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John Marston

John Marston

John Marston (October 7, 1576 - June 25, 1634) was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The rage of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, King Lear, and Timon, as well as the malice of Thersites and Iago, are generally seen as having been foreshadowed in the truculent language of Marston's Scourge of Villainy. Plays and Production dates
- Histriomastix, London, Paul's theater, 1599.
- Antonio and Mellida, London, Paul's theater, 1599-1600.
- Lust's Dominion, by Marston, Thomas Dekker, John Day, and William Haughton, London, Rose theater, Spring 1600.
- Jack Drum's Entertainment, London, Paul's theater, 1600.
- Antonio's Revenge, London, Paul's theater, 1600.
- What You Will, London, Paul's theater, 1601.
- The Malcontent, London, Blackfriars theater, 1603-1604.
- Parasitaster, or The Fawn, London, Blackfriars theater, 1604.
- Eastward Ho, by Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson, London, Blackfriars theater, 1604-1605.
- The Dutch Courtesan, London, Blackfriars theater, 1605.
- The Wonder of Women, or The Tragedy of Sophonisba, London, Blackfriars theater, 1606.
- The Spectacle Presented to the Sacred Majesties of Great Britain, and Denmark as They Passed through London, London, 31 July 1606.
- The Entertainment of the Dowager-Countess of Darby, Ashby-de-la Zouch in Leicester, 1607.
- The Insatiate Countess, by Marston and William Barksted, London, Whitefriars theater, 1608?. Books by the Author
- The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image. And Certaine Satyres (London: Printed by J. Roberts for E. Matts, 1598).
- The Scourge of Villanie. Three Bookes of Satyres (London: Printed by J. Roberts & sold by J. Buzbie, 1598; revised and enlarged edition, London: J. Roberts, 1599).
- Jacke Drums Entertainment: Or, The Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine (London: Printed by T. Creede for R. Olive, 1601).
- Loves Martyr: or, Rosalins Complaint, by Marston, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, and George Chapman (London: Printed for E. B., 1601).
- The History of Antonio and Mellida (London: Printed by R. Bradock for M. Lownes & T. Fisher, 1602).
- Antonios Revenge (London: Printed by R. Bradock for T. Fisher, 1602).
- The Malcontent (London: Printed by V. Simmes for W. Aspley, 1604).
- Eastward Hoe, by Marston, Chapman, and Jonson (London: Printed by G. Eld for W. Aspley, 1605).
- The Dutch Courtezan (London: Printed by T. Purfoote for J. Hodgets, 1605).
- Parasitaster, or The Fawne (London: Printed by T. Purfoote for W. Cotton, 1606).
- The Wonder of Women, or The Tragedie of Sophonisba (London: Printed by J. Windet, 1606).
- What You Will (London: Printed by G. Eld for T. Thorppe, 1607).
- Histrio-mastix: Or, The Player Whipt (London: Printed by G. Eld for T. Thorp, 1610).
- The Insatiate Countesse, by Marston and William Barksted (London: Printed by T. Snodham for T. Archer, 1613).
- The Workes of Mr. J. Marston (London: Printed by A. Mathewes for W. Sheares, 1633); republished as Tragedies and Comedies (London: Printed by A. Mathewes for W. Sheares, 1633).
- Comedies, Tragi-comedies; & Tragedies, Nonce Collection (London, 1652).
- Lust's Dominion, or The Lascivious Queen (presumably the same play as The Spanish Moor's Tragedy), by Marston, Thomas Dekker, John Day, and William Haughton (London: Printed for F. K. & sold by Robert Pollard, 1657). Marston, John Marston, John Marston, John Marston, John Marstons, John Marston, John

October 7

October 7 is the 280th day of the year (281st in leap years). There are 85 days remaining.

