King Lear was written sometime between 1603 and 1606, years when the plague regularly swept through England and Europe. In our own pandemic era, Lear continues to resonate because it seems most cannily to echo our experience (and perhaps Shakespeare’s) of a plague-ridden world: time out of joint, families and nation splintered. Lear – isolated, severed from himself, raging at hurricanoes and howling with grief – embodies a very 2020 frame of mind. No wonder the legend of Shakespeare writing King Lear during a plague breakout became a viral meme in the early days of COVID lockdown, echoing our experience of an overturned world order while also inviting us to channel the anxieties of the moment into artistic creation.

The first recorded performance of Lear took place on December 26, 1606 at the court of King James I, and the playhouses had indeed been closed earlier that year due to plague. As a reflection of the anxieties of its day, however, King Lear is more preoccupied with power: its embodiment, retention, dissemination and transfer. The question of succession had been a pressing one during the reign of Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen.” Now, the ascension of James I introduced a new royal family, reframing the question of generational stability and transfer of power. Lear’s earliest audiences might have found its premise – of a king deciding his children’s inheritance – newly relatable given that, for the first time in nearly fifty years, England’s monarch had children. King Lear presented James I and his court with an object lesson in how a royal family’s internal strife could threaten national stability.

Yet if the tragedy was meant as a cautionary tale, James was already aware of some of its lessons. The story of Lear was recorded in the 12th century by the Welsh historiographer Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose History of the Kings of Britain includes the tale of Leir, an ancient King of the Britons, who divided his kingdom among his three daughters. In this account, Leir descends from Brutus of Troy, legendary first king of Britain (himself a descendant of Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome). Upon his death, Brutus divided his kingdom among his three sons: to Locrinus was bequeathed the territory that came to be known as England; to Albanactus, Scotland; to Camber, Wales. James I was only too well aware of this origin myth for the struggles for autonomy among Britain’s peoples. While King of Scotland, in 1599 he published Basilikon Doron (The Royal Gift), a treatise on government dedicated to his eldest son. In it, he wrote: “If God send you succession … make your eldest son Isaac, leaving him all your kingdoms; and provide the rest with private possessions: Otherwayes by deviding your kingdoms, yee shall leave the seed of division and discord among your posteritie.” Four years later, James inherited the English crown and England and Scotland were unified under his rule, thus raising the question of whether his heir(s) would sustain this union or divide the kingdom once more.

BEFORE THE PLAY BEGINS
Lear, the long-reigning King of Britain, has three daughters. The elder two, Goneril and Regan, are married; the youngest, Cordelia, has a number of royal suitors. Lear is ready to settle the question of their inheritance.

Ariane Helou