Well now that we've finally finished King Lear I finally get around to blogging on Frye and his thoughts on King Lear. While i tried to bring up some of his ideas in class i did them no justice at all so this post is my way of making amends for that. This one might get a little lengthy so bear with me and have a little patience, thank you.
What i didn't know until i read Frye was that King Lear was the oldest of his "pseudo history/dramas". Even though Frye sets King Lear in a pre-christian setting he admits that it Still winds up with some Christian allusions. I think this is a case of author background influencing his work. Admittedly i have forgotten much of the historical information i've learned about Shakespeare he has never come off overly religious or atheistic to me. I've always figured him for someone who believed in a god or some form of god. Another interesting thing that i found out because of reading Frye's chapter on King Lear is the time that Shakespeare wrote and published King Lear it was thought to be a genuine history of the of ancient Britain. Wow either people were really dense back then or Shakespeare just didn't tell them it was completely fictitious to sell a few more tickets.
Another point that we're always bringing up in class that Frye addresses in his chapter is how Shakespeare draws on myth in this play. According to Frye the inspiration for Lear's three daughters comes from the medieval story Troilus and Cressida which is essentially a medievalized version of the Trojan War. Another interesting fact that i was unaware of before was that the very little historical evidence we have about Shakespeare indicates that King Lear was Shakespeare took more time on King Lear than on most of his other plays. I think this is obvious when someone reads this play. Like Professor Sexson said in class "This is the best of the best of the best. It doesn't get much better than this." Sorry if i miss remembered your words Professor Sexson. I can't help but agree with his assessment of this play. My first play i ever read from Shakespeare was Oedipus Rex. This started out as my favorite play, then it was Julius Caeazer, then The Tempest. But oh boy was i in for a surprise when i read King Lear. Like Nathan said in class"It rocked my world". While i know he was talking about something else this is what i felt for King Lear. Looking back at these choices and the other kinds of plays that i've read it seems like a bit of a drama/tragedy nut.
It about damn time I got to the meat and potatoes of this post. Thank you to all of you who have actually hung in and made it to this point instead of moving on to the next blog because of my random ranting. Frye says , "Perhaps the best way of finding our bearings in this mammoth structure is to look for clues in the words that are so constantly repeated that it seems clear they're being deliberately impressed upon us. I'd Like to look at three of these words in particular: the words "nature" "nothing" and "fool"." First off i know this is going to sound bad but DUH, it didn't take me reading Frye to realize that these words were obviously important otherwise Shakespeare wouldn't have used them over and over so much. Not to take away from Frye but I think a high school Freshman probably could have figured this out without much help. Now i apologize for my short Frye bashing but i felt it was needed, now to move on and praise his genius for the insight he offers us on these thoughts.
First I'm going to talk about how "Nature" functions in this play. The thing that hadn't occurred to me in considering nature in this play was what Shakespeares' audience would have thought about nature. Obviously i knew that the characters of the play knew that nature was just the environment around the but also the environment in them and the other characters of the play. There are many interesting and fun things that are done in King Lear with this idea. I'll mention a few quick examples but leave out the explanations because this post would get massive and its already to big for it's own good. Nature of relationship between Lear and all of his daughters, how that relationship evolves, the nature of the relationships between the the villains and the good guys. This is particularly interesting because the most savage betrayals are within the families themselves of this play. I think this is more than an interesting plot choice by Shakespeare. In reality it for most of us it is the things our family does that hurt us the most and so by doing this in his play Shakespeare has laid a solid base for his play and encouraged us to continue watching it. And while i know Frye goes into greater length"nature" to be so succinct with it is a great injustice that i apologize for.
The next word that Frye stresses that i'm going to explore is "nothing". I feel this is particularly important to not only the characters of the play, but to the audience to which Shakespeare wrote this play and his modern day audience us as well. When considering our discussion of "needful things" i realize that "nothing" has great bearing. When Professor Sexson first posed this question to us in class i immediatel thought well i need food, shelter, clothing, and TECHNOLOGY. After finishing our discussions on this in class i feel that my perceptions of what we as human beings need has changed slightly it has remained the same thing for the most part. I still think we need food, shelter, clothing(even if Lear didn't). The thing that i will be adding to my list now is compassion. If any of his daughters other than Cordelia had any genuine compassion for Lear we would have had a completely different play and lost the greatest tragedy i have ever read. Instead we would have had something that went more along the lines of Lear gives away his kingdom then moves in with his eldest daughter and lives happily ever after. I've ranted on this long enough, i would like to move on now to what Frye said about "nothing" and how it works in Shakespeare. According to Frye inn King Lear "nothing" seems to mean being deprived of one's social function means one is deprived of one's being. This is especially appearant in the case of Lear. Once he realizes that his power was who he was, he starts down the slippery slope to madness. It is amazingly entertaining to watch this journey as terrible as that sounds. Unlike what Professor Sexson said in class, the scene that really sells the play for me and makes it my all time favorite is the storm scene. Not only do we see a character who literally has nothing left but we see the fury, despair, and self loathing that only a character of Shakespearean design could encompass. To see this done onstage or listen to it in an audio rendition is a very powerful experience. Again i have barely touched the genius that is Frye and his thoughts on another genius Shakespeare but for the sake of anyone reading this i'm going to move on.
The final word Frye focuses on that Shakespeare uses a multitude of times in this play is fool. Like Frye i agree that the fool in this story is probably the single most intelligent and truthful of all the characters in this play. All of the decent and moral characters in this play are called fools because they function with codes of honor that the other characters in this play lack i.e. Edmund, Regan, Goneril. These characters aren't fool because, wait for it, they "live according to the conditions of the lower or savage nature they do so dwell in". I like this but i find it hard to believe because none of the villains in any other play that Shakespeare writes are nearly as black or white as the ones in this play. And at the end in the case of Edmund we are given hesitation since he attempts to undo the damage he's done. So his label of fool is initially correct but in the long run he throws it off and attempts to rectify his transgressions. The other aspect of fool that Fry says Shakespeare focuses on is "fool" as a victim. I'm paraphrasing here but Frye basically says in Shakespeare fools are people to whom all of the bad things always happen. I think this makes a lot of sense especially when you consider his other plays. Okay guys thanks for hanging in there with me for this post. I apologize it was so long but still i didn't even begin to touch all of what Frye says about this play and i would recommend reading his book because it is AMAZING!!!
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