HEIGHTS AND SIGHTS
In the fourth acts of both Shakespeare’s King John and King Lear, there is a unique staging
conundrum: a character falls from a height. The imagined cliff which Gloucester believes he has
jumped from and the literal walls from which Arthur falls probe the complexities of theatrical
representation. In King John, we are asked to believe that the walls and Arthur’s fall are real – and,
contrastingly, in King Lear, the audience is expected to understand that the cliff and Gloucester’s fall
are false. Therefore, a balancing act between verbal energeia, argumentative rhetoric and staging
conditions: these scenes often operate in an uneasy boundary between belief and scepticism. In
these scenes, exceptional for their visual ambition, Shakespeare asks the questions: to what extent
can we believe what we are being told? And to what extend can we believe our eyes?
Verbal energeia differs between King John and King Lear, subtly leading the audience
towards their contrary interpretations. In King John, Arthur’s speech is a clear and rhetorically astute
argument convincing the audience both of the representation of heights and of the reality of his
death. Arthur’s first line upon entering is pure and clear exposition. It reads: ‘The Wall is high, and
yet will I leape downe.’ (4.3.l.1997) An end-stopped line, the entire episode is laid out simply before
the audience: with no poetic or rhetorical flourish, and in no uncertain terms. The monosyllabic
lexicon, as well as the metrical strength of the line, expresses the matter forcefully. Furthermore, the
semantic progression, emphasised by the caesura highlighting lexical units ‘high’ and ‘downe’,
operates in a downwards trajectory, foreshadowing the moment of fall. Similarly obvious is the line
‘Heauen take my soule, and England keep my bones.’ (l.2006). Regardless of whether physical
stagecraft is convincing, spoken dialogue enacts the moment of death. Since Arthur’s couplet after
his fall is by no means a moment of dramatic realism, perhaps it is the verbal (rather than the visual)
which is the primary conveyor of meaning in this scene. Noteworthy too is how Arthur’s final speech
is astute in classical rhetoric – Shakespeare is formulating a clear and compelling argument, leaving
nothing to chance in convincing his audience of the facts of Arthur’s death. The brevity of the first
line is rhetorically useful in being an example of brachiepia: giving the audience all the information
they need to understand the scene. The diaphora in ‘As good to dye, and go; as dye, and stay.’
(l.2004) stresses death as the operative word. As Peachum notes of diaphora in his journal of
rhetoric, Garden of Eloquence, ‘wisdome would, that the word which is to be repeated, be a word of
importance’. ‘Dye’ is the verb which, aurally, will impress itself upon the ears of the audience.
Arthur’s metaphor ‘my Vnckles spirit is in these stones’ (l.2005) is a powerful rhetorical flourish; an
example of noema that only reveals itself to the audience acquainted with the danger that John
poses to Arthur. Its subtlety, once deduced in context of the play, is a powerful symbol of Arthur’s
(and his line’s) demise. Meanwhile, the final couplet of ‘stones’ and ‘bones’ equates the ground with
the grave. The speech as a whole is littered with careful structures of compar, the caesura often
guaranteeing the splitting of equally balanced clauses, and assisting in Shakespeare’s use of repeated
hypotheses. The repetitions of ‘if’ allow for a careful consideration of the possibilities so that, when
Arthur falls, his death is assured as the only possible outcome. By its very evocation, ‘breake my
limbes’ (l.2002) becomes legitimate and likely. Therefore, a rhetorical analysis of Arthur’s speech
establishes how Shakespeare is carefully enacting a verbal presentation of the walls and Arthur’s fall.
Conversely, the dialogue in King Lear does its best to encode doubts and contradictions,
alluding to this being a fiction of Edgar’s.
Glou. When shall I come to th'top of that same hill?
Edg. You do climbe vp it now. Look how we labor.
Glou. Me thinkes the ground is eeuen.
, HEIGHTS AND SIGHTS
Edg. Horrible steepe.
