If Shakespeare wrote two King Lears, he created three King Lears. There is the hero of the Quarto, the hero of the Folio and the hero who exists somewhere in the interaction. The last of these is not the same Lear which appears differently in various amalgamated editions. This Lear is a creation of an editor. The Lear I speak of both contradicts itself, cannot be seen on any stage, and dies two very different deaths. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get an original essay In an essay on the textual problems of Hamlet, Stanley Urkowitz wrote that comparing the first to the second quarter is "a bit like [browsing] a museum or gallery showing the varying states of Rembrandt's great prints... Each can stand alone, but seen side by side, they show how the work developed and changed, and we can better appreciate the particular virtues of each essay. In this hypothetical Rembrandt exhibition, the museum visitor might also wonder what the differences between the prints mean in themselves. A mole on the nose of a pretty woman that grows from engraving to engraving suggests something about Rembrandt's conception of beauty. The revisions could say as much about Rembrandt's art as about his discrete productions. There are many important differences between The History of King Lear from the Quarto of 1608 and The Tragedy of King Lear from the Folio of 1623. As every critic who has written on the subject has pointed out, the Folio "is missing some 285 lines and contains some 115 not found" in the Quarto. The mock trial scene from 3.6 is completely absent from the Folio. The Albany and Fou games are significantly reduced. It is often claimed that more importance is given to the character of Edgar. The focus on the war between France and Britain in F shifts to the civil war between Albany and Cornwall in Q. As the tide of criticism has swung, since the publication of Gary Taylor and Michael Warren , Division of the Kingdoms in 1983, toward the belief that these differences represent authorial revision, high-ranking commentators such as Urkowitz, EAJ Honingman, and Stanley Wells find that Q and F are each consistent in their own right. RA Foakes, under the "general direction" of David Kastan, attempts to both conflate and preserve the two versions in his Arden edition. "Words and passages found only in the Quarto are framed in this edition by the superscript Q, and words and passages found only in the Folio by the superscript F." This coy device hides the problem quite cleverly - until Lear's death in 5.3. What I wish to do in this essay is to examine Lear's two deaths more closely and speculate on what they mean taken as an incongruous whole. From the critiques I have encountered, it seems that most scholars are content to assert that, in effect, Lear's two deaths give the play two different Shakespearean turns, that these turns are more or less incompatible and that there are therefore two different plays. All this is important, and I will try to approach it on solid textual grounds, but what seems most exciting to me - and perhaps a little original - is the idea of ​​this third death, of this third Lear, and of this third King Lear. I will propose a possible reading of such a Lear, if only to open up an interesting (and perhaps new?) way of looking at King Lear and the King Lear that every reader feels living and dying behind these veils of text . Q and F, Albany delivers his ignorant proclamation of poetic justice only moments after Lear walks carrying theCordelia's corpse: "All friends will taste / the wages of their virtue and all enemies / the cup of their merits" (5.3.301-3). Having assumed greater authority, he feels it is in his power to face grace and perdition. It would be laughable, if only the audience could laugh. “All the enemies” have already tasted “the cup of what they deserved.” Edmund, Goneril, and Regan each died a violent death. And certainly Cordelia's corpse indicates that at least one "friend" will never "taste the wages" of his "virtue", especially in a pagan world devoid of Christ's heavenly shadow. Aside from showing that Albany is an idiot, the phrase presents the most painful contrast to what Albany is presumably pointing to when he shouts, "Oh, see, see!" » There, says Lear in both texts: "And my poor fool is hanged" (5.3.304). The “And” joins Lear’s statement and the madness of Albany for the audience. He also alludes to the possibility that Lear directly "and" consciously refutes this sarcasm. this does not correspond to the bereaved father, who is more than ever a man “more guilty than guilty”. The reference to the "poor fool" is generally considered to be Shakespeare's allusion (as opposed to Lear's) to the real fool who disappears. in 3.6, "poor fool" is also a term of endearment. But it seems plausible, given Lear's mental state, that he is actually suffering from a momentary hallucination. Lear hallucinates several times during his madness, most notably in Q's mock trial scene, and there are dozens of references to faulty vision. Shakespeare also prepared us to see how deeply Lear would be grieved by the death of his fool, when Lear says to the moor: "Poor fool and knave, I have a part in my heart / It's sorry for you yet » (3.2.72-73). . This sentence fits well with Lear's last sentence in Q, "Break, heart, I Prithee break" (Q 5.3.303), which we will talk more about later. *A hallucination here would portray Lear as partly ignorant of his own wretchedness. State. It would be much worse to lose your daughter than your jester. Although F and Q share an ambiguous line, the question of Lear's ability to understand how low his lot is and how terrible the gods who created his world are is answered differently in the two original texts. “No, no life” are Lear’s next words. in Q, and "No, no, no life" in F. The Folio echoes the additional "no" later with two additional "never[s], the cumulative effect of which is to make Lear somewhat less in control of his tongue. “No, no life” is a statement that partly implies a certain resignation to the fact; “No, no, no life” sounds more like the defensive cry of a madman. If I feel like I'm exaggerating the distinction, it may help the reader to say the words out loud. In any case, Q's three nevers versus F's five should clarify this point. The two variations, each coherent in its own right, together suggest a playwright revising his text with the clear aim of imbuing a dying king with the final touches of a madness from which he suffered during the last three acts. "Why does a dog, a horse, a rat have life / And you have no breath at all?" Lear asks Cordelia's corpse (and probably also the gods) in Q and F. It's a good question to which Lear never receives an answer Technically speaking, the answer most likely lies in Albany's forgetfulness "It's a good thing we forgot!" 