The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's King Lear. It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838.Stanley Wells, "Introduction" from King Lear, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 63; Stanley Wells and Michael Dobson, eds., The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 247; Grace Ioppolo, ed., King Lear, New York, Norton Critical Edition, 2008, Introduction, p. xii. While Tate's version proved extremely popular on the stage and received critical acclaim, the response of literary critics has generally been negative.
Unlike Shakespeare's tragedy, Tate's play has a happy ending, with Lear regaining his throne, Cordelia marrying Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declaring that "truth and virtue shall at last succeed." Regarded as a tragicomedy, the play has five acts, as does Shakespeare's, although the number of scenes is different, and the text is about eight hundred lines shorter than Shakespeare's. Many of Shakespeare's original lines are retained, or modified only slightly, but a significant portion of the text is entirely new, and much is omitted. The character of the Fool, for example, is absent.
Although many critics – including Joseph Addison, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Anna Jameson – condemned Tate's adaptation for what they saw as its cheap sentimentality, it was popular with theatregoers, and was approved by Samuel Johnson, who regarded Cordelia's death in Shakespeare's play as unbearable. Shakespeare's version continued to appear in printed editions of his works, but, according to numerous scholars, including A.C. Bradley and Stanley Wells, did not appear on the English stage for over a hundred and fifty years from the date of the first performance of Tate's play.A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, 1904. Reprinted by Macmillan 1976. Lecture VII, p. 199.Bradley, Lecture VIII, p. 261. Actors such as Thomas Betterton, David Garrick, and John Philip Kemble, who were famous for the role of Lear, were portraying Tate's Lear, not Shakespeare's.
The tragic ending was briefly restored by Edmund Kean in 1823. In 1838, William Charles Macready purged the text entirely of Tate, in favour of a shortened version of Shakespeare's original. Finally, Samuel Phelps returned to the complete Shakespeare text in 1845.
Comparison with Shakespeare
Shakespeare's version In Shakespeare's version, Lear, King of Britain, is growing old, and decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters – Goneril, wife of the Duke of Albany, Regan, wife of the Duke of Cornwall, and the youngest daughter, Cordelia, sought in marriage by the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. The King decides that he will give the best part of the kingdom to the daughter who loves him most, and asks his three daughters to state how much they love him. Goneril and Regan make hypocritical, flattering speeches, and are rewarded with a third each; Cordelia, however, cannot or will not stoop to false flattery for gain, and tells her father that she loves him as much as she should, and that she will love her husband as well if she marries. Enraged, the King disinherits and disowns his once-favourite child, and divides her portion between her two elder sisters. The loyal Earl of Kent speaks up boldly to defend Cordelia, and is banished by the furious King. The Duke of Burgundy withdraws his suit on finding Cordelia deprived of a dowry, but the King of France gladly accepts her as his bride.
In a sub-plot, the Earl of Gloucester is tricked by his wicked, illegitimate younger son, Edmund, into believing that his virtuous, legitimate elder son, Edgar is plotting his death. Edgar is forced to flee for his life, and disguises himself as a madman.
Kent, returning in disguise, offers himself in service to Lear, and is accepted. Lear also enjoys the loyalty of his Fool. Goneril and Regan, now that they have the kingdom, treat their father with contempt, and demand that he reduce the number of knights attending on him. Lear curses his daughters, and rushes out into the storm.
Gloucester tries to assist the King, despite being forbidden to by Regan and Cornwall. Edmund betrays his father, to inherit sooner. Regan and Cornwall interrogate Gloucester, and Cornwall gouges out Gloucester's eyes, before being killed by a horrified servant. Lear is raving in the storm with Kent and the Fool, his sanity gone. They are joined by Edgar, pretending to be mad. Edgar meets his blinded father. Grieved and shocked, he maintains his disguise but stays with his father and manages to save him from suicide.
Goneril and Regan both fall in love with Edmund and become jealous of each other. Edgar fights and kills a servant sent by Goneril to kill his father. He finds in the dead servant's pocket a letter from Goneril to Edmund, proposing that Edmund murder Albany and marry her. Cordelia meets Lear and they are reconciled. His frenzy has passed, and doctors are taking care of him.
Edgar, still disguised, gives Goneril's incriminating letter to Albany. An army, sent by Cordelia's forces in France, fights the British forces and is defeated. Lear and Cordelia are captured and sent to prison. Albany intends to show them mercy, but Edmund secretly sends a message to the prison to have them hanged. Edgar accuses Edmund of treachery, and challenges him to a duel. The two brothers fight, and Edmund is fatally wounded. Goneril rushes out in despair. Regan dies, and Goneril stabs herself to death, after confessing that she poisoned Regan. Edgar then reveals his identity to Edmund, and tells how their father died from frailty, joy, and grief, when Edgar revealed himself to him. Edmund expresses remorse, and confesses his order to have Lear and Cordelia hanged in prison. A reprieve is sent too late: Lear enters with Cordelia's body in his arms, howling in anguish. Kent tries to tell Lear how he served him in disguise, but Lear is unable to comprehend this, and has thoughts only for his dead daughter – "I might have saved her; now she's gone for ever." His heart breaks and he dies. Albany says that Kent and Edgar will rule in the Kingdom, but Kent hints at his own approaching death.
