Oldal 12 [12]
SHAKESPEARE’S ART OF POESY IN KING LEAR
on this topic,’ explains, the state in England has never been an abstract idea,
but rather has remained a concept strongly connected to the person of the
monarch, who is also a legal entity. Therefore, the monarch embodies the
moral quality of the people; consequently, English “mirrors” in this period
focus on moral issues instead of legal or political ones, and they often lack
topical references. English mirrors also imply that political events emerge
as the immediate consequence of the moral qualities of the person of the
monarch, which explains why these works often become catalogues of virtues.
Still, this book does not propose that King Lear is to be considered as the
dramatized version of any contemporaneous work of this kind, regardless of
the fact that some sources which Shakespeare could have used for his play
are related to this genre. For instance, The Mirrour for Magistrates published
by John Higgins in 1574 contains a verse narrative, The Tragoedye of Cordila,
which gives an account of the Lear story from the youngest sister’s point of
view, who, in this version, eventually commits suicide in prison.*
My usage of the term “mirror of governance” is broader and more theoretical
in scope, and it refers to the well-known characteristic of Shakespearean drama
that it provides a theatrical reflection of Early Modern ideas both on the nature
of royal power in general and some topical matters related to the governance of
the Jacobean state, a feature that distinguishes the 1608 King Lear from many
other Early Modern versions of the Lear story.
Instead of focusing only on the relevance of its historical context and
the topical references of the play, in this book, I am primarily interested in
offering a description of the distinctive features of Shakespeare’s mastery of
composition. I use the term composition to signify the Early Modern unity
of the terms “poetics” and “rhetoric,” the former of which refers to the art
of creating a piece of literature for the sake of delight and instruction while
the latter stands for the construction of persuasive speech. As Brian Vickers
explains, the sharp distinction between these two notions emerged only in the
post-Romantic period of literary criticism, whereas in Early Modern times,
poetry used techniques of proof and persuasion, addressed itself to the practical
intellect and existed as a force for good or evil in the world. Renaissance readers
did not regard literary works as autotelic [...] In that period, classical rhetoric,
Wilhelm Kleineke: Englische Fürstenspigel vom Policraticus Johanns von Salisbury bis zum
Basilikon Doron König Jakobs I., Halle (Saale), Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1937, 1-22.
3 John Higgins: The First Parte of the Mirour for Magistrates contayning the falles of the first
infortunate princes of this lande: from the comming of Brute to the incarnation of our sauiour
and redemer Iesu Christe, London, 1574, fol. 47—54.
+ 10 +