Events


- 3761 BC - The epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar.
- 336 - Pope Marcus ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1492 - Columbus misses Florida when he changes course.
- 1506 - Pope Julius II and France occupy Bologna.
- 1513 - Battle of La Motta: Spanish troops under Ramon de Cardona defeat the Venetians.
- 1520 - First public burning of books in Netherlands, in Louvain.
- 1542 - Explorer Cabrillo discovered Catalina Island off California coast.
- 1571 - The Battle of Lepanto is fought, and Saint League (Spain and Italy) destroys Turkish fleet.
- 1579 - English royal marriage of Queen Elizabeth I to duke of Anjou.
- 1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
- 1637 - Prince Frederik Henry occupies Breda.
- 1690 - English attack Quebec under Louis de Buade.
- 1702 - English/Dutch troops under Marlborough occupy Roermond.
- 1714 - Beer tax riots in Alkmaar, Netherlands.
- 1737 - 40 foot waves sink 20,000 small craft and kill 300,000 (Bengal, India).
- 1763 - George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
- 1765 - Stamp Act Congress convenes in NY.
- 1769 - English explorer, Captain Cook, discovers New Zealand.
- 1776 - Crown Prince Paul of Russia marries Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg.
- 1777 - Americans beat the British in the Battle of Second Saratoga and the Battle of Bemis Heights.
- 1780 - Battle of Kings Mountain: American Patriot militia defeat Loyalist irregulars led by British colonel Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.
- 1806 - Carbon paper patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood.
- 1816 - The first double-decked steamboat, the "Washington," arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- 1826 - Granite Railway (first chartered railway in the U.S.) begins operations.
- 1840 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
- 1856 - Cyrus Chambers, Jr. patents folding machine that folds book and newspapers.
- 1864 - Battle of Darbytown Road (American Civil War): the Confederate forces' attempt to regain ground that had been lost around Richmond is thwarted.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Capture of the C.S.S. "Florida" — Union Warship captures the U.S.S. "Wachusett" — Confederate raider ship while in port in Bahia, Brazil.
- 1865 - The Morant Bay Rebellion starts in Jamaica.
- 1868 - Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the most at any American university to that date.
- 1870 - Leon Gambetta flees Paris in balloon.
- 1871 - 16-hour fire injures 30 of Chicago's 185 firefighters.
- 1879 - Germany and Austria-Hungary sign the "Twofold Covenant" and create the Dual Alliance.
- 1882 - First World Series (game 2), Chicago (NL) beats Cincinnati (AA) 2-0.
- 1886 - Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.
- 1900 - The term "orienteering" is first used for an event.
- 1904 - New York Highlander Jack Chesbro wins record 41st game of season (41-12).
- 1907 - France's Henry Farman flies 30 m in a double decker plane.
- 1908 - Crete revolts against the Ottoman Empire and aligns with Greece.
- 1908 - Serbia and Montenegro sign anti-Austria-Hungarian pact.
- 1912 - The Helsinki Stock Exchange sees its first transaction.
- 1919 - KLM of the Netherlands was founded. It is the oldest airline still operating under its original name.
- 1919 - Fritz Kreisler and F. Jacobi's "Apple Blossoms," premieres in New York City.
- 1919 - First London-Amsterdam airline service (Britain Aerial Transport and KLM).
- 1922 - Oud-burgem of Rotterdam Zimmerman becomes High Comm's of Austria.
- 1922 - Landis insists Game 4 of World Series be played despite heavy rain.
- 1922 - First radio link, WNJ (Newark, New Jersey) and WGY (Schenectady) link for World Series.
- 1923 - Yankees Everett Scott runs his consecutive-game streak to 1,138.
- 1924 - Greek government of Dikalekopoulis forms.
- 1926 - Italian Great Fascist Council forms.
- 1926 - Actress Theo Mann-Master resigns from stage.
- 1927 - Yankee Herb Pennock retires the first 22 Pirates in World Series game.
- 1928 - Race Tafari Makonnen crowned king of Abyssinia.
- 1928 - Paavo Nurmi runs world record 10 miles (50:15.0).
- 1929 - Ramsay MacDonald is the first British premier to address the U.S. Congress.
- 1931 - First infra-red photograph, Rochester, New York.
- 1938 - Germany demands all Jewish passports stamped with letter J.
- 1940 - Germany invades Romania.
- 1942 - the McCollum memo conspires to bring the U.S. to war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
- 1941 - German army occupies Viarma, U.S.S.R.
- 1942 - Yvon Robert beats Bill Longson in Montreal, to become wrestling champ.
- 1942 - U.S. and British government announce establishment of United Nations.
- 1942 - Maxwell Anderson's "Eve of St. Mark," premieres in New York City.
- 1942 - Salvo Katjoesja-rocket destroys Nazi battalion in Stalingrad.
- 1943 - Japan executes 100 American prisoners on Wake Island.
- 1944 - Uprising at Birkenau concentration camp.
- 1944 - Uprising at Auschwitz, Jews burn down crematoriums.
- 1944 - Fieldmarshal Rommel gets order to return to Berlin.
- 1944 - Allies bombs sea dikes at Vlissingen.
- 1949 - German Democratic Republic (East Germany) formed.
- 1949 - One of the earliest television shows, "Ford Theater" debuts
- 1950 - United States forces invade North Korea by crossing the 38th parallel.
- 1951 - Malayan Emergency: Malay Races Liberation Army (MRLA) ambushes and kills British High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney.
- 1951 - David Ben-Gurion forms Israeli government.
- 1955 - Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga at Brooklyn launched.
- 1957 - Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" debuts.
- 1958 - President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza, with the support of General Ayub Khan and the army, suspends the 1956 constitution, imposes martial law, and cancels the elections scheduled for January 1959.
- 1958 - U.S. manned space-flight project renamed Project Mercury.
- 1958 - Potter Stewart appointed to U.S. Supreme Court.
- 1959 - Far side of the Moon seen for first time, compliments of U.S.S.R.'s Luna 3.
- 1960 - Second Kennedy and Nixon debate Cold War foreign policy in the second of four scheduled debates.
- 1960 - "Route 66" premieres.
- 1961 - "Bye Bye Birdie" closes at Martin Beck Theater New York City after 607 performances.
- 1962 - U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya, U.S.S.R.
- 1963 - John F. Kennedy signs ratification for nuclear test ban treaty.
- 1963 - Hurricane Flora hits Haiti and Dominican Republic, kills 7,190.
- 1968 - Hollywood adopts the movie ratings system.
- 1970 - Richard Nixon announces a new five-point peace proposal to end the Vietnam War.
- 1977 - The adoption of the Fourth Soviet Constitution.
- 1982 - Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
- 1984 - NFL running back Walter Payton breaks Jim Brown's rushing record.
- 1985 - The "Achille Lauro" is hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.
- 1985 - The Mameyes disaster occurs in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
- 1996 - The Fox News Channel, an American cable news network, is launched.
- 1998 - Gay student Matthew Shepard, beaten the night before, is left tied to a fence and dies in Laramie, Wyoming, United States.
- 2000 - Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann scores the last ever goal at the old Wembley Stadium in Germany's 1-0 win.
- 2001 - Start of U.S. invasion of Afghanistan with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.
- 2002 - Maher Arar is deported by the US government to Syria, where he is tortured and held without charge for a year before being returned home to Canada.
- 2003 - California recall: California governor Gray Davis is recalled from office and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- 2004 - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates.

