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The Two Lear Plays: How Shakespeare Transformed His First Romance into His Last Tragedy
Ist Teil von
The Oxfordian (Portland, Or.), 2013, Vol.15, p.27-155
Ort / Verlag
Auburndale: Shakespeare Oxford Society
Erscheinungsjahr
2013
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Literature Online (LION)
Beschreibungen/Notizen
By the late sixteenth century more than fifty chroniclers and poets had produced versions of a fable that first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth century Historia Regum Britanniae--the story of the British king who decided to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. Shakespeare's two versions (1608, 1623) are perhaps the clearest example of his transformation of a simple and thinly-drawn apprenticeship play into one of the masterpieces of the canon. In none of the four other wholesale revisions of his early plays does he so completely rethink and rewrite a story so as to change its genre, its message and its outcome. The evidence presented above demonstrates that the two Lear plays were written by the same person--the playwright who used the pseudonym William Shakespeare. His first version of King Leir was a pleasant romance intended to instruct and entertain. It reflected his basic Protestant beliefs, his recent exposure to the law, and his substantial plotting ability, but also his undeveloped poetic skills.