SOURCE: "'Demystifying the Mystery of State': King Lear and the World Upside Down," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production, Vol. 44, 1992, pp. 75-83.

In the following essay, Heinemann argues that King Lear is a play as much concerned with government and politics as it is with personal, familial issues. The critic stresses that the play should be interpreted in terms of a personal loss of power and as the collapse of social and political structures. Additionally, Heinemann suggests ways in which the political implications of King Lear might be related to the politics of England under King James I.

King Lear is very much a political play—that is a play concerned with power and government in the state, with public and civil life, and not solely with private relationships and passions. Of course it is not only political; but it seems necessary to...