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Article published In:
Revisiting Shakespeare's Language
Edited by Annalisa Baicchi, Roberta Facchinetti, Silvia Cacchiani and Antonio Bertacca
[English Text Construction 11:1] 2018
► pp. 60–80

Lear’s questions revisited

| Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
This paper applies a pragmatic approach to King Lear’s questions. To this end the communicative function of different types of questions is worked out first. In a second step Lear’s questions are correlated to the dramatic development of the play. In terms of dramatic text construction, the two questions from the opening of the play – “Which of you shall we say doth love us most” (1.1.51) – and from the play’s final act – “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all?” (5.3.305–6) – epitomise the complete change of the tragic hero from a more than self-assured person and instigator of his tragic downfall to a human being whose beliefs are shattered.
Keywords: communicative functions, interrogative, King Lear, question, speaker conditions, syntactic form
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Questions in Present-day English
    • 2.1To what extent can the repertoire of PdE questions be transferred to Shakespearean English?
    • 2.2The discoursal context of plays: Participant roles, text, and staging
  • 3.Corpus study: King Lear’s questions
    • 3.1Analysis of Act I
      • 3.1.1Act I, Scene 1 “The state division scene” (1.1.48–109)
      • 3.1.2Act I, Scene 1 “Lear and the Duke of Burgundy” (1.1.190–208)
      • 3.1.3Act I, Scene 4 “Lear and Kent” (1.4.9-40)
      • 3.1.4Act I, Scene 4 “Lear, Oswald and a Knight” (1.4.44–61)
      • 3.1.5Act I, Scene 4 “Lear and his fool” (1.4.103–172)
      • 3.1.6Act I, Scene 4 “Lear and Goneril” (1.4.209–231)
      • 3.2Analysis of Act II, Scene 2 “Lear and Gloucester” (2.2.277–292)
      • 3.3Analysis of Act III, Scene 2 “Lear and the naked wretches” (3.2.67–73)
    • 3.4Analysis of Act IV, Scene 6 “Lear and Gloucester” (4.6.96–152)
    • 3.5Analysis of Act V
  • 4.Lear’s questions in the overall framework of the play
  • Notes
  • Primary data
  • References
Published online: 27 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00004.bus
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Primary data
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Halio, Jay L. (ed.). 1992. The Tragedy of King Lear (The New Cambridge Shakespeare). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
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