King Lear and Retributive Punishment
“The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices/ Make instruments to plague us. / The dark and vicious place where thee he got / Cost him his eyes.” (King Lear, Act 5 scene 3, 170-173 This quotation from Edgar to his bastard brother Edmund, after Edgar has dealt him a mortal wound, explains the … Read more
Shakespeare, Bastards and Gay Marriage
“Why brand they us with base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take more composition and fierce quality than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, go to creating a whole tribe of fops, got ‘tween asleep and wake?” The bastard Edmund’s famous speech in King Lear, Act 1 … Read more
Occupy Wall Street and King Lear: The Shirking of Responsibility
“…’tis our fast intent to shake all cares and business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we unburthened crawl toward death.” -King Lear, 1.1.37-40 When Dr. David Whalen introduced Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear in class this morning, he noted that it was unusual for a king to give up the throne before … Read more