Hearke, do you heare the Sea?
Glou. No truly. (4.6.ll.2431-2436)
This dialogue draws attention to the realities of the physical stage, and how the energeic picture
Edgar wishes to paint is far removed: the ‘eeuen’ ground of the Elizabethan stage, and the lack of
noise adequate to represent the cliffs of Dover. Gloucester’s comically coy remark ‘me thinkes the
ground is eeuen’ encourages the audience to engage in this scene as a sort of nonsense, rather than
a serious theatrical representation of a cliff. The apposition of lines ‘eeuen’ to ‘horrible steepe’ is a
particularly comic mode of bathos; the tonal shift is ridiculous, consciously so. This is perhaps an
example of that Goldberg calls the ‘illusionistic rhetoric’ (539) in this scene – Edgar’s dialogue calls
attention to his illusion for the audience, to its falsity. Furthermore, after Gloucester’s fall, Edgar’s
speech elucidates that Gloucester had not ‘bin where he thought’ (l.2484). If we were ever in any
doubt, the heights are revealed as a fiction. But were we ever in any doubt?
The analysis above, taking the scene holistically and jumping from line to line as the luxury
of text affords the reader, is by no means an accurate experience of theatrical observation. In both
scenes, as they are experienced in real time in the theatre, there are moments when – verbally and
aurally – our convictions are tested. Before Edgar’s frank acknowledgement of his illusion, there is
not enough verbal evidence to convincingly say that audiences are not convinced of the reality of
Dover cliff. After all, comparing Edgar and Gloucester’s dialogue to Shakespeare’s famous treatise on
theatrical representation at the start of Henry V, it seems that the contradictions are not proof of
illusion. Like Gloucester talking of the ‘eeuen’ ground of the stage, the chorus call attention to the
‘stage’, ‘cockpit’ and ‘wooden O’. But the chorus instructs us that these are to be ignored and,
instead, the audience should 'think when we talk of horses, that you see them’ (1.1.l.27). This
argument proposes that ‘talk’ is enough to translate into sight. Furthermore, looking at Edgar’s long
passage of energeia, it is detailed and rich enough to be truly compellingly convincing. It progresses
slowly and carefully in incrementum, from the ‘crowes and choughes’ (l.2448) in the sky, to ‘halfe
way downe’ (l.2449), to the ‘beach’ (l.2452), to the ‘Surge’ (l.2455). The time taken to detail the
scene, as well as the accumulation of nouns, peopling the scene with life and vitality, is ekphrastic in
its detail. It is also notably sensory: the auditory ‘murmuring’ (l.2455) as well as the sights. One might
forgive an audience member for interpreting this ‘illusionistic rhetoric’ as more than illusion but the
‘swelling scene’ (l.5) of Henry V. By contrast, in King John, the moment of unsurety for the audience
occurs after Arthur’s fall. When Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot enter the scene, they converse for
some time without even noticing Arthur’s body. For these moments, it seems the fatal fall never
happened. Only when ‘This is the prison: What is he lyes heere?’ (l.2033) is spoken 30 lines later is
Arthur’s body verbally acknowledged. That interim of 30 lines still constructs a stage presence which
balances in the liminal space between life and death, between belief and scepticism for the
audience.
