King Lear (1 Viewer)

[ben]

we have been to productions... but our teacher NEVER mentioned anything about 'Elizabethian' or 'Feminist' or whatever views of the play...

 

[Anton]

I'd say your teacher is having a few problems them teaching-wise. Even if you aren't told specifically what a reading is called, i.e. Marxist, Post-Structuralist, Liberal Humanist, etc. you still have to know how every part of the play can be read differently.
Maybe you should have a look around the net or the notes on this site for some more info. To get ya' started:
Liberal Humanist is the traditional reading of the play. That is, Lear gains knowledge from hardship.
Feminist examines the role of women in the play, how women are portrayed, etc. There are a few articles on the net on the topic I think.
Marxist reading looks at how economic principles dictate how the play operates. Marxism in general links back to everything that happens in history being as a result of the differences between modes of production and those involved in the modes of production. For example, the Industrial Revolution, under Marxism, is said to be as a result of changes in the modes of production and hence a restructuring of social order. In King Lear, Marxist readings are basically that Edmund is the new order - capitalism and Lear represents the old order - fuedalism. Again, there should be a few articles on the net.
Post-structrualism is ludicrously complex and takes a lot of reading to understand (I've read a lot on it and I still don't fully understand it). It's about how the power of signification (that is, the exterior) dictates how things operate and so on. The opening scene is the most powerful representation of this, with the daughters all signifying in different ones, and this interpretation looks at the differences between truth and signification (for example, Cordelia is honest in the way she signifies, but what happens as a result). It's fuckin' complex and I wouldn't recommend doing it. I tried to tackle it in an assessment and it just fucked me up.
There is also the psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretation which looks at the madness of Lear, and the Fool acting as a consciounce (I've forgotten how to spell there) for Lear...perhaps as the sub-conscious created by the sociopolitical standards of the society around him. Blah blah.
There are a lot of other ways of reading it. You can see it as a traditional Greek tragedy (with everyone dying at the end, etc.) and so on. But the above are the most common ones and I'd DEFINITELY take a look at them.

Anton

 

[ben]

yikes! scary - i can't believe our teacher hasn't mentioned it.

He is the head of English, we are well finished the King Lear topic, I also haven't heard anyone mention it - and we have about 6 classes doing KL... hmmm


well i presume it won't be in our trials, but i'll HAVE to look at it before HSC obviously,... gees I though KL was complex enough as it is with different productions + our own imagined productions

 

[Anton]

Yeah it really is one of the most complex topics we do at school I reckon. You have to know the play inside/out as well as knowing how all of the play relates to the intepretations, plus working out your individual interpretation of Lear.

I don't think you'll need to know all of those interpretations that well, but they are really helpful in working out your interpretion. You can go through them and find things that appeal to you, and then shove 'em in your interpretation. Beautiful.

Anton

 

[esther]

i dunno which book of king lear u guys are reading but the one that we're using has a realli big chunk at the front of the book (the intro) it talks about nahem tate the person that changed the ending to a happy one with cordelia getting married with edgar and living happily eva after or something like that.... its also got a christian reading saying that k/l is similar to the prodigal son and cordelia being like jesus how she is the one that dies at the end and yeah
its good um.... in my last assessment i talked about the feminist reading and the nahem tate one and 2 or 3 videos that we watched and my personal reading of k/l
our teacher specificalli talk us to put in our own readings aswell and our class got the highest average so yeah dun forget ur personal reading!

 

[esther]

oh yeah i forgot but i duno if anyone went to see the king lear at unsw.... theyve got a realli good one that u can talk about.... they dun use any costumes at all they use completely all white, they use lighting, projection and sound to protray stuff.... they cut out the fool and gave the parts to kent i think it is and they hab a young cast... and they also changed some of the lines into simple english and their pace was realli was fast it finished rather more quickly than we expected
i think thats all i hab to say.....
oh yeah it was more a comedy than a tragedy....

 

[Morgues]

I found the best way to tackle these readings is to focus on two scenes as in exams they usually ask you about two scenes and how they could be interpreted in a different way

I am using the Aristotelian and the feminist readings and they are fairly easy

Anyone know about a modern interpretation?

Also it is very difficult to find anything on the net about these interpretations, I've looked for hours and cant find much more then brief mentions

 

[ben]

Originally posted by esther
oh yeah i forgot but i duno if anyone went to see the king lear at unsw.... theyve got a realli good one that u can talk about.... they dun use any costumes at all they use completely all white, they use lighting, projection and sound to protray stuff.... they cut out the fool and gave the parts to kent i think it is and they hab a young cast... and they also changed some of the lines into simple english and their pace was realli was fast it finished rather more quickly than we expected
i think thats all i hab to say.....
oh yeah it was more a comedy than a tragedy....

