For Tuesday: Poole and Wells, Chapters 8

For next week, be sure to read Chapters 8 from both Poole and Wells' books. Then answer two of the questions below. Don't forget to watch the brief video in the post above as a counterpoint to some of these questions! 

Q1: Wells writes that the blinding of Gloucester, "is the kind of episode that classical dramatists would have been likely to narrate rather than to represent, but Shakespeare wants us to experience its full horror, causing Gloucester himself to compare it to the bearbaiting spectacles in which contemporary audiences delighted" (82-83). Why do you think we need to see the "full horror" of this scene? If Gloucester came in without his eyes, it would still have its effect and the plot would be satisfied. Why do we need to see this act of sheer violence by the sisters? 

Q2: Poole notes that the word crisis comes from the Greek word for "justice," and climax comes from the Greek word for "ladder" (102). Why might tragedy then suggest that you need to climb to the top of the ladder to find justice? How does this explain the events of King Lear? What 'climax' do we have to reach (and on how many rungs?) to achieve justice? And what kind of justice is it?

Q3: Poole also writes that tragedies are about rites of passage, and specifically, rites such as weddings, coronations, death, funerals, etc. He goes on to note that "These things can go wrong. And tragedy represents the moments when they do, when the rites are challenged, thwarted, violated, aborted" (107). How is King Lear a tragedy about aborted/thwarted rites? What rites? And how do they go wrong? Whose fault is it that the rites don't work as planned? 

Q4: Very interestingly, Wells notes the original King Lear that existed before Shakespeare wrote his own play. This play was "heavily Christianized," but for some reason, Shakespeare took all of this out, so he could "use the story as the basis for a fundamental examination of the human condition, of the relationship between man and the physical universe" (78-79). Why do you think he needed to remove the Christian framework to do this?