SOURCE: Green, Lawrence D. “‘Where's My Fool?’—Some Consequences of the Omission of the Fool in Tate's Lear.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 12, no. 2 (spring 1972): 259-74.

In the following essay, Green argues that the omission of the Fool in Tate's King Lear resulted in more focus on the internal workings of Lear's mind, an element that has been retained in productions of Shakespeare's play.

The major differences between Shakespeare's King Lear and Nahum Tate's redaction of it in 1681 are often viewed with either amusement or horror, and then dismissed as long-gone aberrations of little consequence. Tate's substitution of a happy ending for the play and his addition of a romance between Edgar and Cordelia have shared most of this attention, but his omission of the Fool may be his most enduring influence on King Lear. The Fool has almost all his scenes with Lear, and many of Lear's...