SUMMER ISSUE!

SUMMER IS HERE!

Is it barbecues and camping? Vacations and hiking? What is your summer like wherever you are? Summer fruits? Great tomatoes from your garden? Flowers? Amusement parks? (Kids driving you nuts during summer vacation?)

Tell us. 

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LEAR REVISITED

King Lear is Shakespeare's exemplary work of tragic depth, however, it is relevant to current generational issues: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”  In Shakespearian times, and throughout history, there have been bloodlines: bloodied lines indeed, to support the concept that the oldest (son, only otherwise a daughter) was to be a Monarch.  Being a King or Queen had benefits - and pitfalls.  You may be murdered you for your Title, or you might be nimble or lucky enough to grow old.  King Lear managed to become old.  There are more than two paths to aging.  “Wisdom” which he seemed to have a dearth of, and the other, these days we call senility - or Alzheimer’s.

Cordelia,the youngest, was the most beloved - and honest.  Sisters Goneril and Regan had skilful and accurate ideas on how to make Lear their puppet with sweet, sycophantic words, while declaring extravagant undying love.  Goneril: “As much as child e’er loved, or father found; A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; Beyond all manner of so much I love you.”  Sweet words that Lear is hungry to hear as he is ready to give his Kingdom away while the royal “we, Unburthen’d crawl toward death.”

Believing that Goneril has fallen short so, Regan finds herself “alone felicitate in your dear highness’ love.  Poor Cordelia knows she is up next, but as one who is not eloquent of tongue, she says to herself (aside) “Then poor Cordelia! And yet not so; since I am sure, my love’s More richer than my tongue.”

Perhaps, in her straightforward honesty, she was not aware of the thin line between diplomacy and honesty?  She states baldly: “I love your majesty According to my bond; nor more no less.”  Lear was used to lavish praise, as an all powerful King.  Cordelia is discarded with the frank and honest Kent, who baldly states “I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.”

As tragedy, there is bloodshed and war, then the humbling indignity Lear suffers: Kent is blinded and Cordelia dies.  Lear sees the error, way too late. He implores the weather (which is objective, and beyond hypocrisy -) although Shakespeare uses the weather and external events to mirror the action - to do justice for him.  (ps. note for you: This is an example of the 'sympathetic fallacy' - look it up & use the term if you like it.)

“Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul! (3.2.2)”

Now, what is the relevance today?  If you fail to recognize some aspect of you or your children in this, then either you are great parents, or Goneril and Regan still live.  Wealth doesn’t matter - or does it?  There are the entitled among every culture, race, monetary system and dominion.  Lear didn’t have the luxuries of air-conditioning, decent plumbing, fine physicians, Wi-Fi, or much more than mercurial power.  Yet, vulnerability (even among the powerful) and flattery, remains as established in diplomacy as the modern phrase, “You must first love yourself to love anyone else.”  This is a different subject, for a different time.

Many parents have a special child that they love a tad more than the others.  If that child, during the crucial time to fill out the will, or give the family business away, just said, “Yes, I love you guys, just as I am supposed to do?”  How about the other two kids who say, “Wow, without you, I’d have blown away like tumbleweed and lost my way in the desert?” Or, “Mom and Dad, I swear, we could be the same age, but you are so-o-o much smarter?”

Do you feel entitled without a title?  How many times have you said “I need to get away, to a spa? Get my hair styled, or my mani-pedi” - when you’ve not seen your son or daughter’s soccer match in months? Do you remember not being a “Baby-daddy” but a responsible Father or a Mom who is overwhelmed and tosses back wine with your girlfriends?  Do you work in a position where you get to be boss over someone?  Do you treat them with respect, or remember that you might have been bullied and just, giving back … justice.  Time goes by: are you one who takes responsibility for your flawed, all-too-human frailties, or, like Lear, do you blame the winds, or perhaps, God, gods, parents, children, genetics, government and/or bad luck?

We look at the play and say “no, not me.”  These are extremes, and Shakespeare is a supreme portrait painter of the 'fatal flaw'*.  Are those who don’t learn from history doomed to repeat it? Shakespeare deals seriously with matters just as important now as they were in the sixteenth century. History deals with the particular, and tragedy with the universal. * There are many repetitions of this in dance, music, and crafts.  .

In the final scene, King Lear remains broken, the revenge he demands is done. In this, he was “Every inch a King”. “Katharsis” is achieved.

*See Aristotle’s theory of tragedy (http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html ) which is very relevant to Shakespeare, especially the concept of ‘Katharsis’ … Shakespeare is one of a long line of tragedians from the ancient Athenians to Arthur Miller who were influenced by Aristotle. 
-------------Cathy DeWolf

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