If you still haven’t answered TWO blog posts for King
Lear, use this post to catch up.
Remember that your course grade is based on your class participation in
these blogs (see the syllabus), so if you ignore the blogs you also ignore your
grade! Please join us and participate
in this class.
Respond to TWO of the following as a comment below...
1. Many of the writers argue that Lear is a play that
cannot be adequately staged, but is better read on the page or simply
imagined. Why is this? What arguments do they offer for Lear being
an ‘untheatrical’ play? Do you
agree? Is Lear Shakespeare’s
greatest ‘written’ rather than staged play?
2. Nahum Tate was responsible for revising Lear and
making it palatable for 18th century audiences by saving Lear and
Cordelia and marrying her off to Edgar.
What reasons does he offer for this revision, and how might others, such
as Lamb, argue with this decision?
3. Why does
Peter Brook argue that “the absence of scenery in the Elizabethan theatre was
one of its greatest freedoms?” (180).
What did the lack of scenery and effects allow Shakespeare to do—or the
audience to see? Why does Jan Kott
agree with this assessment? Why should
a ‘modern’ Shakespeare (for them) be a stripped-down Shakespeare, and if possible,
a staged rather than a filmed Shakespeare?
4. Samuel
Johnson notes that the “publick” decides which Shakespeare they want, and even
if they prefer Tate, the critics have to quietly accept the fact. Who should get to decide how to stage
Shakespeare and what elements—or texts—to promote? In other words, is Shakespeare primarily for the experts (the
critics, actors) or the audience (even those who know relatively little about
Shakespeare)?
Nikki Ennis
ReplyDelete1. Charles Lamb claims that Lear is meant to be read because the character of Lear is too complex to be acted. he states, "they might more easily propose to personate Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures." I'm not sure I agree. Shakespeare wrote for the stage, and I don't think he would have created a character that was impossible to play.
2. Nahum Tate felt that the ending of Lear should end happily, and that it would be easy to change. He says, " Neither is it of so Trivial and Undertaking to make a Tragedy end happily, for 'tis more difficult to Save than 'tis to Kill." (170) And because he found it so well received by the audience, he felt sure in his decision. Lamb would disagree with this because he already feels Lear is not meant for the stage. To change Shakespeare's work would be even more unacceptable to him.
2. Nahum Tate changed the ending of King Lear because he felt that the ending was to barbaric. He felt this play ended with no point because the King goes mad, everyone basically dies, and Cordelia was the innocent daughter who wrongly died. In this time period, most of the time tragedies usually ended with some order. So, Tate probably felt he was doing the right thing. Also, it seemed audiences responded well to his revision and this probably reassured him.
ReplyDelete3. Peter Brooke argued that “the absence of scenery in the Elizabethan theatre was one of its greatest freedoms?” (180) He believed that the scenery and stage props got in the way of the true power of Shakespeare's plays. He said that moving "towards the true nakedness of theatre" allowed audiences to experience a better range more than what television could do. Jan Kott agrees with this because she too believed that with all of the stage machinery and new techniques, only the plot of King Lear was left. This made Shakespeare out of place on stage, which is the sole place Shakespeare wrote for. Kott implies that audiences shouldn't need all of the unnecessary objects on stage.
1. The biggest argument for reading King Lear (as opposed to staging it) is that the mind of Lear cannot be effectively conveyed by an actor in a play setting. According the argument’s supporters, the intimate humanity displayed is best transmitted directly from Lear’s mind to the reader’s mind. A.C. Bradley straight up tells us, “King Lear is too huge for the stage” (175), and judging from the pro-reading essayists’ descriptions of Lear’s depth of mind, he is not off-base. Charles Lamb excitedly describes, “the explosions of his passion are as terrible as a volcano” (172), and William Hazlitt lists the mind of Lear as being, “like a tall ship driven about by the winds, buffeted by the furious waves…having its anchor fixed in the bottom of the sea,” a “sharp rock circled by the eddying whirlpool,” and “the solid promontory pushed…by the force of an earthquake” (174). The passionate, emotional, human experience that Lear encounters is something that clearly lacks a simple or clinical translation, and the hugeness of the concept is only able to be described through metaphors. Any stage interpretation would be inadequate in its ability to allow the audience to interpret and relate to Lear’s psychological intricacies. I agree with Lamb when he asserts, “On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness…while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear,--we are in his mind” (172), and I think the language that Lear uses, his word choice and his reflections, are best left available to be read over and over and returned to in order to continually explore the enormous chasm that is Lear’s mind, or anyone’s mind, for that matter! The whole point is that we really can’t legitimately stage the dimensions of someone’s mind—it can only be experienced and communicated in multitudes of layers.