Perhaps, therefore, since verbal representation is not easily translated into either belief or
disbelief, it is the objective of stagecraft to produce realities. C. Walter Hodges has conceived of a
possible staging of the heights in King John (see fig.1), and has also conjectured that the athletic
group ‘John Symonds and Mr Standley’s Boys’ may have trained the actor to tumble safely to
achieve the dramatic effect (61). Another theory involves the ‘upper-stage’ of the theatre, but –
regardless of ‘tumbling’ training (which as a theory itself seems rather tenuous) – the upper-stage
would have been too high to safety fall from. Though we can conjecture, it is impossible to say how
this effect would have been achieved, and it can safely be assumed that any representation wouldn’t
In the fourth acts of both Shakespeare’s King John and King Lear, there is a unique staging
conundrum: a character falls from a height. The imagined cliff which Gloucester believes he has
jumped from and the literal walls from which Arthur falls probe the complexities of theatrical
representation. In King John, we are asked to believe that the walls and Arthur’s fall are real – and,
contrastingly, in King Lear, the audience is expected to understand that the cliff and Gloucester’s fall
are false. Therefore, a balancing act between verbal energeia, argumentative rhetoric and staging
conditions: these scenes often operate in an uneasy boundary between belief and scepticism. In
these scenes, exceptional for their visual ambition, Shakespeare asks the questions: to what extent
can we believe what we are being told? And to what extend can we believe our eyes?
Verbal energeia differs between King John and King Lear, subtly leading the audience
towards their contrary interpretations. In King John, Arthur’s speech is a clear and rhetorically astute
argument convincing the audience both of the representation of heights and of the reality of his
death. Arthur’s first line upon entering is pure and clear exposition. It reads: ‘The Wall is high, and
yet will I leape downe.’ (4.3.l.1997) An end-stopped line, the entire episode is laid out simply before
the audience: with no poetic or rhetorical flourish, and in no uncertain terms. The monosyllabic
lexicon, as well as the metrical strength of the line, expresses the matter forcefully. Furthermore, the
semantic progression, emphasised by the caesura highlighting lexical units ‘high’ and ‘downe’,
operates in a downwards trajectory, foreshadowing the moment of fall. Similarly obvious is the line
‘Heauen take my soule, and England keep my bones.’ (l.2006). Regardless of whether physical
stagecraft is convincing, spoken dialogue enacts the moment of death. Since Arthur’s couplet after
his fall is by no means a moment of dramatic realism, perhaps it is the verbal (rather than the visual)
which is the primary conveyor of meaning in this scene. Noteworthy too is how Arthur’s final speech
is astute in classical rhetoric – Shakespeare is formulating a clear and compelling argument, leaving
nothing to chance in convincing his audience of the facts of Arthur’s death. The brevity of the first
line is rhetorically useful in being an example of brachiepia: giving the audience all the information
they need to understand the scene. The diaphora in ‘As good to dye, and go; as dye, and stay.’
(l.2004) stresses death as the operative word. As Peachum notes of diaphora in his journal of
rhetoric, Garden of Eloquence, ‘wisdome would, that the word which is to be repeated, be a word of
importance’. ‘Dye’ is the verb which, aurally, will impress itself upon the ears of the audience.
Arthur’s metaphor ‘my Vnckles spirit is in these stones’ (l.2005) is a powerful rhetorical flourish; an
example of noema that only reveals itself to the audience acquainted with the danger that John
poses to Arthur. Its subtlety, once deduced in context of the play, is a powerful symbol of Arthur’s
(and his line’s) demise. Meanwhile, the final couplet of ‘stones’ and ‘bones’ equates the ground with
the grave. The speech as a whole is littered with careful structures of compar, the caesura often
guaranteeing the splitting of equally balanced clauses, and assisting in Shakespeare’s use of repeated
hypotheses. The repetitions of ‘if’ allow for a careful consideration of the possibilities so that, when
Arthur falls, his death is assured as the only possible outcome. By its very evocation, ‘breake my
limbes’ (l.2002) becomes legitimate and likely. Therefore, a rhetorical analysis of Arthur’s speech
establishes how Shakespeare is carefully enacting a verbal presentation of the walls and Arthur’s fall.
Conversely, the dialogue in King Lear does its best to encode doubts and contradictions,
alluding to this being a fiction of Edgar’s.
Glou. When shall I come to th'top of that same hill?
Edg. You do climbe vp it now. Look how we labor.
Glou. Me thinkes the ground is eeuen.
, HEIGHTS AND SIGHTS
Edg. Horrible steepe.
