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20th Century Critical Readings of King Lear A. C. Bradley (1905) · About characters and their motivation · Individual suffers as he comes to terms with his own human character & failings G. Wilson Knight (1930) · Gods torment man for no reason but to cause pain · Comically absurd cruelty (violence for its own sake) Cultural materialists · Concerned with institutions and power (power structures) · Recognises importance of gender and race relations, but are less concerned with it Marxist reading · Relate covert & overt content to Marxist themes: class struggle, progression of society through stages · about falling and rising classes · Relate work to social class status of author (who may be unaware of what s/he says) · Talk about literary structures in terms of socio-political order New Historicism · We only know the past through the present (compare power relations, social values between then and now) · Try to detach text from previous literature (involves parallel reading of literary & non-literary texts, equally weighting them) · Individual constrained & affected by social & ideological structures (rank, class, occupation, education) · Personal identity is a social construction · Impact of authors relation to audience & personal beliefs on text Feminist reading · Focuses on absence of female voice (patriarchal society) & subordination to males · Challenge representation of women in text by male & female authors as other, lack, or part of nature · Ironically strong female characters · Play reinforces prejudices against women (Goneril & Regan embody fears of society towards women) · Sympathies in play all towards male characters · Male anxiety (Lear goes mad when he realises his dependence on his daughters, admits feminine side with crying in the end - Shakespeare explores feminine potential in males) Structuralism · Relates texts to genre, intertextual connections, underlying narrative structure · Interpret literature in terms of underlying parallels with structures of language · Treat objects as systems of signs, with systematic patterning & structuring · Focus on parallels, balances, repetitions, symmetry, contrasts, patterns · In order to show textual coherence & unity · Eg.
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