60 lines earlier, Lear and Cordelia having strangely escaped his (and Edgar's) mind. If he had remembered them earlier, he could have convinced Edmund to confess his sinister order to kill the heroes. time to save them, whichcould very well have been the premise of Nathum Tate's infamous and popular rewrite. In one sense, then, Albany and Edgar deserve Lear's overly anxious condemnation in F: "A plague upon you, murders, all traitors" (5.3.230). In another, more important sense, no one really does it. To use Deepak Chopra's definition of synchronicity, “a conspiracy of improbabilities” is responsible for the tragedy that is 5.3. A thousand little things, a thousand coincidences, everything came together to kill Cordelia. Why was she captured? Why was the executioner present so willing to carry out his task? What in the stormy world of the play necessitated this inexplicable end to Lear's one love? Just as Shakespeare said it was raining "too hard / For nature to endure" (3.4.2-3), it is as if Shakespeare, more than any of his characters, including Edmund, had sent Cordelia die. The very absence of a compelling reason becomes the reason. It is a gratuitous death in This is the most disturbing meaning of the phrase. It has no other meaning than that which Lear will - or does not want - bring to it. “Oh, you will come no more,” Lear says in Q (and likewise in F), without attempting to do so. an answer to his question “Never, never, never”. Please undo this button. Thank you, sir" (also in F). There is only one other use of the word "undo" in King Lear. This occurs as blind Gloucester pontificates to his disguised son about the material inequalities of the world. He asks the gods to "Let man superfluous and thirsty with lust...feel your power quickly: / So the distribution should cancel out the excess / And every man will have enough" (4.1.72-74) By the time Lear pronounces the word, he presents himself as a man formerly a "superfluous and stunned man" (not anymore, that's for sure), who, through his politeness and deference towards an inferior (be it a servant. , from Kent or Edgar), manages to some extent to “undo the excesses” that Lear learned the lesson of respect for inferiors as well as equals. But the application of this lesson is disproportionate to the circumstances. does not undo his button would probably interpret Lear's deference as the ramblings of a king who has lost all sense of himself. The request itself is also a bit insane. Shakespeare is clearly referring to the storm during which Lear tries to get rid of his "loans". This connection makes sense in that, first, we assume that it refers to Lear's button and not Cordelia's. , and secondly that we read there the idea that Lear once again exposes himself to the heavy rain of the gods. Perhaps Lear makes the connection in his own mind (unconscious or conscious). This latter line of thought is much better for the Quarto, in which Lear ends the verse with "O, O, O, O!" This is the first obviously significant difference between the two death scenes. “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” could give the public a way to understand the button request; Perhaps Lear simply needs more air to fully feel and express his grief, just as he needs to be naked to fully feel the wrath of the heavens. What emerges from this reading of Q is a mature Lear, mostly in control of his faculties, capable of understanding that his loss is permanent, inexplicable and beyond words. “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” resonates with the Fool's first act that Lear is a "figureless O; I am better than thou art now. I am a fool, thou art nothing" (1.4.183-5). Lear realizes that he is an “O,” if you will. He has become the man who can answer his own haunting question: "Who can tell me who I am?" (1.4.221). Leaving aside for the moment the fact that, in itsterrible and conscious grief, Lear is literally reduced to "nothing" (zero, 0, O), the public attending a performance of Quarto's play has the chance to see a Lear who has come to reconcile with himself and, all like Shakespeare's other great tragic heroes, will die the moment he knows he has reached the end of his journey. In this context, Lear's very last sentence before his death in Q, "Break, prithee, heart break", reads and plays like the last voluntary command of a dying king who, against all odds, is still master of himself. If the gods rule the world randomly despite kings, then a king asserts himself against the gods by ruling over himself. A wicked Lear had told Regan: “I have every reason to weep, but this heart / Will break into a hundred thousand faults / Or else I will weep” (2.2.473-75). Now Lear has lost control of his crying (“O, O, O, O!”) but has gained control of his heart. As Lear himself says, in the Quarto, he “dies bravely, like a bridegroom.” (“sufficient husband in F”) (Foakes, 4.6.194). A husband, it is assumed, faces marriage like a man.