With old age comes loss in this play, which portrays today’s autocratsA leader who is not bound by constitutional norms or checked by other sources of political authority, like a parliament or the judicial system. and despotsRulers who have absolute power and use it in a cruel way. as well as if it had been written yesterday. Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606) depicts an aged and self-indulgent monarch who, satisfying his own vanity, decides to divide his kingdom according to the results of a test of his daughters’ love. Whoever can describe their adoration for the aged ruler with the most sycophanticPraising or flattering powerful people in a way that is not sincere in order to win favour. effusionOutpourings. will prevail: in this case, his scheming and deceitful daughters Goneril and Regan. But this ill-advised poll strips the lofty Lear of his power, dignity, comfort and friendship. Onto the heath emerges a new spectacle: friendless apart from his fool, betrayed and brought to earth, he is beholden to a madman and reduced to a version of a person no more than a “poor, bare, forked animal". In a world of social division, economic inequality and populistThe term comes from the People's Party, which operated in the USA in the 1890s. Now, it is often used to refer to any movement that makes a distinction between the "people" and the corrupt "establishment". leaders, King Lear’s assertion that “distribution should undo excess/And each man have enough” is as modern as it is bittersweet.
King Lear
Glossary
Autocrats - A leader who is not bound by constitutional norms or checked by other sources of political authority, like a parliament or the judicial system.
Despots - Rulers who have absolute power and use it in a cruel way.
Sycophantic - Praising or flattering powerful people in a way that is not sincere in order to win favour.
Effusion - Outpourings.
Populist - The term comes from the People's Party, which operated in the USA in the 1890s. Now, it is often used to refer to any movement that makes a distinction between the "people" and the corrupt "establishment".
Epitome - A perfect example. In her blog post, Krug apologised to all the people she had harmed, both individually and collectively.
Rhetoric - The art of persuasion.
Gullible - Easily fooled.
Reified - Make something more concrete or real.
Destitute - Extremely poor. Having no food, money or shelter.
Delectation - Enjoyment.
Divine right - The idea that a monarch receives the right to rule directly from God.
Obliterated - Destroyed.
Antagonists - The person who is opposed to something else. In a play, often the enemy of the main character.
Sigmund Freud - An Austrian psychoanalyst who was one of the world’s foremost authorities on psychology in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Although his ideas have been discredited in the scientific community, he remains influential for literary scholars.