Rewritten Texts & Changing Interpretations

• Based on The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters Gonoril, Ragan, and Cordella, which Shakespeare himself may have acted in.  
• Lear's likening of Cordelia to a dog, horse, and a rat 'diminish the beloved Cordelia to less than vermin'  


  Pamela Bickley
• The Nahum Tate version ends with a 'jaunty, triumphalist couplet' between Edgar and Cordelia, who jointly rule.