King Lear--Act Three

This act goes well beyond blogging material. We've encountered this a few times before, but I think that in this act we have the most sublime piece of writing in the English tradition. With Hamlet, I could say some things because so many people before me haven't been bothered about adding their crap onto Hamlet, whose countrymen are now so out of favor here in Chicago. With Lear, it is different.

And so I turn to peripheral matters. Matters peripheral to the play. It's come with me a few times down to Hyde Park, where I now work at the Unitarian Universalist seminary, Meadville Lombard Theological School. To get there, I walk past this great bookstore on 57th street, I think it's called 57th street books or something. At street level they have these two display windows, both done out now for Halloween. So it full of books on vampires and zombies. Today there was a new addition not only to the window but to our pop culture's obsession with monsters: werewolves. This bothers me a little, because I was pretending to plan a book about a werewolf hunter. I think that it would have done quite well.

These gothic themes come and go in our culture. Right now, you have two possibly distinct movements. Young people are obsessed with vampires because of Ms. Meyer's not very good books (or, books not aimed to please me). I've heard it suggested that these are written to make teen sex seem dangerous again. I think that most of us already knew that teen sex was awkward and dangerous (pregnancy, parents coming home) and complicated. Most of us probably think not that we wouldn't do it again, but that we would change every single facet of how we did it. That's an interesting idea to me, though: the function these gothic stories are playing in our culture at large. I think of Anne Rice pumping out all those vampire books as AIDS was getting going and we were all becoming aware of the danger in blood and sex.

The other trend is the hipsters' love for zombie stuff. I think this one is pretty clear. They're scared of growing up. Especially, they're scared of growing up into the suit-wearing "zombies" they see out there. Shakespeare vs. Zombies regrets its association with this movement. It was done in ignorance. Kind of like how I have four pages of a story that turned out to be a crappier verson of HBO's Bored to Death. When is it first suggested to me that these things are cool? And then when do I realize that I've aligned myself with something much bigger? Kind of like Freedom. You start thinking about freedom, how great it is and everything--and then before you know it you're propping up banana republics in South America and invading countries in the Middle East. And then, mysteriously, winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Act three truly is as good as English gets. Lear is crazy and in the woods and eventually a cave. He's hanging out with Kent, who is there in disguise, and Edgar, who is disguised as a mad man but keeps breaking character to talk about how sad he is about Lear, and the Fool, who a few moments previously steps right the hell out of the play and tells us, directly, that he lives several hundred years before Merlin. It's wild. It's great. It's taken me way too long to blog about it.

These things are intimidating. And then it's been a week. And then two.

Hmmm,what do I have to say about King Lear that I think is interesting enough to put on the internet, where anyone could potentially see it and at least two family members and friends certainly will? I guess I remain old-fashioned that this thought even crosses my mind. I should be doing this in Twitter or something. But that name reminds me too much of certain lines the Fool coos into Lear's boiling brain. Lear gave me a mantra a few years ago: Not that way, that way madness lies.

King Lear--4 (Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter)

Small decisions have built up to wear me out today. This past weekend Jackie's parents were in town and we went to this breakfast place a little above Lincoln Park. As we drove through, I saw a lot of cool looking coffee places with outdoor seating, which is basically what I want in life. So, I decided today that I would break my usual routine and go out to Lincoln Park to read some King Lear.

That is a simple decision. No problem. Also, I tend to walk everywhere I go. I rarely take the train, have yet to take a bus here in Chicago, and try not to drive. So, I started off, figuring I'd walk for as long as I felt like it, then take a train if I wanted to. Lincoln Park is about three miles away from where we live. So I'm walking, but about the time that I had gone a mile and half or so and was getting sick of walking, it started to seem like a waste to pay several bucks to ride a train. So I kept walking. Eventually, I get to Lincoln Park but there was nothing really to do on the street I was on, so I turned left for a few blocks. Nothing. So I turned left to get a Coke from a Shell station I could see a few blocks away. And then I was lost and wanted to get back to a road I knew, so I turned left again. Well, that made more or less a square that added more or less a mile onto my walk. As I still hadn't found anything cool, I went back down, further away from downtown.

Eventually I was just tired and walked halfway home before catching a train. It was a huge and tiring waste of time. But, I did discover some interestingly named streets. I spent a bewildered while on Goethe street, which ran past a huge complex of homes called Sandburg Village, which included buildings named Eliot and Kilmer. I don't really know what neighborhood I was in at that point, but I think that it was gentrified stuff. Still kind of weird.

I'm loving Kent. He comes across this guy Oswald, a messenger for Goneril. Here's the speech of insults he gives:
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.

