Act 4, scene 6

Read Act 4, scene 6, lines 1-70 Presentation of Edgar and Gloucester Significance of Edgar’s verbal depiction of the cliff top scene Gloucester’s prayer The absurd/ grotesque

Paired questions In many ways this represents the climax of the subplot. Discuss how you would best stage Gloucester’s ‘suicide’? Is there a danger the audience could laugh? Does this matter? Questioning Edgar – Why does he do this to his father? Does it have the effect he hoped?

The Grotesque in literature Oxford English Dictionary: 1. a. A kind of decorative painting or sculpture, consisting of representations of portions of human and animal forms, fantastically combined and interwoven with foliage and flowers. b. A work of art in this style. Chiefly pl., figures or designs in grotesque; in popular language, figures or designs characterized by comic distortion or exaggeration. The Italian form grottesco is sometimes used. from Wikipedia: the strange, fantastic, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting . . . often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms. In art, performance, and literature, grotesque may also simultaneously invoke in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness and empathic pity. Rémi Astruc has argued that although there is an immense variety of motifs and figures, the three main tropes of the grotesque are doubleness, hybridity and metamorphosis. Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, he demonstrated how the grotesque functions as a fundamental existential experience   Quentin Metsys, A Grotesque Old Woman

Theatre of the absurd The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expressed the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence

Theatre of the absurd Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "Theatre of the Absurd." He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus". The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play"

Links to the absurd/grotesque G Wilson Knight (‘King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque’) ‘Gloucester has planned a spectacular end for himself. We are given these noble, descriptive and philosophical speeches to tune our minds to a noble, tragic sacrifice. And what happens? The old man falls from his kneeling posture a few inches, flat, face foremost.... The grotesque merged into the ridiculous reaches a consummation in this bathos of tragedy.’

Links to the absurd/grotesque Jan Kott, ‘King Lear, or Endgame’ Kott saw this scene as foreshadowing later absurdist comedy. ‘In King Lear, the stage is empty throughout: there is nothing, except the cruel earth where man goes on his journey from the cradle to the grave...The blind Gloucester who has climbed a non-existent height and fallen over on flat boards, is a clown. A philosophical buffoonery of the sort found in modern theatre has been performed.’

Extract from ‘Waiting for Godot’ Read extract and consider ‘absurd’ elements Make links to ‘King Lear’ EXTENSION/ HOMEWORK: Read Jan Kott’s article

Lines 80-199: Lear’s madness Activity In Lear’s speeches trace how he mixes ‘Reason in madness.’ Compare him to Act One – what has he gained? What has he lost? Find quotes to illustrate your points and ensure you discuss language too.