"Cliff Notes - King Lear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

writer of two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of
Lucrece. These poems were favorably received and launched his
reputation.

About the same time, he turned his attention to the theater. He
wrote one tragedy, Titus Andronicus, but most of his earliest
plays were comedies, including The Comedy of Errors, Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labor's Lost, and The Taming of the
Shrew. Romantic comedy, satire, farce--all flowed from his pen
at the outset of his career. They concerned relationships among
lovers, friends, families, but they didn't plumb the depths.

Overlapping the production of these comedies were his earliest
history plays. Toward the end of the 16th century Shakespeare
produced the series of four great historical works that remain
the pinnacle of his achievement in that type of theater--Richard
II; Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; and Henry V.

As the years wore on, Shakespeare turned from his interest in
politics and the glorification of England to more profound
comedies. Two of the best known, Measure for Measure and All's
Well that Ends Well, show an interest in darker human
behavior.

It's not surprising, then, that the greatest of Shakespeare's
tragedies were also written during this period, the first decade
of the new century. Now the poet-playwright was at the absolute
height of his powers, and one brilliant drama followed the
next--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all written and
performed within a few short years.

Shakespeare was still relatively young, but he had matured. He
was a playwright of some repute, and also an actor who performed
both in his own plays and in plays by others. He could very
well afford to look around and question why everything in life
wasn't perfect and rosy.

King Lear examines a broad range of philosophic ideas. There's
a somber tone and not much frivolity in the play. But the
playwright in Shakespeare knew he couldn't simply stage a dull
discussion of abstract notions. And so he told a story in order
to hold the audience's attention and to get his points across.
The play explores more profound themes than any of Shakespeare's
tragedies, but it also offers a central figure of such heroic
proportion that our attention is riveted to him and his fate.
When you read the play today, or see it performed, you can't
help but be moved by the powerful speech Shakespeare puts into
the mouths of his characters--speech so rich and poetic that
some readers refer to King Lear as Shakespeare's greatest
poem.