Good stuff, right?

King Lear--3 (We have seen the best of our time)

This first act is packed with stuff that I think is really interesting. Scene two features Gloucester ruminating on all the crazy stuff that just happened at the court. Then, he is too easily fooled by Edmund, his bastard son, into thinking that Edgar, his "legitimate" son, is trying to take over. I want to skip on to scene four, because it has a lot to do with me, but these two characters, Edmund and Edgar, are really important, so I want at least to mention them. There's not much to say yet about Edgar. First Edmund easily tricks Gloucester about Edgar, then he easily tricks Edgar into acting in an incriminating way. So, not much strength for Edgar, but he grows. Edmund gives an interesting but ultimately unilluminating speech about nature being his goddess and about how bastardy shouldn't be considered base. It's a good speech and is illustrative of Edmund's character, but it does not hold the clue to why he is evil.

But enough. That scene ends with Edgar fleeing, Gloucester determined to punish him for a letter he never wrote. What I really want to talk about is unemployment. Yes, this is the soul-crushing reality in which I continue to live, but also it remains a key element in Lear. Kent was fired and banished as an adviser in scene one. In scene four, he's back in disguise, determined to get his old job back. Consider the following job interview:

KING LEAR

Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.
Exit an Attendant
How now! what art thou?
KENT
A man, sir.
KING LEAR
What dost thou profess? what wouldst thou with us?
KENT
I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve
him truly that will put me in trust: to love him
that is honest; to converse with him that is wise,
and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I
cannot choose; and to eat no fish.
KING LEAR
What art thou?
KENT
A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.
KING LEAR
If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a
king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KENT
Service.
KING LEAR
Who wouldst thou serve?
KENT
You.
KING LEAR
Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT
No, sir; but you have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master.
KING LEAR
What's that?
KENT
Authority.
KING LEAR
What services canst thou do?
KENT
I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious
tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message
bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am
qualified in; and the best of me is diligence.
KING LEAR
How old art thou?
KENT
Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor
so old to dote on her for any thing: I have years
on my back forty eight.
KING LEAR
Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no
worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.

Lear asks questions not too much unlike what some employers ask, but Kent gives the answers that I wish we could all give. Imagine if he'd answered: I'm a detail-oriented self-starter with personal ambition but a commitment to a team environment. These buzz-words! These cliches! They are gut-wrenching, soul-sucking. Of course, it's highly unlikely that I will come across a potential employer whom I will want to serve on the basis of their apparent authority.

King Lear--2 (Lots of summary)

For me, this is Shakespeare's saddest play. If we were to try to name rivals for it, we might think of Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. But we can't really pity Hamlet and Romeo is so annoying that it takes a bit of imagination for an adult to be moved to tears over him. No, I think this is the saddest and it is indisputably one of the best. I plan to stay with it for a while, though I may jump around a little. I've already finished the first two acts, but the first scene bears some dwelling on. It is a really strange scene.

The first line deals with politics, with which of his sons-in-law Lear favors. The next few lines, rather suddenly, are a joke. Gloucester, the king's chief adviser, says something about this bastard son, Edmund. Kent, another adviser, replies "I cannot conceive you, sir." Gloucester replies "Sir, his mother could." This is a good joke (even if it pales in the retelling) but a weird start to such a weighty and sad play. There is more humor later in the play, but it is either grotesque or has a real tinge of gallows humor.

Anyway, just after this Lear comes in and begins the game whereby he's dividing the kingdom. He has no son and so is dividing the kingdom between his daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Cordelia is the youngest, the only good one, and Lear's favorite. The other two are already married and are bad, but no one know how bad just yet. The plan is for each daughter to tell Lear just how much they love him, and then he will apportion his kingdom accordingly. Then, keeping a retinue of 100 knights, he'll take turns staying with each of them.

A number of mysteries here. First, Lear has clearly already determined the divisions before the game. So why do the game? I don't know. Lear is a strange guy. Second, why divide the kingdom at all? Why not just let the eldest inherit it? I think he might be doing it so that he can be sure that Cordelia, his youngest, gets something. Lear says he's doing it to avoid future strife, but it doesn't take a Machiavelli to see that this plan won't achieve that.