Hearke, do you heare the Sea?
Glou. No truly. (4.6.ll.2431-2436)
This dialogue draws attention to the realities of the physical stage, and how the energeic picture
Edgar wishes to paint is far removed: the ‘eeuen’ ground of the Elizabethan stage, and the lack of
noise adequate to represent the cliffs of Dover. Gloucester’s comically coy remark ‘me thinkes the
ground is eeuen’ encourages the audience to engage in this scene as a sort of nonsense, rather than
a serious theatrical representation of a cliff. The apposition of lines ‘eeuen’ to ‘horrible steepe’ is a
particularly comic mode of bathos; the tonal shift is ridiculous, consciously so. This is perhaps an
example of that Goldberg calls the ‘illusionistic rhetoric’ (539) in this scene – Edgar’s dialogue calls
attention to his illusion for the audience, to its falsity. Furthermore, after Gloucester’s fall, Edgar’s
speech elucidates that Gloucester had not ‘bin where he thought’ (l.2484). If we were ever in any
doubt, the heights are revealed as a fiction. But were we ever in any doubt?
The analysis above, taking the scene holistically and jumping from line to line as the luxury
of text affords the reader, is by no means an accurate experience of theatrical observation. In both
scenes, as they are experienced in real time in the theatre, there are moments when – verbally and
aurally – our convictions are tested. Before Edgar’s frank acknowledgement of his illusion, there is
not enough verbal evidence to convincingly say that audiences are not convinced of the reality of
Dover cliff. After all, comparing Edgar and Gloucester’s dialogue to Shakespeare’s famous treatise on
theatrical representation at the start of Henry V, it seems that the contradictions are not proof of
illusion. Like Gloucester talking of the ‘eeuen’ ground of the stage, the chorus call attention to the
‘stage’, ‘cockpit’ and ‘wooden O’. But the chorus instructs us that these are to be ignored and,
instead, the audience should 'think when we talk of horses, that you see them’ (1.1.l.27). This
argument proposes that ‘talk’ is enough to translate into sight. Furthermore, looking at Edgar’s long
passage of energeia, it is detailed and rich enough to be truly compellingly convincing. It progresses
slowly and carefully in incrementum, from the ‘crowes and choughes’ (l.2448) in the sky, to ‘halfe
way downe’ (l.2449), to the ‘beach’ (l.2452), to the ‘Surge’ (l.2455). The time taken to detail the
scene, as well as the accumulation of nouns, peopling the scene with life and vitality, is ekphrastic in
its detail. It is also notably sensory: the auditory ‘murmuring’ (l.2455) as well as the sights. One might
forgive an audience member for interpreting this ‘illusionistic rhetoric’ as more than illusion but the
‘swelling scene’ (l.5) of Henry V. By contrast, in King John, the moment of unsurety for the audience
occurs after Arthur’s fall. When Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot enter the scene, they converse for
some time without even noticing Arthur’s body. For these moments, it seems the fatal fall never
happened. Only when ‘This is the prison: What is he lyes heere?’ (l.2033) is spoken 30 lines later is
Arthur’s body verbally acknowledged. That interim of 30 lines still constructs a stage presence which
balances in the liminal space between life and death, between belief and scepticism for the
audience.
Perhaps, therefore, since verbal representation is not easily translated into either belief or
disbelief, it is the objective of stagecraft to produce realities. C. Walter Hodges has conceived of a
possible staging of the heights in King John (see fig.1), and has also conjectured that the athletic
group ‘John Symonds and Mr Standley’s Boys’ may have trained the actor to tumble safely to
achieve the dramatic effect (61). Another theory involves the ‘upper-stage’ of the theatre, but –
regardless of ‘tumbling’ training (which as a theory itself seems rather tenuous) – the upper-stage
would have been too high to safety fall from. Though we can conjecture, it is impossible to say how
this effect would have been achieved, and it can safely be assumed that any representation wouldn’t