ReplyDelete2. Nahum Tate lists his main reason for rewriting a happy ending for King Lear as not wishing to have “incumbered the Stage with dead Bodies” (170), for fear that they would appear so melodramatic as to be comedic. He goes on to claim that in rewriting the ending, he is exhibiting a mastery of writing, as it is “more difficult to Save than ‘tis to Kill” (170). He sees death as too simple of an ending and truly believes that greater artistry lies in saving the characters from the “all is lost” moment. Audiences that are capable of pondering death and absurdity, however, agree with Lamb’s opinion that Tate’s ending “puts [a] hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan…to draw the mighty beast about more easily” (173). Modern audiences can especially appreciate the difficulty of the play and are not likely to dismiss or attempt to conquer and romanticize the human experience.
2. Tate claims that he revised Lear in order to provide it with the “Regularity and Probability” that it was lacking (169). He claims that having Cordelia and Edgar fall in love makes Cordelia’s “indifference” and her father’s “passion” make sense and he basically claims that it makes the entire play make sense (169). He even defends his decision to make the tragedy have a happy ending by claiming that it is “’tis more difficult to Save than ‘tis to Kill” (170). Other than Lamb, which you mentioned, I think that existentialists would disagree with his disruption of the play. The play is existential, but not because everyone dies. I’m not sure why people associate existentialism simply with death. That’s like saying that all feminist hate men. It’s just an assumption born from ignorance on the topic. The play is existential because it questions the reasons for existence. There is much summoning of the gods and talk of fate, but there is no evidence of any actually effect. Furthermore, the play emphasizes the absurdity of life, which can strike at any moment. Why did Cordelia have to die? Why did Edmund have to be treated as a second citizen for being a bastard? These questions illuminate that life is simply an effect of the decisions we make. We are all responsible for humanity, but we are not in control of it, which is partially where existential anxiety stems from. This anxiety also stems from our fear of death, so yes having death be such a strong theme is very existential, but just because of what it says about existence. I find it very interesting that Tate chose to compare the original play to a “dazzling… heap of jewels” because bright objects are none to distract the mind from existence and ultimately death, which he avoids (169).
ReplyDelete4. It’s a bit of both isn’t it? I don’t want to sound wishy-washy by straddling the fence, but I think these two go hand in hand. The “publick” that Johnson notes get what they want because as the audience they are the ones who support the shows by attending and paying the box office. However, at the same time that audience reads and is influenced by reviews. So, if critics write a poor review of something then that might cut down on the audience and lessen the sales. Of course, sometimes plays are supported by some sort of trust or grant or fund. If the play received poor reviews then the organization sponsoring the play would look bad and that means that they would be unlikely to fund the group that put the play on again. For these reasons, and probably many others that I haven’t considered who controls what happens in the play and how it is staged is ultimately both critics and audiences, because the directors/performers have to take both into account in order to be successful.
1) I think that is ridiculous. At face value or first read, perhaps an actor could feel overwhelmed because he is so complex. But the actor and director's job is to decide how they want to spin their Lear. He can be an overbearing abusive father, or one that is cunning and playing games. He can be a sad old man who has lost his authority or a malicious king with but one weakness. It isn't like a play with such heart, drama, and complexity will be staged but once. A play of this magnitude will be done again and again. Many troupes will work wonders with it or make it flop. That's the beauty in a well known play, it's either killed or given life. Shakespeare never added stage movements to his scripts or many sidebars. This makes me believe that he wanted his plays to be produced by us, his fans. We are to give them all they deserve. Simply reading Lear would pack a punch, but so much more can hit you from a play interpretation.
