King Lear

Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition

Kevin J. Donovan, Joseph Candido, Brian Vickers

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781350128415
• eBook ISBN: 9781350128422
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

This volume documents the reception and interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear by critics, editors and general readers from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. Following an introduction which provides an historical account of the play's critical reception from the earliest times to the present day, the volume presents a selection of original documents, together with contextual head notes and biographical sketches of the authors and a rationale for their selection, as well as a list of suggested further reading. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• General editor’s preface
• General editors’ preface to the revised series
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 George Chalmers, on the date of King Lear, 1799
• 2 Germaine de Staël, on King Lear and English national character, 1803
• 3 Francis Douce, on the Fool in King Lear, 1807
• 4 Leigh Hunt, on the superiority of the original King Lear to Tate’s adaptation, 1808
• 5 Edmond Malone, commentary on King Lear, c. 1812
• 6 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, commentary on King Lear, 1813
• 7 August Wilhelm von Schlegel, on the intensity of King Lear, 1815
• 8 Nathan Drake, commentary on King Lear, 1817
• 9 William Hazlitt, on King Lear as Shakespeare’s best play, 1817
• 10 Charles Lamb, on King Lear as unactable, 1818
• 11 John Keats, on the intensity of King Lear, 1818
• 12 George Hardinge, on the Fool, 1818
• 13 Leigh Hunt, on King Lear as unactable, 1820
• 14 Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the mingling of tones in King Lear, 1821
• 15 Franz Horn, commentary on King Lear, 1823
• 16 George Farren, on madness in King Lear, 1826
• 17 Augustine Skottowe, on King Lear and its sources, 1824
• 18 William Hazlitt, on King Lear’s timelessness and universality, 1826
• 19 Anna Brownell Jameson, praise for Cordelia, 1832
• 20 Ernst Schick, praise for the Fool, 1833
• 21 Heinrich Heine, praise for Cordelia, 1838
• 22 Henry Hallam, on the brilliance of King Lear, 1839
• 23 Hermann Ulrici, on the morality of King Lear, 1839
• 24 Henry Norman Hudson, on the heathen setting, 1848
• 25 Georg Gottfried Gervinus, on the mythic grandeur of King Lear, 1849
• 26 Herman Melville, on the ‘blackness’ of King Lear, 1850
• 27 François Pierre Guillaume Guizot, on the unity of King Lear, 1852
• 28 Henry Reed, on the historical setting of King Lear, 1855
• 29 Carl Conrad Hense, on the morality of the Fool, 1856
• 30 John Charles Bucknill, on madness in King Lear, 1859
• 31 Charles Cowden Clarke, on self-will in King Lear, 1863
• 32 Victor Hugo, praise for Cordelia, 1864
• 33 John Ruskin, on the redemptive femininity of Cordelia, 1865
• 34 Otto Ludwig, praise for the artistry of King Lear: c. 1865
• 35 Abner Otis Kellogg, on insanity in King Lear, 1866
• 36 Mary Preston, on Lear’s parental tyranny, 1869
• 37 Wilhelm Oechelhäuser, on the Fool and Cordelia, 1871
• 38 Henry Norman Hudson, on the style and characters of King Lear, 1872
• 39 Edward Dowden, on the moral mystery of King Lear, 1875
• 40 Francis Jacox, commentary on King Lear, 1875
• 41 John Wesley Hales, on Celtic racial features in King Lear, 1875
• 42 Nicolaus Delius, on textual variation in King Lear, 1876
• 43 Francis Hastings Charles Doyle, character criticism, 1877
• 44 Denton Jacques Snider, on dialectical conflicts of values in King Lear, 1877
• 45 Richard Grant White, on the Fool and Edmund, 1877
• 46 George Wilkes, on unnecessary cruelty and wickedness in King Lear, 1877
