King Leir is an anonymous Elizabethan play about the life of the ancient Brythonic king Leir of Britain. It was published in 1605 but was entered into the Stationers' Register on 15 May 1594. [1] The play has attracted critical attention principally for its relationship with King Lear , Shakespeare's version of the same story. [2]
The records of theatre impresario Philip Henslowe show that King Leir was performed on 6 and 8 April 1594 at the Rose Theatre, by a cast that combined personnel from two acting companies, Queen Elizabeth's Men and Sussex's Men. Other records claim that the play was often acted, though these two are the only specific performances known. It has been suggested that Shakespeare, who might have been a player in the Queen's company of the 1590s, may have actually performed in King Leir. [3]
The moste famous Chronicle historye of Leire king of England and his Three Daughters was entered into the Stationers' Register on 14 May 1594, by stationer Adam Islip; but Islip's name is crossed out of the record and the name of fellow stationer Edward White is substituted. Perhaps this conflict between stationers prevented the play's publication in 1594; certainly it did not appear in print until the next decade. It was registered again on 8 May 1605 (as the Tragecall historie of kinge Leir and his Three Daughters &c), by stationer Simon Stafford. The first edition appeared later that year, printed by Stafford for the bookseller John Wright, with the title The true Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan and Cordella. The title page states that the drama "hath been diverse and sundry times lately acted". The 1605 quarto was the sole edition of the play during the seventeenth century. [4]
There is no consensus of scholarly opinion on the authorship of King Leir. The play has been variously attributed to Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Anthony Munday, and Shakespeare himself. [5]
The author drew primarily on Holinshed's Chronicles for the story of Leir and his daughters. Other sources and influences include Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae , The Mirror for Magistrates , William Warner's Albion's England, and Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene . [6]
In turn, critics widely agree that King Leir served as a primary source for Shakespeare's King Lear. [7] [8]
King Leir has been called a "chronicle history", a "tragical history", a "tragicomedy", and even "a tragedy with a happy ending". (Leir is alive and restored to his kingship at the end of his play.) Leir does not contain the subplot about Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund that Shakespeare added to the story.
Some commentators have argued that King Leir was printed in 1605 to take advantage of the attention drawn by Shakespeare's similar play – which would mean that Shakespeare's Lear was being acted in 1605. [9] Yet "a remarkable historical parallel" provided "a topical reason" [10] for the publication of Leir, and perhaps also for Shakespeare's interest in the story c. 1605.
A true-life scandal with noteworthy parallels to the Leir/Lear story was in the news in 1603 and 1604, and may have helped to inspire both Shakespeare's play and the publication of the old play King Leir. Brian Annesley (or Anslowe) was an elderly former follower of Queen Elizabeth, a wealthy Kentishman with three daughters: Grace (married to Sir John Wildgose), Christian (the wife of William Sandys, 3rd Baron Sandys), and the youngest, the unmarried Cordell, who had been a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth. In 1603, Grace tried to have her father declared senile and incompetent to manage his estate. Cordell wrote to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, to protest her older sister's action, and otherwise supported her father against his eldest daughter. [11] Brian Annesley died in July 1604; Cordell successfully defended her father's last will and testament, which left most of the family property to Cordell.
One of the executors of the will was Sir William Hervey; he was a veteran of the 1588 campaign against the Spanish Armada and the third husband of the Dowager Countess of Southampton, the mother of Shakespeare's patron Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. (Hervey is also one of the many proposed candidates for the "W. H." of Shakespeare's sonnets.) Once the Dowager Countess died in 1607, Hervey married Cordell Annesley. [12]
The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually abbreviated to Q1, Q2, etc., where the letter stands for "quarto" and the number for the first, second, or third edition published.
King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land to two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane and a proscribed crux of political machinations. The first known performance of any version of Shakespeare's play was on St. Stephen's Day in 1606. The three extant publications from which modern editors derive their texts are the 1608 quarto (Q1) and the 1619 quarto and the 1623 First Folio. The quarto versions differ significantly from the folio version.
This article presents a possible chronological listing of the composition of the plays of William Shakespeare.
Rollo Duke of Normandy, also known as The Bloody Brother, is a play written in collaboration by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson and George Chapman. The title character is the historical Viking duke of Normandy, Rollo. Scholars have disputed almost everything about the play; but it was probably written sometime in the 1612–24 era and later revised, perhaps in 1630 or after. In addition to the four writers cited above, the names of Nathan Field and Robert Daborne have been connected with the play by individual scholars.
Locrine is an Elizabethan play depicting the legendary Trojan founders of the nation of England and of Troynovant (London). The play presents a cluster of complex and unresolved problems for scholars of English Renaissance theatre.
Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain. According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir's reign would have occurred around the 8th century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Jacobean tragedy King Lear.
Queen Cordelia was a legendary Queen of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. She was the youngest daughter of Leir and the second ruling queen of pre-Roman Britain. There is no independent historical evidence for her existence.
The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, commonly called The Troublesome Reign of King John is an Elizabethan history play, probably by George Peele, that is generally accepted by scholars as the source and model that William Shakespeare employed for his own King John.
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios are two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.
A Looking Glass for London and England is an Elizabethan era stage play, a collaboration between Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene. Recounting the Biblical story of Jonah and the fall of Nineveh, the play is a noteworthy example of the survival of the Medieval morality play style of drama in the period of English Renaissance theatre.
George Eld was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton.
Nathaniel Butter was a London publisher of the early 17th century. The publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare's King Lear in 1608, he has also been regarded as one of the first publishers of a newspaper in English.
Thomas Pavier was a London publisher and bookseller of the early seventeenth century. His complex involvement in the publication of early editions of some of Shakespeare's plays, as well as plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, has left him with a "dubious reputation."
Holinshed's Chronicles, also known as Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is a collaborative work published in several volumes and two editions, the first edition in 1577, and the second in 1587. It was a large, comprehensive description of British history published in three volumes.
The True Tragedy of Richard III is an anonymous Elizabethan history play on the subject of Richard III of England. It has attracted the attention of scholars of English Renaissance drama principally for the question of its relationship with William Shakespeare's Richard III.
The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon are two closely related Elizabethan-era stage plays on the Robin Hood legend, that were written by Anthony Munday in 1598 and published in 1601. They are among the relatively few surviving examples of the popular drama acted by the Admiral's Men during the Shakespearean era.
Regan is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear, named after a king of the Britons recorded by the medieval scribe Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Cordelia is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear. Cordelia is the youngest of King Lear's three daughters, and his favourite. After her elderly father offers her the opportunity to profess her love to him in return for one third of the land in his kingdom, she refuses and is banished for the majority of the play.
Goneril is a character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear (1605). She is the eldest of King Lear's three daughters. Along with her sister Regan, Goneril is considered a villain, obsessed with power and overthrowing her elderly father as ruler of the kingdom of Britain.
Cordell Annesley was an English courtier.
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