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King Lear; With an Introduction and Notes
King Lear With an Introduction and Notes Author:William Shakespeare General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1893 Subjects: Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Drama / Shakespeare Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial acce... more »ss to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION. In all probability King Lear was written in 1605. At Date and all events the limits lie somewhere between 1603, the date of Harsnet's Declaration, etc., to which the Third Act has several allusions, and 1606, when the Play was entered in the Stationers' Registers. By some it has been supposed that Gloucester's words (in i. 2) regarding eclipses are in allusion to the great solar eclipse of October, 1605, and that when speaking further of " machinations, hollowness, treachery," he is meant to point to the Gunpowder Plot of November 5th, 1605. The Quarto and the Folio texts differ very materially, there being in the former about two hundred and twenty lines that are not in the latter, and fifty lines in the latter that are not in the former. This discrepancy has given rise to much interesting discussion as to the author of the excisions, as to whether they were systematic or accidental, and, if systematic, whether the object was to shorten the play for acting purposes or to emphasize dramatic effects. Space will not allow me to give more than the briefest summary of the conclusions to which some of the most eminent Shakespearean critics have come. Knight holds that Shakespeare himself systematically revised the Quarto with a view to heighten the 6 vii dramatic action; and Staunton seems to lean towards the same conclusion in accepting the fact that the additions to the Folio were undoubtedly Shakespoare's own. Delius, on the other hand, after going into the matter with the greatest minuteness, holds that the omissions...« less