*This triumphant death is all the more triumphant as a counterpoint to Gloucester's failed suicide attempt "This world," he said.said, thinking to himself atop a cliff that Edgar has traced in his imagination, "I renounce and before you [the gods] / Patiently shake off my great affliction" (4.6.42). An audience who has never seen King Lear will learn in a few moments that these lines are, to put it bluntly, pathetic. Gloucester fails in the most "miserable" and absurd way, mocking his son and the gods for his pride and blindness. By an implied contrast, Lear deserves what pride he has left - or, to choose a better word than pride: dignity - and can see clearly at the moment of his death. What Lear sees in the Folio, at this very moment, is false. . “Look at her, look at her lips, / look there, look there!” Earlier in the scene, Lear held a real or imaginary feather to Cordelia's lips and said in Q and F: This feather is moving. She lives. If this is so, it is a chance that redeems all the sorrows I have ever felt. (5.3.262-4) This suggests that what Lear sees on Cordelia's lips is exactly what Lear wants to see on Cordelia's lips. If earlier in his madness Lear falsely claimed in the Folio that he "had power to seal the lips of the accuser" (4.6.164), now, in F, his imagination claims for him the power to make move the accuser's lips again. lips of a dead innocent. As Cordelia says, “the restoration hangs / your medicine on my lips” (4.7.26). Lear searches his lips for the antidote to his agony when he says “never” five times. Even if “it’s a chance that redeems all the sorrows / That I’ve ever felt,” it’s an illusion. This is the last moment that Shakespeare, in F, gives us of his great fallen king. To redeem all of Lear's sorrows with a hallucination is to suggest that the greatest of our sorrows is transcended only by the comforting devices of the imagination. Many have argued that Lear's final statement in F serves much the same purpose as his last in Q, namely that by drawing attention to Cordelia's lips, Lear draws attention away from himself and, fully aware of the tragedy of the moment, dies an even nobler death, with greater conscience. While it is true that Lear fully understands that Cordelia is dead in F, it seems clear, however, that this is hardly triumphant. Shakespeare has already told us unequivocally that Lear is capable of the deepest pathos. To characterize his last words as a miserable reiteration of this fact would be to deprive Lear of what Shakespeare only tells his audience about him in Q:the ability to reclaim one's own self, even in, or perhaps because of, grasping all the horror of the world. Furthermore, Lear's final words in F prohibit both Lear's audience on stage and Lear's audience in the stands from watching him walk valiantly to his end; We are told to “look over there,” to look away, toward the darkest image of a lost paradise. The argument that Lear knows that Cordelia is dead is also insufficient. In a scene where Lear constantly alternates between reason ("My poor fool is hanged" is true) and madness ("My poor fool is hanged" is hallucinatory), the choppy and grammatically confused line "Look at her, look at her lips, / look there, look there!” It certainly seems like the final release of a man who indulged in wish-granting madness. Moreover, the play provides a model for the joyful death we can assume Lear goes through, if, as I say, he believes Cordelia alive again in F. According to Edgar's account, Gloucester's "faulty heart, / Alack, too weak to support the conflict.” , / Between two extremes of passion, joy and sorrow, / Burst into a smile" (5.3.195-197). Notably, this is after discovering that her once lost and still beloved son Edgar is indeed living There is another example of a heart "between two extremes of passion, / joy and sorrow", which could be seen as imbuing Lear's death with a beauty of its own Upon receipt of the letter from. Kent, Cordelia apparently took on the following appearance, as reported by an impartial gentleman: You saw the sun and the rain at once, her smiles and her tears were like a better path Those happy smiles that played on her ripe lip. seemed not to know what guests were in his eyes, which parted as the pearls fell from the diamonds In short, sorrow would be a much appreciated rarity if everything could be (4.3.17-24) Rain. figures so prominently in Lear, while the sun explicitly bursts through the clouds only here, that finding the two reconciled together on Cordelia's face underlines the unbearable horror of Lear's loss. The lovely passage also suggests that Shakespeare somehow believes that the sheer poetry of the hallucination of Lear's "breath" on Cordelia's "ripe lip" could transcend the void created by her loss. Only an audience could validate such a Shakespearean hypothesis; a reviewer will always struggle to force his clunky devices around these high vapors. But even though Lear's "final sorrow would be a rare beloved / if all could be," his death in F is, at best, stunningly beautiful in a play that only once, only in the gentleman's passage here above, contains the idea that beauty can in some way compensate for unnecessary misery. Unless, of course, the entire Folio edition of King Lear is supposed to be so beautiful that it should compensate us for our misery. In both cases, Shakespeare's art becomes the locus of all values, upending the possibility of any real redemption or reality-based happiness in a real world. The meaning of Folio editing becomes the absurdity of Folio editing. Cordelia is dead and Lear stupidly follows her into nothingness for no other reason than that “grief” can be beautiful. This is Shakespeare the nihilist, who engages in his art to deceive his audience, as he does with Lear, into looking at something so beautiful that we forget that there is nothing "there" , on silent lips. If Shakespeare, as the new revisionists argue and hopefully my analysis supports to some extent, carefully transformed the draft of Q into the work we know as F, at least as far as the death of.