CRITICISM

Bennett, Susan. “Godard and Lear: Trashing the Can(n)on.” Theatre Survey 39, no. 1 (May 1998): 7-19.

Evaluates Jean-Luc Godard's celluloid adaptation of King Lear in the contexts of postmodern film and literature.

Buechner, Frederick. “Part 4.” In Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say): Reflections on Literature and Faith, pp. 125-54. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

Offers a reading of King Lear that is particularly informed by themes of love and mercy.

Danson, Lawrence. “King Lear.” In Tragic Alphabet: Shakespeare's Drama of Language, pp. 163-97. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974.

Offers a thematic analysis of King Lear from the perspective of the drama's language, and additionally assesses structural patterns associated with ritual, madness, and suffering.

Davis, Nick. “‘These Late Eclipses’: Reason's Primal Scene.” In Stories of Chaos: Reason and Its Displacement in Early Modern English Narrative, pp. 121-58. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1999.

Poststructuralist assessment of King Lear based upon motifs of written communication and mathematical calculation in the drama.

de Grazia, Margreta. “The Ideology of Superfluous Things: King Lear as Period Piece.” In New Casebooks: Shakespeare's Tragedies, edited by Susan Zimmerman, pp. 255-84. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Marxist-materialist reading of King Lear that analyzes the play in terms of the dynamics of commodity and luxury.

Dodd, William. “Impossible Worlds: What Happens in King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1?” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 4 (winter 1999): 477-507.

Closely concentrates on the dramatic exchanges between Lear and Cordelia in the opening scene of King Lear in order to highlight the dramaturgical and historically representative functions of these characters.

Edwards, Michael. “King Lear and Christendom.” Christianity & Literature 50, no. 1 (autumn 2000): 15-29.

Valorizes a Christian, but not a reductive Christian-allegorical, interpretation of King Lear.

Elliott, G. R. “The Initial Contrast in Lear.” In Dramatic Providence in “Macbeth”: A Study of Shakespeare's Tragic Theme of Humanity and Grace with a Supplementary Essay on “King Lear,” pp. 235-50. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960.

Suggests that King Lear should be understood in terms of the Renaissance dramatic contrast between reason and passion.

Fly, Richard. “Beyond Extremity: King Lear and the Limits of Poetic Drama.” In Shakespeare's Mediated World, pp. 85-115. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976.

Argues that King Lear pushes the ordinary boundaries of drama in order to intensify its internal and emotional conflicts.

Gardner, Helen. “King Lear.” In “King Lear”: Critical Essays, edited by Kenneth Muir, pp. 251-74. New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.

Surveys the plot, characters, language, and setting of King Lear, contrasting the drama with Shakespeare's other tragedies, and concluding with a summary of its major themes.

Grady, Hugh. “What Comes of Nothing: Reification and the Plebeian in King Lear.” In Shakespeare's Universal Wolf: Studies in Early Modern Reification, pp. 137-80. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Postmodern analysis of King Lear that provides an understanding of the ideological, social, and power structures depicted in the play.

Hunter, Robert G. “Conclusion—King Lear.” In Shakespeare and the Mystery of God's Judgments, pp. 183-96. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1976.

Probes issues of suffering and divine judgment in King Lear with regard to theological arguments of the Protestant Reformation.

Jackson, Esther Merle. “King Lear: The Grammar of Tragedy.” Shakespeare Quarterly 17, no. 1 (winter 1966): 25-40.

Explores the perennial critical question of whether Shakespeare's tragedies—particularly King Lear—are suited to stage performance in addition to study as written literature.

Jayne, Sears. “Charity in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly 15, no. 2 (spring 1964): 277-88.

Views charity in human relations as the chief emotional theme of King Lear.

Knowles, Richard. “Cordelia's Return.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 1 (spring 1999): 33-50.

Endeavors to explain the mysterious offstage events that lead up to Cordelia's return in Act IV, scene iv of King Lear.

McEachern, Claire. “Figures of Fidelity: Believing in King Lear.” Modern Philology 98, no. 2 (November 2000): 211-30.

Utilizes Reformation conceptions of faith in a study of the female figures in King Lear.

Muir, Kenneth, and Stanley Wells, eds. Aspects of “King Lear.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, 95 p.

A collection of nine essays that originally appeared in Shakespeare Survey between 1939 to 1979. The essays cover topics such as madness, catharsis, and costume in King Lear.

Ross, John Munden. “A Therapist's View of Lear.” Shakespeare Newsletter 49:3, no. 242 (fall 1999): 65-66, 74.

Psychoanalytic study of Lear's character, highlighting his dramatic “regression.”

Rothwell, Kenneth S. “In Search of Nothing: Mapping King Lear.” In Shakespeare, The Movie: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, and Video, edited by Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt, pp. 135-47. London: Routledge, 1997.

Concentrates on the metonymic significance of Lear's call for a map of his kingdom in the opening scene of King Lear as portrayed in various cinematic and theatrical productions of the drama.

Rutter, Carol. “Eel Pie and Ugly Sisters in King Lear.” In “Lear” from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism, edited by James Ogden and Arthur H. Scouten, pp. 172-225. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1997.

Considers Lear's daughters in performance, and observes that conventional understandings of Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia have been constrained by patriarchal assumptions that generally fail to allow these figures more than stereotypical and superficial qualities.

Schell, Edgar. “The Skeptical Traveler: King Lear and the End of the Pilgrimage.” In Strangers and Pilgrims: From “The Castle of Perseverance” to “King Lear,” pp. 151-95. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Contends that the central interpretative problem of King Lear is found in the relationship between Lear and Cordelia, and concludes that the tragedy is essentially an epistemological rather than a moral one.

Schoff, Francis G. “King Lear: Moral Example or Tragic Protagonist?” Shakespeare Quarterly 13, no. 2 (spring 1962): 157-72.

Argues against didactic assertions regarding King Lear and maintains that Lear himself is a tragic figure.

Siegel, Paul N. “Adversity and the Miracle of Love in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly 6, no. 3 (summer 1955): 325-36.

Emphasizes Christian thematic elements in King Lear.

Snyder, Susan. “Between the Divine and the Absurd: King Lear.” In The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare's Tragedies: “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet,” “Othello,” and “King Lear,” pp. 137-79. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979.

Appraises underlying religious tensions in King Lear that are conveyed through the use of incongruity, humor, and the grotesque.

Spinosa, Charles. “‘The Name and All th' Addition’: King Lear's Opening Scene and Common-Law Use.” Shakespeare Studies 23 (1995): 146-86.

Draws upon historical common-law theory and practice to destabilize cultural materialist and new historicist understandings of King Lear.

Spotswood, Jerald W. “Maintaining Hierarchy in The Tragedie of King Lear.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 38, no. 2 (spring 1998): 265-80.

Contends that King Lear, while representing the potential for a subverted social hierarchy, ultimately dramatizes the symbolic boundaries between nobles and commoners.

Stern, Jeffrey. “King Lear: The Transference of the Kingdom.” Shakespeare Quarterly 41, no. 3 (fall 1990): 299-308.

Psychological study of love, desire, and loss in the relationship between Lear and Cordelia.

Wells, Stanley. Introduction to The History of King Lear, by William Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells, pp. 1-94. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

Presents detailed information on the composition, sources, language, and performance history of King Lear.