Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. INTRODUCTION TO KING LEAR. THIS mighty drama is first heard of through an entry at the liam Shakespeare's History of King Lear; as it was played before the King's Majesty at Whitehall, upon St. Stephen's night at Christmas last. This ascertains the play to have been acted on the 26th of December, 1606. On the other hand, it contains divers names and allusions evidently borrowed from Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, which appeared in 1603. This is all the information we have as to the date of the writing. Most likely the play was in its first run of success on the public stage when it was called for at the Court. Three editions of it were printed in quarto in 1608. It was also reprinted, with some omissions, and many slight changes of text, in the folio of 1623. The drama, as regards the main plot, was founded on the historical legend of King Lear and his three Daughters, which refers to a period as far back as the ninth century before Christ. In Shakespeare's time, the legendary tale was largely interwoven with the popular literature of Europe. It is met with in various forms and under various names. The oldest version of it in connection with British history is from Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh monk of the twelfth century, who translated it from the ancient British tongue into Latin. From thence it was abridged by the Poet's favourite chronicler, Holinshed. The leading incidents of the story are there given very much as we have them in the play. It is to be noted, however, that the drama is in no sort a history, nor does it purport to be such it is a tragedy, and nothing else: the historical or legendary matter, be it more or less, is used in entire subservience to the general ends of tragic representation. The play, therefore, does not fall within the lines of any jurisdiction for settling dates: it is amenable to no laws but those of Art, any more than if it were entirely of the Poet's own creation. The subordinate plot of Gloster and his sons was probably taken from an episodical chapter in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Here the borrowing was less literal, being rather in the way of ideas than of incidents. In reference to this grand tragic combination, I probably cannot better serve the purpose of these Introductions than by transcribing the following from Gervinus: "Shakespeare has heightened the horrors of this tragedy merely by enlarging the original plot. To the story of Lear he has added the episode of Gloster: the ruin of a second family, the snares laid by an unnatural son for a father and brother, a father incensed against a guiltless son, all these are added to the injustice which Lear commits against one of his children, and suffers from the others. This episode, connected as it is by similarity of purport, Shakespeare has linked with the main action in a most spirited manner, weaving the double action, as it were, into a single one, but not without greatly heightening its harshness and cruelty. By placing Gloster's bastard son in the service and love of the terrible sisters, he causes Goneril's attempt on her husband's life, and the poisoning of her sister; he causes, moreover, Cordelia's execution, and her father's death. These |