Births


- 1471 - King Frederick I of Denmark and Norway (d. 1533)
- 1573 - William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1645)
- 1576 - John Marston, English writer (d. 1634)
- 1697 - Canaletto, Italian artist (d. 1768)
- 1713 - Granville Elliott, British military officer (d. 1759)
- 1728 - Caesar Rodney, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1784)
- 1748 - King Charles XIII of Sweden (d. 1818)
- 1769 - Solomon Sibley, American politician (d. 1846)
- 1835 - Felix Draeseke, German composer (d. 1913)
- 1841 - King Nicholas I of Montenegro (d. 1921)
- 1853 - James Whitcomb Riley, American poet (d. 1916)
- 1885 - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d.1962)
- 1888 - Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the United States (d. 1965)
- 1894 - Del Lord, American director (d. 1970)
- 1897 - Elijah Muhammad, American Black Muslim leader (d. 1975)
- 1900 - Heinrich Himmler, Nazi official and leader of the SS (d. 1945)
- 1905 - Andy Devine, American actor (d. 1977)
- 1911 - Vaughn Monroe, American singer (d. 1973)
- 1912 - Fernando Belaúnde Terry, President of Peru (d. 2002)
- 1914 - Alfred Drake, American actor (d. 1992)
- 1917 - June Allyson, American actress
- 1919 - Sir Zelman Cowen, 19th Governor-General of Australia
- 1921 - Raymond Goethals, Belgian football coach (d. 2004)
- 1923 - June Allyson, American actress
- 1927 - R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist
- 1927 - Al Martino, American singer and actor
- 1927 - Diana Lynn, American actress (d. 1971)
- 1931 - Cotton Fitzsimmons, American basketball coach (d. 2004)
- 1931 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1934 - Amiri Baraka, American playwright and poet
- 1935 - Thomas Keneally, Australian author
- 1936 - Charles Dutoit, Swiss conductor
- 1937 - Maria Szyszkowska, Polish politician, philosopher, writer and activist
- 1939 - John Hopcroft, American computer scientist
- 1939 - Harold Kroto, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1939 - Bill Snyder, American football coach
- 1943 - Oliver North, U.S. Marine and politician
- 1944 - Judee Sill, American musician and songwriter (d. 1979)
- 1944 - Donald Tsang, the current Chief executive of Hong Kong
- 1947 - France Gall, French singer
- 1950 - Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzanian politician
- 1951 - John Cougar Mellencamp, American singer
- 1952 - Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
- 1952 - Graham Yallop, Australian cricketer
- 1954 - Kenneth Atchley, American composer
- 1955 - Yo-Yo Ma, French-born cellist
- 1956 - Tico Torres, American percussionist
- 1957 - Jayne Torvill, British figure skater
- 1959 - Simon Cowell, English recording executive and television judge
- 1960 - Kyosuke Himuro, Japanese singer
- 1960 - Viktor Lazlo, French singer
- 1968 - Toni Braxton, American singer
- 1968 - Thom Yorke, English singer (Radiohead)
- 1970 - Serena Altschul, American reporter
- 1973 - Sami Hyypia, Finnish footballer
- 1974 - Charlotte Nilsson, Swedish singer
- 1975 - Terry Gerin, American professional wrestler
- 1976 - Rachel McAdams, Canadian actress
- 1976 - Gilberto Silva, Brazilian footballer
- 1977 - Meighan Desmond, New Zealand actress
- 1979 - Simona Amânar, Romanian gymnast
- 1979 - Shawn Ashmore, Canadian actor
- 1982 - Robby Ginepri, American tennis player

Deaths


- 336 - Pope Marcus
- 1368 - Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III of England (b. 1338)
- 1553 - Cristóbal de Morales, Spanish composer
- 1577 - George Gascoigne, English poet
- 1620 - Stanisław Żółkiewski, Polish military leader (b. 1547)
- 1637 - Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy (b. 1587)
- 1651 - Jacques Sirmond, French Jesuit scholar (b. 1559)
- 1653 - Fausto Poli, Italian Catholic priest (b. 1581)
- 1708 - Guru Gobind Singh, tenth and last Sikh Guru (b. 1666)
- 1772 - John Woolman, American Quaker preacher and abolitionist (b. 1720)
- 1787 - Henry Muhlenberg, German-born founder of the U.S. Lutheran Church (b. 1711)
- 1792 - George Mason, American patriot (b. 1725)
- 1793 - Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire, English politician (b. 1718)
- 1796 - Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher (b. 1710)
- 1849 - Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (b. 1809)
- 1903 - Rudolf Lipschitz, German mathematician (b. 1832)
- 1919 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1856)
- 1925 - Christy Mathewson, baseball player (b. 1880)
- 1926 - Emil Kraepelin, German psychologist (b. 1856)
- 1943 - Eugeniusz Bodo, Polish actor (b. 1899)
- 1943 - Radclyffe Hall, British author (b. 1880)
- 1956 - Clarence Birdseye, American deep-freeze inventor (b. 1886)
- 1959 - Mario Lanza, American tenor (b. 1921)
- 1967 - Norman Angell, British politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1872)
- 1981 - Albert Cohen, Greek-born novelist (b. 1895)
- 1991 - Leo Durocher, baseball player and manager (b. 1905)
- 1992 - Tevfik Esenç, last known speaker of Ubykh (b. 1904)
- 1994 - Niels Kaj Jerne, English-born immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1911)

Holidays


- RC Saints - Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary; formerly Saint Justina, Saint Osyth
- Saints Sergius and Bacchus; Also see October 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- East Germany - Republic Day

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/7 BBC: On This Day] ---- October 6 - October 8 - September 7 - November 7 — listing of all days ko:10월 7일 ms:7 Oktober ja:10月7日 simple:October 7 th:7 ตุลาคม

1576

Events


- May 5 - Peace of Beaulieu or Peace of Monsieur (after Monsieur, the Duc d'Anjou, brother of the King, who negotiated it). End of the Fifth War of Religion Once again, the Protestants are granted freedom of worship.
- August 11 - English navigator Martin Frobisher, on his search for the Northwest Passage, enters the bay now named after him.
- October 3 - The Spanish Fury. Mutinous Spanish troops capture and sack Antwerp.
- November 2 - Rudolf II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
- November 4 - Eighty Years' War: In Belgium, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city was nearly destroyed).
- November 8 - Eighty Years' War: Pacification of Ghent - The States-General of the Netherlands meet and unite to oppose Spanish occupation.
- The city Fredrikstad of Norway founded by king Frederick II of Denmark and Norway.
- Beginning of the Seventh War of Religion in France.
- First known Autobiography is written by Thomas Wythorne.

Births


- January 12 - Petrus Scriverius, Dutch writer and scholar (died 1660)
- May 27 - Caspar Schoppe, German controversialist and scholar (died 1649)
- June 6 - Giovanni Diodati, Swiss Protestant divine (died 1649)
- October 7 - John Marston, English writer (died 1634)
- October 12 - Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (died 1652)
- November 17 - Roque Gonzales, Paraguayan missionary (d. 1628)
- November 27 - Shimazu Tadatsune, Japanese ruler of Satsuma (died 1638)
- William Ames, English protestant philosopher (died 1633)
- Scipione Borghese, Italian art collector (died 1633)
- John Carver, first governor of Plymouth Colony (died 1621)
- Jesper Mattson Cruus af Edeby, Swedish soldier and politician (died 1622)
- Enrico Caterino Davila, Italian historian (died 1631)
- Giulio Cesare la Galla, professor of philosophy at the Collegio Romano in Italy (died 1624)
- Santino Solari, Swiss architect and sculptor (died 1646)
- Thomas Weelkes, English composer and organist (died 1626) See also :Category: 1576 births.

