King Lear - A Cautionary Tale for the Aging?

King Lear allotting his kingdom to his daughters by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1872

I admit it.  I haven’t read any Shakespeare since college, and that was (deep breath) nearly 20 years ago.  I’ve read a good deal of The Bard in my time, but, somehow, King Lear escaped my attention.  Book Phantom has remedied that.  When I began the play, I confess, the language was challenging.  I had to relearn how to read good Will.  I found it helpful to read aloud, because Shakespeare just sounds so darn good.  This exercise took me back to eleventh grade English in high school.  My teacher, Ms. Thomason, god bless her, had great taste in literature.  I give her full credit for instilling an appreciation of respectable reading.  Anyway, whenever we read plays aloud in class, Ms. Thomason almost always chose me to read the lead female parts.  That year I was Hedda Gabler, Medea, Antigone, and Lady Macbeth.  Either I was the only kid in class who could halfway read aloud, or Ms. T was trying to keep me from chatting up my neighbor across the aisle.  Nonetheless, I loved every minute of it, and this experience served me well when I read King Lear.

            Of all Shakespeare’s plays I could have chosen, why did I choose Lear?  Perhaps it’s because I am the youngest of three sisters, and I related to Cordelia.  Also, it seems so many books and movies reference Lear (A Thousand Acres comes to mind), and I needed to know more.  I was not disappointed – the word craft, the drama, the villains, the heroes, the tragedy – all timeless. 

April Reading List – Fun with Shakespeare

"My library was dukedom large enough."  - William Shakespeare, The Tempest 

I’m not really sure why I got a sudden yen to read Shakespeare.  Perhaps it’s because Eleanor Brown’s new novel, The Weird Sisters, is on my Spring to-read list.  Maybe it’s because I haven’t read any Shakespeare since college.  Whatever the reason, this month I’m getting my Bard on with selections that include Lear, Greer, and a few things weird.

New Release:  The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown.  Three sisters return to their childhood home to be with their mother who’s dying of cancer, and their academic father who speaks in Shakespearean verse.  The names of the daughters?  Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia, of course.

Classic:  King Lear by well, you know who.  Three sisters compete for the affections of their aging father, the king.  Lear bequeaths his kingdom to his two eldest and silver-tongued daughters, whom he perceives love him most.  The third daughter, who loves him but refuses to flatter him, is cast out with no dowry.  Lear’s poor choice is the undoing of the whole family, as well as the state of Britain. 

Nonfiction:   Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer.  A controversial history that defends Shakespeare’s estranged wife, Ann Hathaway.  The link is to a YouTube lecture by Greer, who is quite funny in her scholarly way.

Juvenile:  Stage Fright on a Summer’s Night by Mary Pope Osborne.  My son is all about the Magic Tree House books right now.  What better way to introduce him to Shakespeare?

Inspiration:  Shakespeare’s Wordcraft by Scott Kaiser.  An outline of conventions and language devices in Shakespeare’s verse.