Goneril and Regan play their parts and get their land, but Cordelia refuses to play along. Lear is enraged and disowns her, letting the King of France marry her without dowry. Kent tries to stop him, at which Kent is banished, but resolves to return in disguise to serve the king. This brings us to further mysteries. Third, we assume Cordelia knows her father pretty well and that this isn't the first stunt he's pulled. So why does she choose now to make her stand against his caprices? But the fourth and greatest mystery is Lear himself. What we see in this scene is a misguided, self-indulgent tyrant. And yet elsewhere in the play he is called "kind Lear" and all the characters we like are devoted to him: Cordelia, the Fool, Kent, Edgar, and Gloucester. This devotion shows strongest after Lear loses all his power, so it's not just the crown that these people love. It is the man. In the first two acts we can't imagine why, but by the end I, for one, love those who love Lear and hate those who don't. Kent talks about a native authority in Lear's aspect. Hmmm.

In the future, I'll summarize much less. Two concurrent plots, headed by Lear and Gloucester, respectively. Both choose their bad child(ren) and reject the good. Both are then abused by the bad ones, even unto death. Your villains are Edmund (Iago style), Goneril, and Regan. Your good guys are Edgar, Cordelia, France, the Fool. Don't let the numbers fool you, the good guys lose.

King Lear--1 (Every inch a king)

I've had three interviews in the past two weeks. Only one was directly for a job and it didn't turn out well. But at each interview I've been asked some variant of the question/command: "Tell me a little about yourself." This is an impossibly difficult question. What do they want to hear? Probably it's best to take the opportunity to explain my shoddy resume. But I don't have and never have had a job that explains much about "myself." Odd jobs, this and that.

What should I say to give an honest answer? That I have a wife, that I love her? Or something about my character? That would be most honest, I think. That my character was formed by the surprises I've had. That I learned anger, love, and humor helping my brother? That I learned compassion and shame and strength in Tennessee? That I relearned joy and light-heartedness and hope in Milwaukee? Or that my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best because I use absurd amounts of jelly. . .

I don't think that they want to know these things. They want to know the level of my skill with Microsoft Excel. But it becomes hard to talk about yourself when you don't have a vocation. After a while, parts of your personal story start to slip. King Lear is a tragedy of unemployment. Lear quits his job as king, divides the kingdom betwixt his three daughters according to how prettily they can say that they love him, and then loses his mind. He ends up wandering the wilderness, cursing at a storm.

But, when asked to describe himself, he knows what to say: "Every inch a king." I suppose that I am every inch a reader.

Henry VI, Part Two

The play: it is bad and I'd rather not talk about it.

The job search: it is bad and I'd rather not talk about it.

You could read these three plays as a kind of prelude to Richard III, but I'm not sure that Richard III is good enough to justify reading all three of these. Maybe if there were three poor plays that led up to Lear or Hamlet, okay. But this . . .

I've been putting off Lear, saving it for when it was needed. It's needed. I have several Histories left, some of them very good. But first, I need to read King Lear.

My mom is coming to visit us in Chicago this weekend. Should be awesome, but may make it a little difficult to read much Shakespeare.

Henry VI, Part One

Henry V is dead. If this does not induce wailing and gnashing of teeth for you, then you have never read the THREE parts of Henry VI. These are all pretty bad. Henry VI is a kid in this play, whose main character, I think, is this guy named Talbot.

The play is about two fights, one waning and one just getting started. As soon as Henry V dies, everything goes to hell (except brave Harry himself). During his funeral, the nobles start fighting. This fighting eventually grows into the War of the Roses. Part One has a scene in which the two sides spontaneously seize on their respective rose colors, thus setting up a catchy name for their civil war, which doesn't actually break out in this play.

The other fight is the war with France, which is winding up, breaking down, however you want to look at it. It's not going very well. Supplies are disrupted because the nobles are quarreling. Sir John Falstaff shows up. This is interesting. Shakespeare wrote Henry VI very early in his career, but as far as English history goes, it's after all the great histories. So, when we read this Falstaff we can't help but have in mind the brilliant stuff that historically has already happened but Shakespeare hasn't written yet. It's an interesting cameo, since in Henry V Shakespeare will kill off Falstaff before these wars. In a way, this gives us a means of resurrecting Falstaff and actuating Harold Bloom's biggest fantasy: that Falstaff takes off for the forest of Arden to hang with Rosalind, instead of dying of grief after Hal rejects him. The last we see him in this play, he's taking off, having been stripped of his knighthood--in France (where Arden is supposed to be).

We get another interesting cameo, too: Joan of Arc. Shakespeare for some reason calls her Joan la Pucelle. Joan the Virgin. She is a really crazy character: vulgar, inspiring, holy, evil, I don't know. Things come a little unhinged when Shakespeare has her conjure a bunch of devils. She asks them to help her. They won't. So she offers to have sex with them in exchange for helping her win the battle. They refuse. The English burn her at the stake.

I can't believe I have two more of these to go. Not sure if I can do all three consecutively. What's up with you?