ending to restore Lear to the throne and marry Cordelia to Edgar. This “happy ending” version thus proved preferable to audiences, most if not all productions using it until 1838, when the original version regained popularity.
There have been at least 17 film and television adaptations of King Lear, with many of the great actors of the 20th and 21st centuries taking the part of Lear. Notable releases include the 1971 film directed by famed British director Peter Brook, Ran by Japanese director Akiro Kurasawa and Patrick Stewart as King Lear in a loose adaptation called King Of Texas. King Lear remains an extremely popular play to produce live and is considered by some critics to be Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.
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