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THE DRAMATURGICAL AND THEATRICAL HERITAGE:
A CONTRASTIVE READING OF MAGNYFYCENCE,
KING LEIR AND KING LEAR
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This chapter juxtaposes the 1608 King Lear Quarto with two other Early
Modern plays in order to reach a deeper understanding of the playwright’s
craft. One ofthese works has long been regarded as Shakespeare’s immediate
textual source, written sometime between 1588 and 1594 by an anonymous
playwright®® and published in 1605 as The True Chronicle Historie of King
Leir.® The other is John Skelton’s Magnyfycence,*° which Norland calls “the
first extant political morality play.” The term “contrastive reading” refers
to an interpretive attitude or strategy that does not aim to reach a critical
judgment on the aesthetic, educational, ethical, moral, or spiritual values of
these works but rather lays King Lear alongside the other contemporaneous
plays to demonstrate its distinctive features, and thus to present a historically
valid account of Shakespeare’s art.
The anticipated outcome of this reading is twofold. On the one hand, the
method of reaching back to possible Early Modern dramatic sources establishes
the interpretive frame for a historicized understanding of Shakespearean
dramaturgy. On the other hand, it may confirm the assumption that King
Lear shares certain similarities and shows subtle differences with both works.
Obviously, these resemblances are of a different nature, and they thus draw
attention to various aspects of Shakespeare’s compositional skills.
Grace Ioppolo: “A Jointure more or less:” Re-measuring The True Chronicle History of King Leir
and his three daughters, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 17 (2005), 165.
% Anonymous: The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan
and Cordella. As it hath bene diners and sundry times lately acted. LONDON, Printed by Simon
Stafford for Iohn Wright, and are to bee sold at his shop at Christes Church dore, next
Newsgate Market, 1605.
“ John Skelton: Magnyfycence, in Greg Walker (ed.): Medieval Drama: An Anthology, Oxford,
Blackwell Publishers, 2000, 349-408.
* Howard B. Norland: Drama in Early Tudor Britain, 1485-1558, Lincoln, NB, University of
Nebraska Press, 1995, 178.
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