Tate's version Tate's version omits the King of France, and adds a romance between Cordelia and Edgar, who never address each other in Shakespeare's original. Cordelia explains in an aside that her motive for remaining silent when Lear demands public expressions of love is that he leave her without a dowry, so she can escape the "loathed embraces" of Burgundy. Nevertheless, when Burgundy departs, his obvious self-interest temporarily causes her to lose faith in Edgar's love and fidelity, and, left alone with him, she tells him not to speak to her again of love.
There is no Fool in Tate's version, so Lear, left to his daughters' mercies, has the fidelity only of the disguised Kent. Cordelia never leaves for France, but stays in England and tries to find her father in the storm, to help him. Tate gives her a servant or confidant, Arante. Tate adds further wickedness to the character of Edmund, who plans to rape Cordelia, and sends two ruffians to abduct her. They are driven off by the disguised Edgar, who then reveals his identity to Cordelia, and is rewarded by being accepted back into her love again.
The battle to restore Lear to the throne is not from a foreign army sent by Cordelia, but from the British people, who are resentful of the tyranny of Goneril and Regan, indignant at their treatment of Lear, and outraged by the blinding of Gloster (changed in spelling from Shakespeare's original). As in Shakespeare's version, Lear's side loses, and he and Cordelia are taken prisoner. Edmund ignores Albany's wish to show mercy, and sends a secret message to have them hanged. Edgar reveals his identity to Edmund before the brothers fight. Edmund dies with no sign of remorse and makes no attempt to save Lear and Cordelia. Instead of Goneril poisoning Regan and later stabbing herself, the two sisters secretly poison each other. Gloster survives the shock of learning the identity of Edgar, whom he has treated unjustly. Lear kills two men who approach Cordelia to hang her, and Edgar and Albany arrive with a reprieve. Albany resigns the crown to Lear, and Lear announces that "Cordelia shall be Queen." Lear gives Cordelia to Edgar – "I wrong'd Him too, but here's the fair Amends." Lear, Kent, and Gloster will retire "to some cool Cell." The overjoyed Edgar declares that "Truth and Virtue shall at last succeed."
Tate's version is about 800 lines shorter than Shakespeare's.Wells, p. 62. Some of Shakespeare's original lines are left intact; some are modified slightly, or given to different speakers. In the words of Stanley Wells, Tate "rather asked for trouble by retaining as much of Shakespeare as he did, thereby inviting odious comparisons with verse that he wrote himself." But Wells also points out that at the time that Tate was making his alterations, Shakespeare was not regarded as a master whose works could not be touched, but "as a dramatist whose works, however admirable, required adaptation to fit them for the new theatrical and social circumstances of the time, as well as to changes in taste."
Many of the changes that are made by Tate are a result of Restoration ideas of the time. Tate's play was popular in the 1680s, after the restoring of the monarchy after the Interregnum. This time is known as the Restoration and there were specific tastes and ideas about theatre at this time due to the political and social climate which influenced the changes Tate made. James Black supports this claim by stating, "The Restoration stage was often an extension of the real-life political and philosophical milieu." Tate chose to draw upon politics and restore Lear to his throne just as Charles II was restored as the English monarch making the play more topical and relatable with audiences at the time. Not only can Tate's restoring Lear to the throne be justified by Restoration sensibilities but the addition of the love story between Cordelia and Edgar, and the omission of the Fool are also the result of Restoration ideas.
Background and history The earliest known performance of Shakespeare's King Lear is one which took place at the court of King James I on 26 December 1606.Wells and Dobson, p. 247. Some scholars believe that it was not well received, as there are few surviving references to it.Charles Boyce, Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare, New York, Roundtable Press, 1990, p. 350. The theatres were closed during the Puritan Revolution, and while records from the period are incomplete, Shakespeare's Lear is only known to have been performed twice more, after the Restoration, before being replaced by Tate's version.
Tate's radical adaptation – The History of King Lear – appeared in 1681. In the dedicatory epistle, he explains how in Shakespeare's version, he realised that he had found "a Heap of Jewels, unstrung and unpolisht; yet so dazling in their Disorder, that [he] soon perceiv'd [he] had seiz'd a Treasure", and how he found it necessary to "rectifie what was wanting in the Regularity and Probability of the Tale," a love between Edgar and Cordelia, which would make Cordelia's indifference to her father's anger more convincing in the first scene, and would justify Edgar's disguise, "making that a generous Design that was before a poor Shift to save his Life."Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear, Epistle Dedicatory.