Deaths


- January 19 - Hans Sachs, German Meistersinger (born 1494)
- February 10 - Guilielmus Xylander, German classical scholar (born 1532)
- May 30 - Harada Naomasa, Japanese samurai
- August 15 - Bálint Bakfark, Hungarian composer and lutenist (born 1507)
- August 27 - Titian, Italian painter
- September 21 - Gerolamo Cardano, Italian mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler (b. 1502)
- October 12 - Emperor Maximilian II (born 1527)
- Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex (born 1541)
- Aloysius Lilius, Italian physician (born 1510)
- Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1527)
- Anthony More, Dutch portrait painter (born 1512)
- Mizuno Nobumoto, Japanese shogun
- Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens, Spanish governor of the Netherlands
- Josias Simmler, Swiss theologian and classicist (born 1530)
- Johann Stumpf, Swiss historian (born 1500)
- Tahmasp I, Shah of Persia
- Nicola Vicentino, Italian music theorist and composer (born 1511) See also :Category: 1576 deaths. Category:1576 ko:1576년

1634

Events


- February 24-25 - Rebellious soldiers kill Albrecht von Wallenstein
- March 1 - Battle at Smolensk, King Ladislaus IV of Poland defeats Russian army.
- March 25 - The first settlers arrive in St. Mary's City, Maryland (led by Lord Baltimore), the fourth permanent settlement in British North America.
- September 5 and September 6 - Battle of Nördlingen (1634) results in Catholic victory
- Moses Amyraut's Traite de la predestination is published
- Curaçao captured by the Dutch
- Treaty of Polianovska
- First meeting of the Académie française
- The witchcraft affair at Loudun
- Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay, Wisconsin
- Opening of Covent Garden Market in London
- English establish a settlement at Cochin, now Kochi on Malabar coast
- First decennial performance of the Oberammergau Passion Plays
- Oxford University Press receives its charter and becomes the second of the privileged presses

Births


- January 25 - Gaspar Fagel, Dutch statesman (d. 1688)
- March 18 - Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette, French novelist (d. 1693)
- June 20 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)
- July 14 - Pasquier Quesnel, French Jansenist theologian (d. 1719)
- July 18 - Johannes Camphuys, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1695)
- October 18 - Luca Giordano, Italian artist (d. 1705)
- December 15 - Thomas Kingo, Danish poet (d. 1703)
- Marc-Antoine Charpentier, French composer (d. 1704) See also :Category:1634 births.

Deaths


- February 25 - Albrecht von Wallenstein, Austrian general (assassinated) (b. 1583)
- May 12 - George Chapman, English author
- May 15 - Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (b. 1585)
- June 22 - Johann Graf von Aldringen, Austrian soldier (b. 1588)
- June 25 - John Marston, English dramatist (b. 1576)
- August 9 - William Noy, English jurist (b. 1577)
- September 3 - Edward Coke, English colonial entrepreneur and jurist (b. 1552)
- December 29 - John Albert Vasa, Polish bishop (b. 1612)
- Adriano Banchieri, Italian composer (b. 1568) See also :Category:1634 deaths. Category:1634 ko:1634년

William Shakespeare

, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.]] William Shakespeare (baptised April 26, 1564 – died April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright. Shakespeare has the reputation of one of the greatest writers in the English language and in Western literature, as well as one of the world's preeminent dramatists. Indeed, some critics have raised their praise of him to the level of bardolatry. Shakespeare wrote his works between 1586 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. Shakespeare is among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy, and his plays combine popular appeal with complex characterisation, poetic grandeur and philosophical depth. Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. In addition, quotations from his plays have passed into everyday usage in many languages. Over the years, many people have speculated about Shakespeare's life, raising questions about his sexuality and debating whether someone else wrote his plays and poetry.

Life

Early life

Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that Elizabethan spelling was very erratic) was born in and lived on Henley Street, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. Shakespeare's baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. This date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day in 1616. As the son of a prominent town official, Shakespeare was entitled to attend King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford, which may have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. Also, mainstream scholars assume that Shakespeare was a student at the Stratford Free School, since he would have been entitled to attend it, and textbooks used at the Stratford Free School are alluded to in the plays. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was 26, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford. Two neighbours of Anne posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony, presumably due to the fact that Anne was three months pregnant. Temple Grafton After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London theatrical scene. Indeed, the late 1580s are known as Shakespeare's "Lost Years" because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London. On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susannah, was baptised at Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised on February 2, 1585.

Later years

1585 Shakespeare's last two plays were written in 1613, after which he appears to have retired to Stratford. He died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters, Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr John Hall, but there are no direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today. Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A bust of him placed by his family on the wall nearest his grave shows him posed in the act of writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. He is believed to have written the epitaph on his tombstone: :Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, :To dig the dust enclosed here. :Blest be the man that spares these stones, :But cursed be he that moves my bones.

Works

Plays

A number of Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. His plays cover tragedy, history, and comedy and have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world. As was normal in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. For example, Hamlet (c. 1601) is probably a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-called Ur-Hamlet), and King Lear is an adaptation of an older play, King Leir. For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on Plutarch's Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir Thomas North), and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's 1587 Chronicles. Shakespeare's plays tend to be placed into three main stylistic groups: his early comedies and histories (such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry IV, Part 1), his middle period (which includes his most famous tragedies, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear), and his other romance, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet.later romances (such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest). The earlier plays tend to be more light-hearted, while the middle-period plays tend to be darker, addressing such issues as betrayal, murder, lust, power, and egotism. By contrast, his late romances feature a redemptive plotline with a happy ending and the use of magic and other fantastical elements. However, the borders between these groups are extremely blurry. Some of Shakespeare's plays first appeared in print as a series of quartos, but most remained unpublished until 1623 when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the logic of the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays "problem plays" as they elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions, and has introduced the term "romances" for the later comedies. There are many controversies about the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays. In addition, the fact that Shakespeare did not produce an authoritative print version of his plays during his life accounts for part of the textual problem often noted with his plays, which means that for several of the plays there are different textual versions. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote became a major concern for most modern editions. Textual corruptions also stem from printers' errors, compositors' misreadings or wrongly scanned lines from the source material. Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, contributing further to the transcribers' confusions. Modern scholars also believe Shakespeare revised his plays throughout the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play.

Sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 poems that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. All but two first appeared in the 1609 publication entitled Shakespeare's Sonnets; numbers 138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") and 144 ("Two loves have I, of comfort and despair") had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim. The conditions under which the sonnets were published is unclear. The 1609 text is dedicated to one "Mr. W. H.", who is described as "the only begetter" of the poems by the publisher Thomas Thorpe. It is not known who this man was although there are many theories. In addition, it is not known whether the publication of the sonnets was authorised by Shakespeare. The poems were probably written over a period of several years.

Other poems

In addition to his sonnets, Shakespeare also wrote several longer narrative poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and A Lover's Complaint. These poems appear to have been written either in an attempt to win the patronage of a rich benefactor (as was common at the time) or as the result of such patronage. For example, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis were both dedicated to Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. In addition, Shakespeare wrote the short poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. The anthology The Passionate Pilgrim was attributed to him upon its first publication in 1599, but in fact only five of its poems are by Shakespeare and the attribution was withdrawn in the second edition.

Style

Shakespeare's impact on modern theatre cannot be overestimated. Not only did Shakespeare create some of the most admired plays in Western literature, he also transformed English theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through characterisation, plot, action, language and genre. His poetic artistry helped raise the status of popular theatre, permitting it to be admired by intellectuals as well as by those seeking pure entertainment. Theatre was changing when Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s. Previously, the commonest forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, which blend piety with farce and slapstick, were allegories in which the characters are personified moral attributes who validate the virtues of Godly life by prompting the protagonist to choose such a life over evil. The characters and plot situations are symbolic rather than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have been exposed to this type of play (along with mystery plays and miracle plays). Meanwhile, at the universities, academic plays were being staged based on Roman closet dramas. These plays, often performed in Latin, used a more exact and academically respectable poetic style than the morality plays, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches over physical action. By the late 1500s the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe began to revolutionize theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with academic theatre to produce a new secular form. The new drama had the poetic grandeur and philosophical depth of the academic play and the bawdy populism of the moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned with simple moral allegories. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare took these changes to a new level, creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and debated the basic elements of what it meant to be human.

Reputation

Shakespeare's reputation has grown considerably since his own time. During his lifetime and shortly after his death, Shakespeare was well-regarded but not considered the supreme poet of his age. He was included in some contemporary lists of leading poets, but he lacked the stature of Edmund Spenser or Philip Sidney. After the Interregnum stage ban of 1642–60, the new Restoration theatre companies had the previous generation of playwrights as the mainstay of their repertory, most of all the phenomenally popular Beaumont and Fletcher team, but also Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. As with other older playwrights, Shakespeare's plays were mercilessly adapted by later dramatists for the Restoration stage with little of the reverence that would later develop. Beginning in the late 17th century, Shakespeare began to be considered the supreme English-language playwright (and, to a lesser extent, poet). Initially this reputation focused on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. By the early 19th century, though, Shakespeare began hitting peaks of fame and popularity. During this time, theatrical productions of Shakespeare provided spectacle and melodrama for the masses and were extremely popular. Romantics critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge then raised admiration for Shakespeare to adulation or bardolatry (from bard + idolatry), in line with the Romantic reverence for the poet as prophet and genius. In the middle to late 19th century, Shakespeare also became an emblem of English pride and a "rallying-sign", as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British empire. This reverence has of course provoked a negative reaction. In the 21st century most inhabitants of the English-speaking world encounter Shakespeare at school at a young age, and there is a common association of his work with boredom and incomprehension. At the same time, Shakespeare's plays remain more frequently staged than the works of any other playwright and are frequently adapted into film. See also: Timeline of Shakespeare criticism

Speculations about Shakespeare

Identity

Over the years such figures as Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Sigmund Freud have expressed disbelief that the man from Stratford-upon-Avon actually produced the works attributed to him. These claims necessarily rely on conspiracy theories to explain the lack of direct historical evidence for them, although their advocates also point to evidentiary gaps in the orthodox history. Most professional scholars consider the argument baseless, and attribute the debate to the scarcity and ambiguity of many of the historical records of Shakespeare's life. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, an English nobleman and intimate of Queen Elizabeth, became the most prominent alternative candidate for authorship of the Shakespeare canon, after having been identified in the 1920s. Oxford partisans note the similarities between the Earl's life, and events and sentiments depicted in the plays and sonnets. The principal hurdle for Oxfordian theory is the evidence that many of the Shakespeare plays were written after their candidate's death, but well within the lifespan of William Shakespeare. Christopher Marlowe is considered by some to be the most highly qualified to have written the works of Shakespeare. It has been speculated that Marlowe's recorded death in 1593 was faked for various reasons and that Marlowe went into hiding, subsequently writing under the name of William Shakespeare. A related question in mainstream academia addresses whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his commonly accepted plays, given that collaboration between dramatists routinely occurred in the Elizabethan theatre. Serious academic work continues to attempt to ascertain the authorship of plays and poems of the time, both those attributed to Shakespeare and others.

Sexuality

The content of Shakespeare's works has raised the question of whether he may have been bisexual. It should be noted that the question of whether an Elizabethan was "gay" in a modern sense is anachronistic, as the concepts of homosexuality and bisexuality did not emerge until the 19th century; while sodomy was a crime in the period, there was no word for an exclusively homosexual identity (see History of homosexuality). Elizabethans also frequently wrote about friendship in more intense language than is common today. Although twenty-six of the sonnets are love poems addressed to a married woman (the "Dark Lady"), one hundred and twenty-six are addressed to a young man (known as the "Fair Lord"). The amorous tone of the latter group, which focus on the young man's beauty, has been interpreted as evidence for Shakespeare's bisexuality, although others interpret them as referring to intense friendship, not sexual love. Another explanation is that the poems are not autobiographical, but mere fiction, so that the "speaker" of the Sonnets should not be simplistically identified with Shakespeare himself. Despite these alternative interpretations, many readers have suspected otherwise. For example, in 1954, C.S. Lewis wrote that the sonnets are "too lover-like for ordinary male friendship" (although he added that they are not the poetry of "full-blown pederasty") and that he "found no real parallel to such language between friends in the sixteenth-century literature" . Some readers have found similar evidence in the plays. The most commonly cited example is a number of comedies such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It, which contain comic situations in which a woman poses as a man, a device that exploits the fact that in Shakespeare's day women's roles were played by boys. While the situations thus presented are heterosexual in terms of the story, the stage image of men wooing and kissing may well have been titillating to those of a homosexual orientation, and while other dramatists occasionally used the same device, Shakespeare seems to have had an exceptional preference for it, using it in five of his plays.

