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Leo Salingar (essay date 1978)

SOURCE: "Romance in King Lear," in English, Vol. XXVII, No. 127, Spring, 1978, pp. 5-21.

[In the essay below, Salingar contends that Shakespeare uses elements of literary romance to intensify the conventions of tragic action in King Lear.]

At first sight, there is something paradoxical about emphasising romance in a discussion of King Lear. Romance implies prominently, especially in the theatre, a tale of trials and strange adventures, culminating in a happy ending for the sympathetic characters—so that we can be 'pleased', as Dr. Johnson says in praise of Nahum Tate's adaption of Shakespeare, by 'the final triumph of persecuted virtue'. But, by removing the shock of Cordelia's death and restoring a fortunate ending to the plot, Tate reverses Shakespeare's decision; whereas the latter, in Johnson's words, has 'suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural...

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1. Introduction
2. Overviews
   1. Leo Salingar (essay date 1978)
   2. Graham Holderness, Nick Potter, and John Turner (essay date 1988)
3. Patriarchal Order
   1. Rosalie L. Colie (essay date 1974)
   2. Stephen Greenblatt (essay date 1982)
   3. Marianne Novy (essay date 1984)
   4. Kathleen McLuskie (essay date 1985)
4. Sexuality And Gender
   1. Robert H. West (essay date 1960)
   2. Paul A. Jorgensen (essay date 1967)
   3. Peter Erickson (essary date 1985)
   4. Coppelia Kahn (essay date 1986)
5. The Daughters
   1. Roy W. Battenhouse (essay date 1965)
   2. William R. Elton (essay date 1966)
   3. Stanley Cavell (essay date 1966-67)
   4. John Bayley (essay date 1981)
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright