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THE DRAMATURGICAL AND THEATRICAL HERITAGE
With the contrastive reading I have offered in this chapter, I have attempted
to identify ways in which the 1608 King Lear Quarto arguably can be
characterized as a playtext which borrows from existing tradition in significant
ways, as demonstrated by the relevant similarities between the playtext
and the anonymous True Chronicle Historie of King Leir and John Skelton’s
Magnyfycence, while, at the same time, it makes innovative and distinctive
use of dramaturgical tools found in the two earlier dramas. While the
wording of Shakespeare’s play resembles and occasionally even echoes that
of the anonymous play, the striking number of similarities concerning the
macrotextual or dramaturgical elements suggests that a strong connection
also exists between the interlude and Shakespeare’s play. Some of the most
significant links between these two works include the overtly public feature
of the monarch’s relation to the other characters. The bipolar distribution
of the dramatis personae from the perspective of their moral qualities; the
crucial role of jesters who help the protagonist recognize his own folly; and the
appearance of characters like the doctor bringing medicine and new garments
are conventional elements of the “speculum principis” tradition. Although
some of these elements also appear in the True Chronicle Historie of King Leir,
they fulfill a dramatic function which differs from the one that connects
Magnyfycence to Shakespeare’s 1608 version of King Lear.
Thus, certain elements of the Shakespearean text most probably derive from
the Tudor interlude tradition, and this shows the playwright’s familiarity with
this dramatic heritage. Obviously, this contrastive reading does not reveal
the depths of his knowledge and cannot explain how Shakespeare could have
gained this knowledge, but it undoubtedly points out the historical dimension
of his dramaturgical practice. After this comprehensive, macrostructural
study of the play, the next chapter will focus on a microstructural layer of the
text and will contrast two scenes with the rhetorical and poetical conventions
of Shakespeare’s age.
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