See also


- Shakespeare's life
- Shakespeare's reputation
- Shakespeare's plays
- Shakespeare's sonnets
- Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife)
- Shakespeare's late romances
- Chronology of Shakespeare plays
- Elizabethan era
- Elizabethan theatre
- Globe Theatre
- Shakespeare on screen
- Shakespeare characters
- Complete Works of Shakespeare
- Bard on the Beach

Bibliography

Comedies


- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Measure for Measure
- The Comedy of Errors
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Love's Labour's Lost
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- The Merchant of Venice
- As You Like It
- Taming of the Shrew
- All's Well That Ends Well
- Twelfth Night or What You Will
- The Winter's Tale
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Two Noble Kinsmen

Histories


- King John
- Richard II
- Henry IV, part 1
- Henry IV, part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, part 1
- Henry VI, part 2
- Henry VI, part 3
- Richard III
- Henry VIII

Tragedies


- Troilus and Cressida
- Coriolanus
- Titus Andronicus
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Julius Caesar
- Macbeth
- Hamlet
- King Lear
- Othello
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Cymbeline

Lost plays


- Love's Labour's Won
- Cardenio

Poems


- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- Venus and Adonis
- The Rape of Lucrece
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- A Lover's Complaint

Apocrypha


- Edward III
- Sir Thomas More

Notes

# [http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name by David Kathman]. Accessed 10/22/05. # [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/JC/plutarch.north.html Plutarch's Parallel Lives]. Accessed 10/23/05. # Shakespeare's Reading by Robert S. Miola, Oxford University Press, 2000. # Ibid. # [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199810/ai_n8827074 Was Shakespeare gay? Sonnet 20 and the politics of pedagogy.]

Further reading


- Mark Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name (2005). Biography of Edward de Vere
- Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun (1964). Fictionalised biography
- Anthony Burgess, Shakespeare (1970). Biography
- Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World (2004). Biography
- Bertram Fields, Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare (2005)
- John Pemble, Shakespeare Goes to Paris: How the Bard Conquered France (2005)
- [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/ShakespeareBib.html Shakespeare on Film Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)]

External links


- [http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org Open Source Shakespeare]
- [http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xShakeSph.html#top Study Guides for all the plays and poems]
- [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html British Library; Original 93 copies in quarto]
- [http://william-shakespeare.classic-literature.co.uk/ Classic-literature.co.uk ]
-
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Shakespeare%2C+William Upenn.edu online books page for Shakespeare]
- [http://www.shakespeare-literature.com Chapter-indexed, searchable versions of Shakespeare's works]
- [http://www.touchstone.bham.ac.uk/index.html Touchstone - UK Shakespeare collections]
- [http://shakespeare-1.com/doubtful/ Full text of plays erroneously attributed to Shakespeare]
- [http://literalsystems.com/abooks/doku.php?id=author:shakespeare_william "Sonnets 29, 40, 55, 100, 106, 116" Creative Commons audio recording.]
- [http://shakespeare.nowheres.com/ The original shakespeare.com]
- [http://www.cosmoetica.com/S3-DES3.htm Essay on Shakespeare and Wallace Stevens]
- [http://wiredforbooks.org/shakespeare/ Shakespeare's plays and poems in audio and video]
- [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/IllusShake The Illustrated Shakespeare]
- [http://shakespeareforums.com William Shakespeare Forums]
- [http://www.shakespeare-online.com/ Shakespeare Online]
- [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0419_040419_shakespeare.html National Geographic Article About Shakespeare's Coinages] ko:윌리엄 셰익스피어 ms:William Shakespeare ja:ウィリアム・シェイクスピア simple:William Shakespeare th:วิลเลียม เชกสเปียร์

King Lear

" by William Dyce (1806-1864)]] King Lear is generally regarded as one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. It is believed to have been written in 1605 and is based on the legend of Leir, a king of pre-Roman Britain. His story had already been told in chronicles, poems and sermons, as well as on the stage, when Shakespeare undertook the task of retelling it. After the Restoration, the play was often modified by theatre practitioners who disliked its nihilistic flavour, but, since World War II, it has come to be regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest achievements. The part of King Lear has been played by many great actors, but is generally considered a role to be taken on only by those who have reached an advanced age.

Characters


- King Lear is ruler of Britain. He's a patriarchal figure whose misjudgement of his daughters brings about his downfall.
- Goneril is Lear's treacherous eldest daughter and wife to the Duke of Albany.
- Regan is Lear's treacherous second daughter, and wife to the Duke of Cornwall.
- Cordelia (poss. "heart of a lion" ¹) is Lear's youngest daughter.
- The Duke of Albany² is Goneril's husband. Goneril scorns him for his "milky gentleness". He turns against his wife later in the play.
- The Duke of Cornwall² is Regan's husband. He has the Earl of Kent put in the stocks, leaves Lear out on the heath during a storm, and gouges out Gloucester's eyes. After his attack on Gloucester, one of his servants attacks and mortally wounds him.
- The Earl of Gloucester² is Edgar's father, and the father of the illegitimate son, Edmund. Edmund deceives him against Edgar, and Edgar flees, taking on the disguise of Tom of Bedlam.
- The Earl of Kent² is always faithful to Lear, but he is banished by the king after he protests against Lear's treatment of Cordelia. He takes on a disguise and serves the king without letting him know his true identity.
- Edmund is Gloucester's illegitimate son. He works with Goneril and Regan to further his ambitions, and the three of them form a romantic triangle.
- Edgar is the legitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester. Disguised as Tom of Bedlam, he helps his blind father. At the end of the play, he assumes reign of the kingdom.
- Oswald is Goneril's servant, and is described as "a serviceable villain". He tries to murder Gloucester, but is instead killed by Edgar.
- The Fool is a jester who is devoted to Lear and Cordelia.

