SOURCE: “Impossible Worlds: What Happens in King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1?,” in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 4, Winter, 1999, pp. 477-507.

In the following essay, Dodd attempts to bridge dramatic readings of King Lear with historical interpretations of the play in order to more fully understand Shakespeare's intent.

Premise

It is now widely recognized that the earthquake provoked by Cordelia's “Nothing, my lord” (1.1.87)¹ has its origin in a deep, pre-existing fissure within the social, political, and economic substratum of the King Lear world. Historicist and especially materialist critics have for some time been laboring to map this substratum, which for so long was overlaid by narrowly familial or ethical-humanist readings.² One of the most thoroughgoing recent studies in this respect is Richard Halpern's brilliant essay “Historica Passio: King Lear's Fall into Feudalism.”³ It sets up an ideological and sociopolitical framework capable of accounting for much of the dramatic energy released...