History of king lear tate

Nahum Tate's 1681 adaptation of "King Lear"

The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's King Lear.

History of king lear tate

It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838.^[1] While Tate's version proved extremely popular on the stage and received critical acclaim, the response of literary critics has generally been negative.

Unlike Shakespeare's tragedy, Tate's play has a happy ending, with Lear regaining his throne, Cordelia marrying Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declaring that "truth and virtue shall at last succeed." Regarded as a tragicomedy, the play has five acts, as does Shakespeare's, although the number of scenes is different, and the text is about eight hundred lines shorter than Shakespeare's.

Many of Shakespeare's original lines are retained, or modified only slightly, but a si