Modern Age - Winter 2018 - 134

Modern Age

*

Winter 2018

But translating Lear into the present day is a challenging task.
In Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation A Thousand
Acres, we saw the travails of King Lear through the eyes of his
oldest daughter, Goneril. By locating her version on an Iowa farm,
Smiley managed to keep much of the original plot alive, while
adding greater depth and variance to its characters. Even though
it's set centuries later, Smiley's story still revolves around the value
of land. The farm functions as a kingdom in its own right, with the
farmer as ruler of this kingdom.
But St. Aubyn wanted his story to feature someone universally
famous, whose pomp and majesty parallel that of an ancient king.
Thus, a mere farmer would not do. Neither, he believed, would a
modern head of state, whose power and prestige is changeable
and limited. He wanted someone "with the permafrost of power,"
St. Aubyn told the Times. So he turned Lear into a media mogul:
the king of money and information, a billionaire who controls
boardrooms and newspapers across the world.
The decision to make Lear a lord of the presses and airwaves
rather than of the soil invites reconsideration of the morality and
politics of Shakespeare's Lear. To what extent is the play rooted in
aristocratic values and ideals? What does it lose when modified to
fit a democratic, capitalistic society?
Shakespeare's Lear takes place in England during the eighth
century B.C. In Lear's world, patriarchal authority and power were
to be treated with reverence, and wisdom was to rule over the
passions of pride and flesh. King Lear's surrender of power to his
unworthy daughters marks an unwise use of his authority, even
(as his adviser Kent argues) an abdication of his responsibility as
king. But at this point in the plot, Lear is focused more on his own
honor and prestige than on the well-being of his kingdom. He
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Modern Age - Winter 2018

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