King Lear was famously edited during the 18th Century, when genteel viewers thought the tragedy simply too depressing. Lacking a moral compass, the play showed that bad things could happen to good people, a premise that was a little too close to home even for the daring ankle-flashers of the Enlightenment period. And so, an alternate was written. The good heroine, Cordelia, was married off to a bloke she hadn't even spoken to in the original version, and other such joyous events considerably lightened the tone of a play about a senile old man. In the modern day many people, myself included, think that ripping a play a new one is a bastardisation of something that is a sanctimonial property of the author. It's just a bit cheeky, really, a bit presumptuous.
But this rerip of King Lear is frankly hilarious.
http://www.sparknotes.com/sparknotes/video/lear
Sadly, this video didn't teach me everything I'll need to know about the play for my course seminar on Monday. I can just imagine it now:
"What message is Shakespeare trying to portray regarding the importance of family?"
"He has two sons, Edmund and Edgar. Edmund, the younger one, is a bastard...Because he's a bastard, the world looks down on Edmund." "Edmund says he's tired of being a second class citizen, just because he's a bastard, and he's going to do something about it".
Comedy genius.
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