King Lear Context
KEY CONTEXT Relevant quote (Act & Scene?) - How link? Relevant quote (Act & Scene?) - How link?
Gunpowder Plot ‘This is the excellent foppery of the world’ - Edmund thinks he ‘Edmund the base / Shall top the legitimate’ - Edmund is ‘Co
has fooled his father and is topping the aristocratic rules and conspiring to top Edgar - the legitimate son - and subvert Pa
laws in England much like Guy Fawkes in the Gunpowder Plot aristocratic ideals that are typical of the Jacobean (and of the for
pagan setting) era
Monteagle Letter ‘Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles’ - Gloucester ‘I have received a letter this night - ‘tis dangerous to be spoken’ - ‘Yo
is reading the letter Edmund gave him and is fooled by the lies The Gunpowder Plot was a dangerous scheme much like the wa
told. A letter, like the Monteagle Letter, that propels Edmund dangerous concerns in England at the time sa
upwards but deceives Gloucester ag
The Book of Job ‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning’ - Job was forced ‘Here I stand your slave, / a poor, infirm, weak and despised old ‘Ou
to suffer because of a bet, which may be similar to how Lear man’ - Job, due to his suffering, was weak and poor, which may
feels, suffering because of something stupid and intangible rather reflect the difficulties Lear is undergoing
than someone he deserves
King James ‘Rule in this realm and the gored state sustain’ - James united ‘Then shall the realm of Albion / Come to great confusion’ - King ‘W
the kingdom and may have been thought to bring the country James was bringing the country into unification and out of un
back to prosperity from the division and darkness division and confusion
Basilikon Doron ‘To shake all cares and business from our age, ‘We have divided/ In three our kingdom’ - King James wrote ‘Th
Conferring them on younger strengths’ - The dangers of being about the dangers of dividing the country and Lear subverts this to
careless with your country and dividing it into three to give the and immediately in Act 1 Sc 1 divides the country rashly an
younger, less wise heirs the right to rule the country
1603 plague ‘Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom’ - Edmund ‘Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my ‘tis
might be likening the plague to infectious aristocratic customs, corrupted blood.’ - The plague, seemingly bubonic, is corrupting, as
seeing meritocratic ideals as the cure to the sickness infectious and spreading in the 1600s sta
Harsnett’s ‘Poor naked wretches’ - Harsnett’s Declaration highlights his ‘Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, strike in their ‘As
Declaration opinion of everything that’s wrong in the Jacobean era, and numbed and mortified bare arms’ - The poor treatment and lack sp
social injustice and poverty is at the forefront of this of compassion for the mentally ill and poor in Jacobean Britain Bri
Different Versions ‘The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see ‘O thou’lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never.’ - ‘Sh
so much, nor live so long’ - The tragic, nihilistic ending of Instead of dying, Cordelia and Edgar marry and live together in Sh
Shakespeare’s Lear heavily contrasts Nahum Tate’s more Nahum Tate’s version of King Lear
positive ending to Lear
Bastardy & ‘Why they brand us/ With base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, ‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.’ - Edmund wants to ‘Th
base?’ - Reflects Edmund’s frustration with his bastard status subvert primogeniture and take Edgar’s right to inherit the land his
KEY CONTEXT Relevant quote (Act & Scene?) - How link? Relevant quote (Act & Scene?) - How link?
Gunpowder Plot ‘This is the excellent foppery of the world’ - Edmund thinks he ‘Edmund the base / Shall top the legitimate’ - Edmund is ‘Co
has fooled his father and is topping the aristocratic rules and conspiring to top Edgar - the legitimate son - and subvert Pa
laws in England much like Guy Fawkes in the Gunpowder Plot aristocratic ideals that are typical of the Jacobean (and of the for
pagan setting) era
Monteagle Letter ‘Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles’ - Gloucester ‘I have received a letter this night - ‘tis dangerous to be spoken’ - ‘Yo
is reading the letter Edmund gave him and is fooled by the lies The Gunpowder Plot was a dangerous scheme much like the wa
told. A letter, like the Monteagle Letter, that propels Edmund dangerous concerns in England at the time sa
upwards but deceives Gloucester ag
The Book of Job ‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning’ - Job was forced ‘Here I stand your slave, / a poor, infirm, weak and despised old ‘Ou
to suffer because of a bet, which may be similar to how Lear man’ - Job, due to his suffering, was weak and poor, which may
feels, suffering because of something stupid and intangible rather reflect the difficulties Lear is undergoing
than someone he deserves
King James ‘Rule in this realm and the gored state sustain’ - James united ‘Then shall the realm of Albion / Come to great confusion’ - King ‘W
the kingdom and may have been thought to bring the country James was bringing the country into unification and out of un
back to prosperity from the division and darkness division and confusion
Basilikon Doron ‘To shake all cares and business from our age, ‘We have divided/ In three our kingdom’ - King James wrote ‘Th
Conferring them on younger strengths’ - The dangers of being about the dangers of dividing the country and Lear subverts this to
careless with your country and dividing it into three to give the and immediately in Act 1 Sc 1 divides the country rashly an
younger, less wise heirs the right to rule the country
1603 plague ‘Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom’ - Edmund ‘Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my ‘tis
might be likening the plague to infectious aristocratic customs, corrupted blood.’ - The plague, seemingly bubonic, is corrupting, as
seeing meritocratic ideals as the cure to the sickness infectious and spreading in the 1600s sta
Harsnett’s ‘Poor naked wretches’ - Harsnett’s Declaration highlights his ‘Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, strike in their ‘As
Declaration opinion of everything that’s wrong in the Jacobean era, and numbed and mortified bare arms’ - The poor treatment and lack sp
social injustice and poverty is at the forefront of this of compassion for the mentally ill and poor in Jacobean Britain Bri
Different Versions ‘The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see ‘O thou’lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never.’ - ‘Sh
so much, nor live so long’ - The tragic, nihilistic ending of Instead of dying, Cordelia and Edgar marry and live together in Sh
Shakespeare’s Lear heavily contrasts Nahum Tate’s more Nahum Tate’s version of King Lear
positive ending to Lear
Bastardy & ‘Why they brand us/ With base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, ‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.’ - Edmund wants to ‘Th
base?’ - Reflects Edmund’s frustration with his bastard status subvert primogeniture and take Edgar’s right to inherit the land his