Plot

The play begins with the earl of Gloucester commending his bastard son Edmund to the Earl of Kent. Thereafter we find King Lear taking the decision to abdicate the throne and divide his kingdom equally among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The eldest two are married, but Cordelia is much sought after as a bride, partly because she is her father's favourite. However, when Lear attempts to auction off his kingdom to the most admiring and flattering of his daughters, the plan backfires. Cordelia refuses to outdo the flattery of her elder sisters, as she feels it would only cheapen her true feelings to flatter him purely for reward. Lear, in a fit of pique, divides her share of the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and Cordelia is banished. The King of France however marries her, even after she has been disinherited, possibly as he sees value in her honesty or as a casus belli to subsequently invade England. Almost as soon as Lear abdicates the throne, he finds that Goneril and Regan have betrayed him, and arguments ensue. The Earl of Kent, who has spoken up for Cordelia and been banished for his pains, returns disguised as the servant Caius, who will "eat no fish", in order to protect the king, to whom he remains loyal. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan fall out with one another over their attraction to Edmund -- and are forced to deal with an army from France, led by Cordelia, sent to restore Lear to his throne. Eventually Goneril poisons Regan over their differences, and stabs herself when Edmund is wounded. Another subplot involves the Earl of Gloucester, whose two sons, the good Edgar and the evil Edmund, are at loggerheads, the bastard Edmund having concocted false stories about his legitimate half-brother. Edgar is forced into exile, affecting lunacy. Edmund engages in liaisons with Goneril and Regan, and Gloucester is blinded by Regan's husband, but is saved from death by Edgar, whose voice he fails to recognise. Lear appears in Dover, where he wanders about raving and talking to mice. Gloucester attempts to throw himself from a cliff, but is deceived by Edgar and comes off safely, encountering the King shortly after. Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, the principal innovation Shakespeare made to this story was the death of Cordelia and Lear at the end. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this tragic ending was much criticised, and alternative versions were written and performed, in which the leading characters survived and Edgar and Cordelia were married.

Sources for King Lear


- King Leir was a semi-legendary King of the Britons as accounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
- King Llyr was a semi-legendary king who reigned in Cornwall and Devon in present-day England. According to the Historia Britonum, Llyr may have been taken as a prisoner to Rome, and this traditional lore may be the origin of Shakespeare's play.
- Lear may also be Lir, a god of the sea in Celtic mythology; there, Lir's children include Bran and Mannanan, eponymous creator of the Isle of Man. One of Shakespeare's sources was an earlier play, King Leir. In this play Cordella and the King of France serve Leir disguised as rustics. However, the ancient folk tale of Lear had existed in many versions prior to that, and it's possible that Shakespeare was familiar with them. Shakespeare's most important source is thought to be the second edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed, published in 1587. Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was written in the 12th century. The name of Cordelia was probably taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, published in 1590. Spenser's Cordelia also dies from hanging, as in King Lear. Other likely sources are A Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by John Higgins; The Malcontent (1604), by John Marston; The London Prodigal (1605); Arcadia (1580-1590), by Sir Philip Sidney, from which Shakespeare took the main outline of the Gloucester subplot; Montaigne's Essays, which were translated into English by John Florio in 1603; An Historical Description of Iland of Britaine, by William Harrison; Remaines Concerning Britaine, by William Camden (1606); Albion's England, by William Warner, (1589); and A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, by Samuel Harsnett (1603), which provided some of the language used by Edgar while he feigns madness.

Points of debate

Confusing opening

The modern reader of King Lear could benefit from the demystification of some subtleties in the text, as Shakespeare often brushes over details that are made clearer in his sources, and were perhaps more familiar to Elizabethan theatregoers than to modern ones. Scene one features King Lear testing the extent of his daughters' loyalty and love for him. He is preparing to abdicate. Lacking a male heir, he decides to divide his land between the sisters and, for two of them, their husbands. He devises a test for them, asking "Which of you shall we say doth love us most?". This may strike us as somewhat senile, because if Lear has already made up his mind as to how the land is shared, the trial appears pointless. On the other hand, Shakespeare may have intended Lear's statement ("Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend / Where nature doth with merit challenge") to have been a mere formality or piece of rhetoric. Shakespeare has overlooked (purposely or absent-mindedly) the crux of the situation, which is that in another version (the anonymous play The True Chronicle History of King Leir) Cordelia has already vowed to marry for love, not whoever her father should choose, and Lear assumes that his youngest daughter will play along with his game. On receiving her proclamations of devout love and loyalty, he plans to force her into a marriage which she could not possibly object to after claiming such stolid obedience. Of course, the trap fails disastrously for all parties. It is not clear whether or not Shakespeare intended his audience to be aware of this subtext, or whether he assumed the details of the situation were not relevant.

Tragic ending

subtext The adaptations that Shakespeare made to the legend of King Lear to produce his tragic version are quite telling of the effect they would have had on his contemporary audience. The story of King Lear (or Leir) was familiar to the average Elizabethan theatre goer (as were many of Shakespeare's sources) and any discrepancies between versions would have been immediately apparent. Shakespeare's tragic conclusion gains its sting from such a discrepancy. The traditional legend and all adaptations preceding Shakespeare's have it that after Lear is restored to the throne, he remains there until "made ripe for death" (Edmund Spencer). Cordelia, her sisters also deceased, takes the throne as rightful heir, but after a few years is overthrown and imprisoned by nephews, leading to her suicide. Shakespeare shocks his audience by bringing the worn and haggard Lear onto the stage, carrying his dead youngest daughter. He taunts them with the possibility that she may live yet with Lear saying, "This feather stirs; she lives!" But Cordelia is dead. This was indeed too bleak for some to take, even many years later. King Lear was at first unsuccessful on the Restoration stage, and it was only with Nahum Tate's happy-ending version of 1681 that it became part of the repertory. Tate's Lear, where Lear survives and triumphs, and Edgar and Cordelia get married, held the stage until 1838. Samuel Johnson endorsed the use of Tate's version in his edition of Shakespeare's plays (1765): "Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add anything to the general suffrage, I might relate that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor".

