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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. «49 «
