Breaking the Shakespearean code : King Lear, gunpowder and the scholarship of 'innocent fraud' / Mike Wilcock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilcock, Mike, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. King Lear--Criticism and interpretation.

Shakespeare, William.

Christianity and literature.

Reformation.

King Lear (Shakespeare, William).

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiv, 294 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Dublin, Ireland : Carysfort Press, 2016.

Summary:

"The book sees 'King Lear' as a play about division, and interprets that division in terms of 16/17th-century European-wide religious conflicts that followed the Reformation split between Rome and Protestantism. Countries are 'in discord', and kingdoms are divided. King James I claimed four kingdoms. Two were Protestant; two were Catholic. The book explores these tensions particularly through the suffering of Lear, and the 'pilgrimage' of Gloucester with Lear's 'godson', Edgar. Edgar/Lear's password (Folio: 'Sweet Mariorum') suggests that the name Mary is central, as indeed are other names and anagrams. Mary, Queen of Scots was, like Cordelia, a British princess, who became Queen of France, but also like her died in a British prison at the hands of ruthless political operatives. Thus Cordelia's unjust execution in Act 5 is a kind of pietà, an image of the cruel fate of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary's martyrdom in 1587 created a tsunami of fury that culminated in the madness of the Gunpowder Plot. The drama intends to 'catch the conscience of the king', for James had co-operated fully with the English in the execution of Mary in 1587. He had chosen power over love, and the struggle between those incompatible old enemies is a key not only to the opening scene, but is the central preoccupation of the play." --publisher's website.

Contents:

Land, love, and the real deal

The war in King Lear

'Infra quatuor Maria'

Real Mary-Gold

Filtering the Shakespearean Lake.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-287) and index.

ISBN:

9781909325807

1909325805

OCLC:

945947758

Publisher Number:

99969642417