"King Lear": "Every text has it's use by date." Australian HSC essay.

"King Lear" is one of Shakespeare's most reproduced and recontextualised plays. Different productions over the years, regardless of the play's universal themes, have evolved and been informed by the social and political constructs and values of their time, emphasising the binaries of blindness and sight, chaos and order and good and evil. It is the ideas, which are universal; the text, which is unstable and can therefore be adapted to different contexts the language, especially …

…the ruling class toward their underlings. In conclusion, Shakespeare's "King Lear" has remained relevant and not reached its use by date by way of its universal themes, which can be interpreted in a multitude of different ways, its language, which still richly reinforces these themes, the instability of the script which lends itself to a variety of readings and the different ways in which the play can be staged, specifically the modern medium of film.