The Tragedies

Cordelia’s Death: Did Shakespeare Go to Far?

Cordelia’s Death: Did Shakespeare Go to Far?

There is so much human suffering in King Lear that for nearly two hundred years the most frequent version staged was a bowdlerized one by Nahum Tate.
Tate’s version ends happily with Lear and his much sinned against daughter, Cordelia, reunited, Edgar crowned and the villains Goneril, Regan and Edmund lying dead as earth on the stage floor.
And if that isn’t enough, [...]

Is Hamlet Insane, Cowardly or Depressed?

Is Hamlet Insane, Cowardly or Depressed?

There are as many theories about Hamlet’s mental state as there are mental states.

Henry V, Prologue

Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this Wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?