Lear's Other Shadow : A Cultural History of Queen Lear / Thomas G. Olsen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Olsen, Thomas G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cordelia (Legendary character).

Women in literature.

Women on television.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. King Lear.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Characters.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Television criticism and reviews.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (260 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Newark, D.E. : University of Delaware Press, [2025]

Summary:

"Lear's Other Shadow: A Cultural History of Queen Lear offers a deep cultural analysis of the figure of Queen Lear, who shadows and eventually sometimes overshadows her royal husband across the nearly 1000-year life of this archetypal tale. What appears to be a deliberate strategy of suppression, even erasure in Shakespeare's King Lear later inspired dozens of stage, page, and cinematic remakes and adaptations in which this figure is revived or remembered, often pointedly so. From Jacob Gordin's Yiddish-language Miriele Efros (1898), through edgy stage remakes such as Gordon Bottomley's King Lear's Wife (1915) and the Women's Theatre Group's Lear's Daughters (1987), to novelized retellings from Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres (1991) to Preti Taneja's We That Are Young (2018) and J.R. Thorp's Learwife (2021), and even the television series Empire (2015-2020) and Succession (2018-2023), Queen Lear regularly emerges from her shadowy origins to challenge how we understand the ancient King Leir/King Lear story. These and many other examples reveal fascinating patterns of adaptation and reinterpretation that Lear's Other Shadow identifies and analyzes for the first time, showing how and why Queen Lear is at the center of this ancient story, whether she is heard from or not"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

A Brief Note on Texts and Terminology

Introduction: Toward a Cultural History of Queen Lear

1. The King Leir Legend before Shakespeare

2. Queen Lear in King Lear

3. King Lear's Other Shadow: Staging the Absent Queen

4. Fire Us Forth on Fox TV: The Queen on Screen

5. Reviving Queen Lear in Modern Fiction

Conclusion: The Quality of Nothing

Appendix: Works Briefly Mentioned in Main Text

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781644533581

1644533588