Cordelia and the Fool

The character of Lear's Fool, important in the first act, disappears without explanation in the third. He appears in Act I, scene four, and disappears in Act III, scene six. His final line is "And I'll go to bed at noon", a line that many think might mean that he is to die at the highest point of his life, when he lies in prison separated from his friends. A popular explanation for the fool's disappearance is that the actor playing the Fool also played Cordelia. The two characters are never on stage simultaneously, and dual-roling was popular in Shakespeare's time. However, the Fool would have been performed by Robert Armin, the regular clown actor of Shakespeare's company, who is unlikely to have been cast as a tragic heroine. Even so, the play does ask us to at least compare the two; Lear chides Cordelia for foolishness in Act I, and chides himself as equal in folly in Act V. A more elaborate suggestion is that Cordelia never went to France but stayed behind disguised as Lear's Fool, serving her father in much the same manner as Edgar served his father Gloucester in the subplot. It has been suggested that Cordelia was aided in this service by the King of France who was disguised as a Servant/Knight/Gentleman. Near the end of the play, Lear says "and my poor fool is hanged", a line which could refer to the Fool (but in context is more likely to refer to the hanged Cordelia). An objection to this interpretation is that the fool was in Lear's service long before Cordelia was dismissed, and one of Lear's knights observes, "Since my young lady [Cordelia]'s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away.".

Edmund (Bastard son to Gloucester)

Gloucester’s younger illegitimate son is an opportunist, whose ambitions lead him to form a union with Goneril and Regan. The injustice of Edmund’s situation fails to justify his subsequent actions. Edmund rejects the laws of state and society in favour of the laws he sees as eminently more practical and useful—the laws of superior cunning and strength. Edmund’s desire to use any means possible to secure his own needs makes him appear initially as a villain without a conscience. But Edmund has some solid economic impetus for his actions, and he acts from a complexity of reasons, many of which are similar to those of Goneril and Regan. To rid himself of his father, Edmund feigns regret and laments that his nature, which is to honour his father, must be subordinate to the loyalty he feels for his country. Thus, Edmund excuses the betrayal of his own father, having willingly and easily left his father vulnerable to Cornwall’s anger. Later, Edmund shows no hesitation, nor any concern about killing the king or Cordelia. Yet in the end, Edmund repents and tries to rescind his order to execute Cordelia and Lear, and in this small measure, he does prove himself worthy of Gloucester’s blood.

Revision

The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos (Q), published in 1608 and 1619 respectively, and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F). The differences between these versions are significant. Q contains 285 lines not in F; F contains around 100 lines not in Q. The early editors, beginning with Alexander Pope, simply conflated the two texts, leading to a fairly long play by the standards of the time. Although the differences between the sources were remarked on, this traditional combination remained nearly universal for centuries. As early as 1931, Madeleine Doran suggested that the two texts had basically different provenances, and that the differences between them were critically interesting. This argument, however, was not widely discussed until the late 1970s, when it was revived, principally by Michael Warren and Gary Taylor. Their thesis, while controversial, has gained significant acceptance. It posits, essentially, that Q derives from something close to Shakespeare's original papers; F, from something like a playhouse version, prepared for production by Shakespeare or someone else. In short, Q is "authorial"; F is "theatrical." In criticism, the rise of "revision criticism" has been part of the pronounced trend away from mid-century formalism. The New Cambridge Shakespeare, among others, has published separate editions of Q and F; the New Arden edition edited by R.A. Foakes is not the only recent edition to offer the traditional conflated text.

Reworkings

Since the 1950s, there have been various "reworkings" of King Lear. These are the major works:
- The novel A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
- The play Lear by Edward Bond Further Trivia A radio performance of the play on BBC Radio 3 in the UK was used by the Beatles for the song "I Am the Walrus"; it can be heard at the end of the song. The character Oswald's exhortation, "bury my body", as well as his lament "O, untimely death!" (Act IV, Scene VI) were interpreted by fans as further pieces of "evidence" that band member Paul McCartney was dead.

Film adaptations


- 1915 - The play Hobson's Choice by Harold Brighouse is a comic version which takes place in Manchester in the 1880s. This in turn has been adapted to film numerous times, most notably by David Lean in 1954.
- 1953 - Directed by Andrew McCullough with Orson Welles as Lear. This one does not feature the subplot of Gloucester and his sons, and has Poor Tom as a character in his own right.
- 1969 - Directed by Grigori Kozintsev with Jüri Järvet as Lear, music by Dmitri Shostakovich. What makes this movie unique is the original interpretation of the King Lear's character and plot's clarity. It is considered one of the best adaptations of the tragedy by some critics. See
- 1971 - Directed by Peter Brook with Paul Scofield as Lear, Alan Webb as Duke of Gloucester, Irene Worth as Goneril, Susan Engel as Regan, Anne-Lise Gabold as Cordelia, Jack MacGowran as Fool. The text has been severely cut and the remainder has been reassembled. All is bleak in this black and white, existential experience.
- 1974 - A live recorded performance directed by Edwin Sherin.
- 1982 - Directed by Jonathan Miller with Michael Hordern as Lear. Part of the Shakespeare Plays series, this version follows the text closely.
- 1984 - Directed by Michael Elliott with Laurence Olivier as Lear. The film begins and ends at Stonehenge, and features Diana Rigg as Regan, John Hurt as the Fool, and Robert Lindsay as Edmund.
- 1985 - Akira Kurosawa adapted King Lear for the basis of his film Ran.
- 1987 - Jean-Luc Godard's version is set in a post-apocalyptic world with Burgess Meredith as gangster Don Learo and Molly Ringwald as Cordelia.
- 1991 - A modern retelling, set on a farm in Iowa, was Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. This novel attempted to explain the elder sisters' hatred of their father, was later adapted as a 1997 film directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and starring Jason Robards, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Colin Firth.
- 1997 - Sir Ian Holm starred in a television adaptation, directed by Richard Eyre. Minimalist sets put the focus on the acting.
- 1999 - Starring (as Lear) and directed by Brian Blessed.
- 2001 - My Kingdom stars Richard Harris, Lynn Redgrave. A modern gangland version of King Lear.
- 2002 -