context

• hierarchies in mental faculty

  reason (angels) and instils (beast) - Lear loses mental faculty, position comes closest to beast echoed in storm - most of his reason comes from madness, sees detriment his tragic decision has caused
• place in Jacobean society

  Cordelia defies expectation of women to remain silent and obedient leading to Lear's rage - Edmund challenges laws and appeals to nature to provide reason why he should be regarded as base in society - rise of the middle class and commercial class (wealth not from land but education)
• Women


  expected to obey and serve fathers and husbands, Gonerill and Regan seen as evil in Jacobean audience, little respect for their father - may reflect queen Elizabeths challenges as monarch, society diminishes because of her gender although she was a highly influential ruler - women usually died in childbirth, absence of mothers may reflect this
• Superstition


  witches, demons and devils, astrology highly relevant, allowed to people to question misfortunes in society, influenced human events - wheel of fortune, those at the top knew they wouldn't stay there forever, Edmund 'the wheel hath come full circle'
• Gunpowder plot


  Christians tried to eradicate the royal family and parliament by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, some related to Shakespeare - King Lear wrote a year after - play echoes dangerous and uncertain times
• performance

  Cordelia and the fool played by the same actor
• Brain Annesley 


  His 2 eldest daughters attempted to get him classed as certified insane so they could take over his estate - youngest daughter (Cordell) protested and stopped this from happening
• King James


  on the thrown when the play was written and shown, England, Wales and Scotland unified - James' obsession with unification, tension between himself and parliament, Shakespeare plays on idea of catastrophic division of a country
• Divine rights of the King

  Kings hold divine powers appointed by the Gods - Lear embodies natural authority and order of the king (believable to Jacobean audiences) - disassociates himself with divine obligation leading to shocked audience - perhaps Lear's suffering is a divine force
• Great chain of being

  feudal hierarchal structure - hierarchal structure of all life - Lear goes against structures - subverts natural order - Jacobean audiences seen as decreed by God - suffering may be a consequence of defiance and disregard of divine appointment - God, angels, humans
• Illegitimacy


  Queen Elizabeth's legitimacy questioned, father Henry VIII many marital relations - echoed in Edmund and Edgar, Edmund challenges fate that has been dealt by law not nature (puts himself before his brother)