ReplyDelete3) I think this question links nicely to my first opinion. With too much set up and ado around the actors, you box your play in. Only so much can be done with special effects and backdrops, but the mind can not be caged. Hit me with an intense monologue and I will imagine a setting you can't simply paint. Kott would agree. She hints that perhaps props and background were things the actors hide behind. With such explosive characters and tragedy, do you think we need to be concerned with the type of village they are occurring amongst? There is often entirely too much going on in Shakespeare's play to be distracted with the goings on around the cast.
1. Something said that I found interesting was by Tate on page 170: “'Tis more difficult to Save than 'tis to Kill.” This, to me, undervalues the play and cheapens it because it suggests that Shakespeare had Cordelia, King Lear, and the others killed for no reason. It also shows that Tate considers himself to in some ways be better than Shakespeare because he took on the task of keeping everyone alive, which in his eyes was the more difficult thing to do. Keeping people alive in stories or plays is the easiest thing to do because there's no real risk involved in the story or towards any of the characters. The real danger lies in fearing for the characters and understanding and accepting the deaths of those characters due to the actions that caused them. Lamb's ideal version is the play itself, as he believes that “Lear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage” (173). His reasoning behind this (172) involves the idea that to read “Lear” is to get into the mind of Lear, while to watch “Lear” is to see an inferior version where the audience doesn't get to truly understand who Lear is as a character. All adaptations come from personal opinions on how best to stage a work, what themes should be explored, which characters should be focused on, how the characters should be portrayed, etc etc. Therein lies the beauty. The imagination associated with adaptations allows for the audience to see a different portrayal of the work they just read that they might otherwise have never thought of. Adaptations show the ways in which a work can function independent of its original source. “Lear” by itself is a colorless version; all of the ideas are there, the characters are there, the dialogue is there, but the way the characters speak their meaning, their motivations, all of that comes from the imagination of the reader.
ReplyDelete4. I don't view any of Shakespeare's works as solely being for experts or for a certain group of people. Saying that Shakespeare pertains to a certain group isolates others from his works, and in many ways diminishes the plays themselves, as it would cause many people to not read or bother with his plays. Shakespeare should be adapted by anyone and everyone who is serious to adapting the play to the best of their ability and to create a product worth watching and dissecting. There will always be bad and good adaptations, but good can come from the bad adaptations as they can be studied to see just why they didn't work and what elements of Shakespeare didn't translate very well from text to motion picture. All adaptations should come from people who understand and know Shakespeare and want to create a version that will show new aspects of his works while simultaneously keeping the fundamentals of what Shakespeare wrote (his characters, his dialogue, the main plot, etc).
- Casey Fowler
2. Tate wanted to make everything in the play more "probable." Everything had to not only be connected, but planned, and to make everything happy at the end. Lamb, on the other hand, says everything is meant to be painful. This kind of story is supposed to make the audience suffer as the characters suffer. If they don't, a tragedy becomes a comedy--but a very clichéd and painful one at that.
ReplyDelete4. I think that while critics and actors have the power of interpretation, the audience ultimately takes their interpretations and reinterpret them themselves, making new and different meaning every time. It isn't really for one or the other; the humanity at the heart of the story and what people can see and feel with that same humanity is what's really important. If that changes from telling to telling, then it's done its job.
Jessie Randall
2. It seemed that Tate initially justified the changes he made to King Lear by saying that the ending wasn’t plausible or normal. Then the audiences responded well with the changes he’d made like Cordelia and Edgar having a romance so he decided it was for the better. Tate then claims that it’s harder to write a happy ending than one where everyone dies, especially since it had already been written that way. Lamb seems to think the changes that Tate made are complete crap. To change the ending would make the rest of the play pointless. After everything he goes through emotionally, the only thing left for him to do is die instead of getting his crown back as Tate portrays him. I like the idea of a happy ending, but I agree with Lamb on his comments about Tate’s version.
