1st Edition

King Lear Critical Essays

Edited By Kenneth Muir Copyright 1984
    316 Pages
    by Routledge

    316 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Originally published in 1984. With selections organised chronologically, this collection presents the best writing on one of Shakespeare’s most studied plays. The structure displays the changing responses to the play and includes a wide range of criticism from the likes of Coleridge, Hazlitt, Moulton, Granville-Barker, Orwell, Levin, Stampfer, Gardner and Speaight interspersed with short entries from Keats, Raleigh, Freud and others. The final chapter by the editor elucidates his own thoughts on Lear, building on his commentary in the Introduction which puts the collection in context.

    Preface Joseph Price  Preface Kenneth Muir  Introduction Kenneth Muir  1. Notes from the Plays of William Shakespeare Samuel Johnson  2. from On the Tragedies of Shakespeare Charles Lamb  3. Notes on King Lear Samuel Taylor Coleridge  4. from Characters of Shakespear’s Plays William Hazlitt  5. On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again from Letter to George and Tom Keats John Keats  6. How Climax Meets Climax in the Centre of Lear Richard G. Moulton  7. from Shakespearean Tragedy A. C. Bradley  8. from Shakespeare Walter Raleigh  9. The Theme of the Three Caskets Sigmund Freud  10. King Lear H. Granville-Barker  11. King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque G. Wilson Knight  12. The Court-Fool in Elizabethan Drama Enid Welsford  13. Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool George Orwell  14. from This Great Stage Robert B. Heilman  15. from Character and Society in Shakespeare Arthur Sewell  16. from The Dreams of Learning D. G. James  17. The Heights and the Depths: A Scene from King Lear Harry Levin  18. King Lear L. C. Knights  19. Some Aspects of the Style of King Lear Winifred M. T. Nowottny  20. The Catharsis of King Lear J. Stampfer  21. The Ending of King Lear Nicholas Brooke  22. King Lear: Action and World Maynard Mack  23. from King Lear Helen Gardner  24. Shakespeare in Britain Robert Speaight  25. Epilogue Kenneth Muir