The Importance of the First Two Scenes in King Lear Essays -- King Lea

The Importance of the First Two Scenes in King Lear      Ã‚  Ã‚   "King Lear, as I see it, confronts the perplexity and mystery of human action." (Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies, 169)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As the previous quotation from the scriptures of Maynard Mack implies, King Lear is a very complex and intricate play which happens to be surrounded by a lot of debate.   "The folio of 1623, which was, as is well known, edited by two of Shakespeare's fellow actors" (Notes and Essays on Shakespeare, 242),   contains not only historical errors, but errors which pertain to certain characters speaking other characters lines.   Amidst all the controversy one fact can be settled upon by all;   King Lear is one of Shakespeare's best tragedies.   While being a great play, the bulk of the plot in King Lear comes mainly from the first two scenes where most of the key events happen.   Along with the plot there is also extensive amounts of setup that occur within the dialogue which key the audience in on the morals and values of the characters.   Marilyn French is completely accurate when she states that "Everything about the play hangs on the first two scenes not just the plot but the values as well" (Shakespeare's Division of Experience, 226).      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The opening scenes of King Lear do an immaculate job of setting up the plot and forming the basis for all the events which occur in the later scenes of the play.   "The elements of that opening scene are worth pausing over, because they seem to have been selected to bring before us precisely such an impression of unpredictable effects lying coiled and waiting in an apparently innocuous posture of affairs." (Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies, 170)   Not onl... ...ill unfold.   The first two scenes of King Lear are pivotal in influencing every aspect of the play including the plot, and the values of the characters contained within the plot.    Works Cited    Clemen, Wolfgang. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery. New York, NY, USA: Methuen & Co. 1977.    French, Marilyn. Shakespeare's Division of Experience. New York: Summit Books. 1981.    Hales, John. Notes and Essays on Shakespeare. New York, NY, USA: AMS Press. 1973.    Lerner, Laurence. Shakespeare's Tragedies. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd. 1964.    Shakespeare, William. King Lear.   As reprinted in Elements of Literature. Toronto:   Oxford University Press.   1990.    Young, David. Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies - A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1993.