Ends, Exits and the 'Eschaton' in 'King Lear'

A half century ago, Frank Kermode argued influentially that in King Lear the scriptural sense of endtime has given way to modern fictive notions of the end. And yet the eschaton is deeply embedded in the structure of Lear, not just in the plot's drawn out movement through an apocalyptic storm to a "promised end", but in smaller scenic units that problematize the exits that bring scenes to a close. But what happens to these in-built eschatological structures in performances that are resolutely secular?

Margreta de Grazia, Emerita Rosenberg Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of, among other titles, Shakespeare Verbatim.

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