Article: What Shakespeare Didn't Know.

Examine a range of alternative readings of King Lear and their relevance to contemporary audiences. What Shakespeare Didn't Know. Many faithful 'bardolatarians' have labelled the plethora of alterative interpretations of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy that blossomed in the twentieth century as 'false' and 'blasphemous'. "The Tragedy of King Lear," they oralise, "was never intended by our William as anything other than what is - a profound Aristolean tragedy that remains the highest and most precise embodiment …

…birds in the cage..." The movement away from a strictly Jacobean or Aristolean reading of the play is towards an interpretation of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy which celebrates it complexity and its courage in attempting to reflect the mysteries and ambiguities of both life and human nature. These alternative readings do not desecrate Shakespeare's meaning, but forces them to evolve with history and humanity, reinstating their relevance in the modern, ideology-carbonadoed world in which we live.