The Importance of the First Two Scenes in King Lear
“King Lear, as I see it, confronts the perplexity and mystery of human
action.” (Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies, 169) As the previous quotation
from the scriptures of Maynard Mack implies, King Lear is a very complex and
intricate play which happens to be surrounded by a lot of debate. “The folio
of 1623, which was, as is well known, edited by two of Shakespeare’s fellow
actors” (Notes and Essays on Shakespeare, 242), contains not only historical
errors, but errors which pertain to certain characters speaking other
characters lines. Amidst all the controversy one fact can be settled upon by
all; King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s best tragedies. While being a great
play, the bulk of the plot in King Lear comes mainly from the first two scenes
where most of the key events happen. Along with the plot there is also
extensive amounts of setup that occur within the dialogue which key the
audience in on the morals and values of the characters. Marilyn French is
completely accurate when she states that “Everything about the play hangs on
the first two scenes not just the plot but the values as well” (Shakespeare’s
Division of Experience, 226).
The opening scenes of King Lear do an immaculate job of setting up the
plot and forming the basis for all the events which occur in the later scenes
of the play. “The elements of that opening scene are worth pausing over,
because they seem to have been selected to bring before us precisely such an
impression of unpredictable effects lying coiled and waiting in an apparently
innocuous posture of affairs.” (Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies, 170) Not onl…
…ill unfold. The first two scenes of King Lear are pivotal in
influencing every aspect of the play including the plot, and the values of the
characters contained within the plot.
Works Cited
Clemen, Wolfgang. The Development of Shakespeare’s Imagery. New York, NY, USA:
Methuen & Co. 1977.
French, Marilyn. Shakespeare’s Division of Experience. New York: Summit Books.
1981.
Hales, John. Notes and Essays on Shakespeare. New York, NY, USA: AMS Press. 1973.
Lerner, Laurence. Shakespeare’s Tragedies. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
1964.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. As reprinted in Elements of Literature.
Toronto: Oxford University Press. 1990.
Young, David. Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies – A Collection of Critical Essays.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1993.