I went at saw it. it wasn't really that much of a comedy - just had its humorous moments. plus the director stayed afterwards and answered all our questions about the HSC ;-)

 

[Morgues]

Last year they were asked to talk about how different productions were used to portray "chaos versus order" theme yet in the marking guidelines they say that the best answers didnt get superficial by talking about costume, props etc

so how exactly were you supposed to answer that question?

 

[johnson]

after reading the syllabus thingy, our teacher cut what we need to analyse down to a few sections:

* critics views of KL (with references to specfiic critics)

* interpretations of the play (such as feminist, freudian, jungian, marxist, postmodernist, etc)

* productions of king lear (and make reference to the dramatic techniques used in the prod's, whether they are video, film or theatre)

* themes within king lear (major themes are power, chaos vs order, nature...ummm...cant think of any tohers atm)

* language techniques (dram. irony, soliloquies, imagery (animal), symbolism (storm and...blindness?)

hope that helps!

 

[Morgues]

Originally posted by johnson


* productions of king lear (and make reference to the dramatic techniques used in the prod's, whether they are video, film or theatre)

thanks but what do you mean by dramatic techniques? For example how they emphasise the storm scene?

 

[tinkerbell]

Help with King lear and readings

Hey guys, I have trials starting in 3 days and im so scared. Our teacher never went through King LEar properly. I was wondering if any one could help me out?? Like im not sure what we need to know about King LEar for the hsc. ANyone have any notes i could look at? That would be a HUGE help! i also dont have any readings which our teacher told us 2DAYS AGO! that we need.
Please help me!! sorry!

 

[NickyP]

you need to know three different interpretations and one of them is your own and you are definantly allowed to imagine what it would be like and you have unlimited budget so it is probably easier to make one up beacause you can say you know... this colour light represets this and whatever.. you know what i mean?

 

[Anton]

Tinkerbell, refer back to my last post which goes through all of the main interpretations of King Lear, and then look 'em up on the internet. Most should be there and should clear things up for ya'.

Anton

 

[ben]

Originally posted by johnson
after reading the syllabus thingy, our teacher cut what we need to analyse down to a few sections:

* critics views of KL (with references to specfiic critics)

* interpretations of the play (such as feminist, freudian, jungian, marxist, postmodernist, etc)

* productions of king lear (and make reference to the dramatic techniques used in the prod's, whether they are video, film or theatre)

* themes within king lear (major themes are power, chaos vs order, nature...ummm...cant think of any tohers atm)

* language techniques (dram. irony, soliloquies, imagery (animal), symbolism (storm and...blindness?)

hope that helps!

thanks for that. I just realised our teacher has been teaching "interpretations" as "productions" i.e. making them the same thing.

 

[johnson]

Originally posted by Morgues


thanks but what do you mean by dramatic techniques? For example how they emphasise the storm scene?

yeh something like that

..umm off the top of my head, others i can think of include costume, set design, specific lighting, (if you went to see the cut theatre production they effectively made use of multimedia projections),

umm soundFX? direction? (that sort of includes acting). casting - the harlos prod. at bondi casted a kinda butch woman to play gonerill...except in an essay explain it in more eloquent terms...


np ben. when i finally get down to writing some notes for lear, i'll send them to bored OS so yeh. prolly sometime this weekend if i can haul ass and do something.

 

[tinkerbell]

Thanx 4 helping out guys! i think its so great that people can help each other out. well i just tried to study king lear with a friend. But i still dont have readings. anyone know of any i can get? far out talk about unorganised trials are in 3 days!

 

[ben]

Originally posted by tinkerbell
far out talk about unorganised trials are in 3 days!

same - off the top of my head i can't even remember a single quote from king lear!

 

[Lee]

productions=films=interpretations=critics views=readings

it is all the same thing but you should know some from each, but it leaves it open to people whho dont; have access to some.

someone asked about modern interpretations. get A tHousand Acres from your video store it is a modern interpretation.


anyone still wanting info on readings or quotes or studd on this BOS site someone put notes up which are brief but helpful.

 

[Morgues]

Originally posted by Lee
productions=films=interpretations=critics views=readings

last years hsc asked "How do different productions dramatise the theme of chaos and order"

people who substituted productions for readings got severely marked down according to the marking guidelines

What you had to do is say how a production might emphasise it and then argue that this fits in with a certain reading/interpretation but you couldnt just talk about readings