On Friday, we watched Act 1 from Trevor Nunn's 2008 film (based on his 2007 production) of King Lear starring Sir Ian McKellan. If you want to learn more about this production, or about Lear in general, here's a great article/interview about it: https://www.rsc.org.uk/king-lear/past-productions/trevor-nunn-2007-production
For Monday's class, be sure to read Act 1 of King Lear and answer two of the following questions:
Q1: As always after we watch a production, is there anything that you saw in the lines that you didn't necessarily see on screen? OR, did the staged version help you see something--an interpretation, reading, staging, etc.--that you wouldn't have noticed from the text itself?
Q2: Why does Cordelia refuse to tell her father how much she loves her, when it seems clear she actually does (as opposed to her sisters, who seem pretty damn tired of him!)? In the play, she has the aside (not shown in the production) where she says to herself, "What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent" (11). Does her silence show love? Is that what "nothing, my lord" is supposed to convey?
Q3: Edmund makes two speeches in Act 1, scene 2, the first in verse, the second in prose. Both speeches are "asides" to the audience alone, and so show something 'naked' about his true character and motives. What does one (or both) of these speeches reveal about him as a character? For example, what might he mean when he says in the first speech, "Thou, Nature, art my goddess" (29)?
Q4: For the first time in this class, we have a true Fool in the play, who plays a very specific role with Lear: he entertains him by speaking a witty form of the truth. What is he trying to tell Lear through his jokes and banter? Does Lear seem to catch his meaning, or does he dismiss it as mere nonsense and buffoonery?
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