King Lear

I know I shouldn't be thinking it, but every time I hear a detailed analysis I always do. Are authors and artists and orators--was Shakespeare--really that smart?


Honestly, how complete could a person's thoughts be to not only think such grand thoughts but to write them in verse and in a way that's so universal? To be taken from so many angles and analyzed across so many fields? To be studied for centuries? Did the creators of our masterpieces really know what they were doing?

Professor Richmond-Garza commented on so many aspects of King Lear in her lecture. She introduced the work through a partial reading of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl." She then related an extensive, and (in my opinion) very interesting analysis which considered Lear as an elderly man suffering from a disease such as Alzheimer's. He is then stripped unceremoniously from everything familiar and is made a horribly fragile and reduced man at the beginning of the play. Richmond-Garza delved into great detail during the lecture and covered a wide array of compelling and equally gloomy topics, but it seems that she had hardly skimmed the surface.

It's so interesting to me how many different thoughts and readings stem from Shakespeare's plays. In one hour we considered the psychological, the historical and the contemporary readings of King Lear. And again I wondered throughout her lecture how much Shakespeare intended us to think, and how much we are only supposed to take this play as a story, as entertainment. As Richmond-Garza said, Hamlet was so exciting to its contemporary audience not because of its soliliqouys but because it had the most elaborately staged fight scene to date!

After all of this I have a confession to make...I am not the biggest Shakespeare fan. I love his themes, but who couldn't? They're so universal and he makes them completely unavoidable. The language is not my favorite, however, and I feel that at times his plays are oversaturated. Ultimately though, I'm excited to see the upcoming adaptation of the play, stripped of everything but emotion. Hope to see you guys there!

PS. An anagram of King Lear is Kling Ear. Egotistical of me maybe, but kind of cool at the same time...I am immortalized?