ReplyDelete4. Audiences do decide what is popular and direct was is produced in that way, but that doesn’t mean it is good. There’s a lot of crap out there that is very popular but total trash or nonsense. Like the Twilight series have made many people very rich and a whole generation of boys is probably named Edward and Jacob. But the stories are total fluff with no real substance. With Shakespeare, the play was changed to make it more acceptable to the audiences, but at least the original wasn’t lost so that later they could be used again or acted out in their original form. Even now the plays are played with their full content. The audience might choose what is acceptable and popular, but I think as long as the original is kept unscathed it’s okay for people to change it. Critics help remind us of the original.
Kim McCreery
1. Writer’s argue that Lear is a play that cannot be appropriately staged because when you read Lear you understand it better. There are many pauses too it and hidden details that would most likely be caught on stage if the play was performed as a play. This play runs mostly and relies on its dialogue to convey meaning. It is not solely backed on acting alone. It is hard for me to argue if King Lear is Shakespeare’s greatest written rather than staged plays because I have not read nor seen all of Shakespeare’s works. I can say; however, that it was one of the plays I actually enjoyed reading. This could have been because of reading the Manga Shakespeare first, but I just felt that King Lear written made just as much sense as it did in the film version. I felt that the ideas and meaning behind this play were easier to pin point than other plays.
ReplyDelete4. I personally feel that Shakespeare is so complex and deep that it probably is best that critics decide how it should be staged and what elements to promote. As hard as it was for me to say that, for there have been plenty of times reading Shakespeare where I thought no sane person in their right mind would enjoy this, society changes too much for the audience to decide things. I am not trying to say that the audience should not be listened too and kept in mind. Things just change so much from year to year that it is too difficult to keep up with what will be in or not. Primarily I think Shakespeare was obviously intended for everyone back in the time that it was originally written but in today’s day and age it is easier for critics and experts to find and define the meaning behind each play which will in return draw some time of audience towards it and encourage them to form their own opinions.
- Kayci Snider
2. Tate felt that Shakespeare's original ending to King Lear was grotesque and bleak. He felt that the marriage of Edgar and Cordelia was right and that the play shouldn't end with all the characters who seemed to be the purest and the ones who deserved to live die. He felt that it was his task to tackle Shakespeare and create it into something "likeable".
ReplyDelete4. I feel that it is a mixture of bot the critic and the audience. Shakeseare wrote to entertain both rich and poor. The problem with a critic is a critic will look at every aspect of the play and determine if they consider the work "good or bad". An audience works in a completely different way. The audience is what brings back plays, films, music, and etc. to the spotlight. A critics mostly do not turn around and re-watch and critique the past, they seem to work mostly in the future. Yet, as a person in the audience looking to get entertained, we are the ones who bring those marvelous works back into the public eye.
2. Tate’s most memorable reason for his revisions was to make it acceptable for the time period, and the culture he wished to present it to. Tate’s lifetime took place during the restoration period of Europe. During this time there was a lot of cultural backlash at the puritans, as well as a blooming of what would have been considered modern society, something similar to what you’d see of London Town in Disney’s Pocahontas. Literature at the time was often heavily influenced by quarrels between writers, and the culture was “without earnestness, as without principle” (The Literature Network, online-literature.com). This seems to suggest Tate’s revision of Shakespeare was more personal that societal, as if he had some dislike of the way Shakespeare chose to direct the course of the play, and felt like he could have done better. Critiques might argue that his revisions lost the purpose intended by Shakespeare, and the eloquence of the language it was originally written with. In other words, it cheapened the play by making it too relevant to the people of that day and age, instead of focusing on the lasting product Shakespeare intended it to be.
ReplyDelete4. In my opinion, Shakespeare is to be performed and accepted in the manner most befitting the audience for which it is performed; however, it is for the performers and directors to evaluate the audience and determine how the play should be staged. To put it in the simplest language possible, a good director knows who will be watching the performance as well as what they will be expecting. For example, if you are performing in the park your audience is likely not to have many Shakespearian experts, and therefore it might be presented in a more modern way, drawing upon current ideas and pop culture to make it relevant to the audience. However, if you’re performing at the Shakespeare College in London, which started as a language school, your goal might be to present a more traditional Shakespeare with an emphasis on the language of the play. Authors do this all the time in writing, and it’s what makes their work interesting and relevant even beyond a generation.
Catherine Melton