- Edition: King Lear
On Aging
- Introduction
- Texts of this edition
- Contextual materials
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- Holinshed on King Lear
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- The History of King Leir
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- Albion's England (Selection)
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- Hardyng's Chronicle (Selection)
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- Kings of Britain
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- Chronicles of England
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- Faerie Queene
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- The Mirror for Magistrates
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- The Arcadia
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- A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures
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- Aristotle on tragedy
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- The Book of Job (Selections)
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- The Monk's Tale (Selections)
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- The Defense of Poetry
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- The First Blast of the Trumpet
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- Basilicon Doron
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- On Bastards
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- On Aging
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- King Lear (Adapted by Nahum Tate)
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- Facsimiles
Introduction
1In a period well before the comforting relief provided by painkillers of varying strength, antibiotics, and year-round access to fresh food, the process of aging was painful and trying. Even for those who survived their early years, life expectancy was short; Shakespeare was (to us) a young fifty-two when he died. Lear's life was unusually long, lasting four score>(eighty) years (see TLN 2815), and it is clear that he is still physically active, heading off to hunt with his hundred knights as soon as he is officially retired (see TLN 514 ff.).
This short anthology of pieces on aging makes clear the difficulty of dealing with failing faculties, both physical and mental. An anonymous medieval lyric lists the aches and pains the elderly suffer, Psalm 90 reminds us that our life is limited to "threescore years and ten" (seventy) and warns that a long life is rewarded by "labor and sorrow." One of the most interesting and intimate discussions of age from the period is that of a writer that Shakespeare read with close attention in his later years: Montaigne. His essay "Of the Affections of Fathers to Their Children" has some surprising echoes of the decision Lear makes when he passes his kingdom to his daughters. And Shakespeare himself, through his characters, records both the tribulations of aging and the positive qualities that older characters bring with their experience and loyalty.