external text
King Lear
also: Король Лир
Shakespeare's tragedy of the aged king who divides his kingdom among his daughters and is cast out into the storm; Svetlovidov recites Lear's storm-defying speech and, with Nikita Ivanych taking the Fool's lines, plays out the exchange from Act III as proof his talent for tragedy has not faded.
Reading notes
- Swan Song (Calchas) §47 from "King Lear"
Svetlovidov recites Lear's storm speech from Act III of Shakespeare's tragedy, in which the aged king, cast out by his daughters, rages at the elements on the heath. It is the second of the play's four embedded Shakespeare/Pushkin/Griboyedov recitations and the most sustained: Svetlovidov performs both Lear's fury and, switching voices, the Fool's sardonic counsel, then resumes as Lear -- effectively staging a miniature two-hander inside the larger two-hander, with Nikita Ivanych drafted to read the Fool's lines. The choice of Lear, an old man abandoned and raging against his fate, is Chekhov's clearest mirror of Svetlovidov's own situation, though Svetlovidov himself draws no such comparison aloud.