• 47 Joshua Kirkman, on animal imagery in King Lear, 1879
• 48 John Newby Hetherington, praise for the Fool, 1879
• 49 Algernon Charles Swinburne, on pessimism in King Lear, 1880
• 50 Dorothea Beale, on redeeming love in King Lear, 1881
• 51 Kate Richmond-Green, on mystery and grandeur in King Lear, 1882
• 52 Robert Ellis Thompson, on Celtic legal customs in King Lear, 1884
• 53 Richard Malcolm Johnston, on Lear’s parental love and folly, 1884
• 54 Tomasso Salvini, on three phases of Lear’s character, 1884
• 55 John George Dow, on King Lear as a fugual play, 1885
• 56 Laurence Gifford Holland, extravagant praise for the Fool, 1885
• 57 Richard Green Moulton, on King Lear’s moral logic, 1885
• 58 William Taylor Thom, a quantitative study of speeches in King Lear, 1885
• 59 Karl Elze, on King Lear as a critique of royal absolutism, 1888
• 60 Bernhard Egidius Konrad ten Brink, on King Lear as optimistic, 1893
• 61 Thomas Randolph Price, on King Lear’s plot structure, 1894
• 62 Barrett Wendell, on confusing and grotesque elements in King Lear, 1894
• 63 Henry Joseph Ruggles, on King Lear as a mythic image of the world, 1895
• 64 Frederick Samuel Boas, on spiritual triumph in King Lear, 1896
• 65 Georg Brandes, on the ruin of the moral world in King Lear, 1896
• 66 Jesse Talbot Littleton, on heredity and divine justice in King Lear, 1897
• 67 George Saintsbury, on King Lear as a tragedy of moral character, 1897
• 68 Hamilton Wright Mabie, on the titanic grandeur of King Lear, 1901
• 69 Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, on King Lear’s stern moral vision, 1901
• 70 Algernon Charles Swinburne, on Lear’s greatness, 1902
• 71 William John Courthope, a play better read than acted, 1903
• 72 William Butler Yeats, on the emotion of multitude in King Lear, 1903
• 73 Andrew Cecil Bradley, Shakespeare’s greatest work but not his greatest play, 1904
• 74 Jean Jules Jusserand, an excessively morbid play, 1904
• 75 Maurice Maeterlinck, on the grandeur and lyricism of King Lear, 1905
• 76 Morton Luce, on redemptive love in King Lear, 1906
• 77 Leo Tolstoy, on King Lear as a very bad play, 1906–7
• 78 Robert Seymour Bridges, on Shakespeare’s barbarous audience, 1907
• 79 Edmund Kerchever Chambers, on King Lear as a cosmic tragedy, 1907
• 80 Walter Raleigh, a rejection of moralizing character studies, 1907
• 81 Alfred Edward Taylor, on the moral vision of King Lear, 1907
• 82 Felix Emanuel Schelling, on the centrality of the characters, 1908
• 83 Johan August Strindberg, Lear is haunted by the memory of his wife, 1908
• 84 Lauchlan MacLean Watt, comparisons with Greek tragedy, 1908
• 85 Frank Harris, King Lear as an expression of Shakespeare’s bitterness, 1909
• 86 Morris LeRoy Arnold, on the language of the soliloquies, 1911
• 87 Hilaire Belloc, King Lear as an expression of the English national soul, 1911
• 88 Darrell Figgis, on intimations of divine judgement in King Lear, 1911
• 89 Frank Harris, on erotic mania in King Lear, 1911
• 90 Charles Harold Herford, on the character of Lear, 1912
• 91 Elmer Edgar Stoll, on Edmund’s criminality, 1912
• 92 Charles Frederick Tucker Brooke, on King Lear as a domestic tragedy and an optimistic play, 1913
• 93 Stopford Augustus Brooke, on King Lear’s godless world, 1913
• 94 Eleanor Prescott Hammond, on King Lear as a study in heredity, 1913
• 95 Brander Matthews, on King Lear’s unsuitability for the modern stage, 1913
• 96 Horace James Bridges, on King Lear’s moral vision, 1916
• 97 Arthur Clutton-Brock, on unworldliness in King Lear, 1916
• 98 Alexander Wellington Crawford, a tragedy of despotism, 1916
• 99 Benedetto Croce, on King Lear as a tragedy of good and evil, 1920
• 100 Frank James Mathew, on the play’s mixture of old and newer styles, 1922
• Select bibliography
• Index
• Copyright