| Christian Lexis: | pilgrimage, salvation, damnation |
| Maxwell | Christian play about a pagan world |
| The gods remain | inscrutable and disinterested in human affairs |
| Peter Brook RSC 1962 | showed three outcasts on a bare stage – victims of malignant fate in a hostile universe – rags- apocalyptic vision |
| Oh dear | father / it is thy business that I go about |
| Redemptionist interpretation | dominated critcism in first half of 20th century – Cordelia seen as an agent of Lear’s regeneration and idealised as a saintly figure |
| Dowden (Cordelia) | a pure redeeming ardour |
| Secular pieta image | presents her as a martyr |
| Simon Palfrey | if Cordelia exemplifies Christ, it is at the moment of crucifixion not resurrection |
| Edgar plays God: Why | do I trifle thus with his despair/ is done to cure it |
| This shows | you are above/ You justicers that these our nether crimes/ so speedily can venge |
| Albany is grateful to | the judgement of the heavens |
| As flies | to wanton boys are we to the gods/ they kill us for their sport |
| Stanley Cavell | the pressure of tragedy which makes people seek divinity and invert their values spring other fundamental questions about the human condition to the fore |
| Humanist appraoch | ‘thou nature art my goddess’ |
| Simon Palfrey 2 | repetition of certain words invariably embody a play’s most profound struggles – nothing |
| RSC Ian McKellen film 2008 | Play ends with Edgars final words as a voiceover as he raises arms towards heaven in plea – immediately drops them in despair and weeps |
| Lawrence Olivier film 1980 | emphasised pre-christian setting – stone henge circle |
King Lear: Nature/ Religion
July 8, 2019