Oldal 11 [11]
INTRODUCTION: KING LEAR—A DRAMATIZED EARLY
MODERN MIRROR OF GOVERNANCE
—o> —
For Kings being publike persons, by reason of their office and authoritie, are as it
were set (as it was sayd of old) vpon a publique stage, in the sight of all the people;
where all the beholders eyes are attentiuelie bent, to looke and pry in the least
circumstance of their secretest driftes.
(James I, King of England Basilikon Doron')
This book presents the results of my academic interest in William Shakespeare’s
King Lear, an interest that began with my first reading of the play as an
undergraduate student. I could not possibly include mention of all the books,
articles, lectures, and discussions that generated and influenced the ideas and
thoughts to which I have tried to give expression in the following pages. But
in order to confine myself to a guiding thread which may provide internal
coherence within this accumulated mass of knowledge, I intend to pose and
address a single question. Since the main concern of this book is to describe the
distinctive features of the Shakespearean text, I phrase this question as follows:
what makes the 1608 Quarto version of William Shakespeare’s King Lear an
outstanding and exceptional work of art? My preliminary answer is that this
work represents a dramatized mirror of governance, the poetic features of
which are determined both by Shakespeare’s poetic craft and by the rhetorical
tradition set by the public discourses of his age.
Undoubtedly, the term “mirror of governance” bears a strong resemblance
to a conventional literary genre called “mirror for princes,” which corresponds
roughly to the Latin “speculum principis” or the German “Firrstenspiegel.”
This correspondence, however, is partial, because the English representatives
of the genre published between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries are
significantly different from the ones who published on the continent. As
Wilhelm Kleineke, the author of the only existing comprehensive monograph
! James I, King of England: Basilikon Doron or His Maiesties Instrvctions to His Dearest Sonne,
Henrie the Prince, London, imprinted by Richard Field, for lohn Norton, according to the
Copie printed at Edenburgh, 1603, sig Alv.
“Qe