Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : Shakespeare's King Lear / Jeffrey Kahan -- The reshaping of King Lear / R.A. Foakes -- The evolution of the texts of Lear / Richard Knowles -- King Lear and early seventeenth-century print culture / Cyndia Susan Clegg -- "The injuries that they themselves procure" : justice poetic and pragmatic, and aspects of the endplay, in King Lear / Tom Clayton -- What does Shakespeare leave out of King Lear? / Jean R. Brink -- The cause of thunder : nature and justice in King Lear / Paul A. Cantor -- Hope and despair in King Lear : the gospel and the crisis of natural law / R.V. Young -- Lear in Kierkegaard / Stanley Stewart -- The smell of mortality : performing torture in King Lear 3.7 / Edward L. Rocklin -- Some Lears of private life, from Tate to Shaw / Christy Desmet -- If only : alternatives and the self in King Lear / Jeffrey Kahan.

"The issues of identity and authenticity across time and across mediums are outlined, debated, and considered critically by the contributors to this volume. Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the leading international contributors to King Lear: New Critical Essays offer major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of King Lear. This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive anthology of textual scholarship, performance research, and critical writing on one of Shakespeare's most important and perplexing tragedies."--BOOK JACKET.