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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 1, Scene 2 Monologue: Edmund
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Understanding the Given Circumstances
- Edmund is the bastard son of Gloucester, a nobleman in the court of King Lear. The word bastard, although used today as a generalized insult, had legal implications related to inheritance. Because his mother was unmarried, Edmund has no legal right to his father’s lands. There is one hope for Edmund: Gloucester can decide to recognize him as his son.
- In the first moments of the play, Edmund’s father introduces him to one of the king’s closest advisors, making lewd jokes about Edmund’s mother and his conception. Gloucester acknowledges his existence, but he does not call Edmund his son.
- Edmund has been out of the country for the last nine years, and his father will send him away again. The play does not explicitly state Gloucester’s reasons for sending Edmund away, but Edmund is likely a source of shame for Gloucester, who wants him as far away as possible.
- Edmund has an older half-brother named Edgar, who is legitimate and who will inherit Gloucester’s property.
- Edmund is carrying a letter he will use to try to send his half-brother Edgar into exile. The letter shows Edgar plotting to take over Gloucester’s lands by force. The letter is a forgery.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- In this monologue, Edmund initially speaks to Nature, whom he calls a goddess. Based on this, how might you move as you address Nature? How might you adjust the tone of your voice?
- At a crucial point in the monologue, Edmund speaks directly to yet another character who is not literally on stage: “Legitimate” Edgar, his half-brother. This is the first time Edgar’s name appears in the play, and the audience has not seen him yet. How can you bring this unseen character to life on stage? Will you speak as if he’s near to you or at a distance? Will you adjust the position of your body to turn toward or away from him?
- During the monologue, Edmund addresses Nature and Edgar. When he’s not addressing them, who is he talking to? Is he speaking to the audience, trying to get them on his side, or is he speaking more to himself? How can you adjust your movements and position to reflect the target of Edmund’s speech?
- Edmund is carrying a letter he has forged to frame his brother and plotting how he will use it. Where is the letter? How do you interact with it, and at what stage in the monologue?
Meaning in Heightened Language
Shakespeare wrote his plays more than four hundred years ago, and many of the expressions and words are not idiomatic today. Nevertheless, we have experience with coded language that depends on wordplay and knowledge of cultural references, from song lyrics to internet humor. Shakespeare deploys an arsenal of alliteration, parody, and ironic repetition to give Edmund’s speech its power.
Begin by studying SparkNotes’ No Fear Shakespeare Translation, so you can be sure to know what each unfamiliar word or phrase means.
Read an in-depth explanation of Edmund’s Act I soliloquy.
Here are a few examples from this speech:
- Edmund says, “Why brand they us/With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?” The repetition of words that start with the letter b is as important as the repeated word base. There’s a percussion to the alliteration that conveys a furious momentum to Edmund’s message.
- The word legitimate has positive connotations in English, but Edmund keeps repeating the word in a mocking way. He questions the word itself, stripping away the nobility associated with it. At the same time, he reclaims the word bastard, trying to make it sound like a badge of honor.
- Edmund insults his “legitimate” enemies by making jokes about the romantic impotence of their parents, calling them “fops” conceived on a “dull, stale, tired bed.”
- In Edmund’s heightened speech, language reverses meaning and flips on itself: the bastards of the world become respectable, and legitimate society is mercilessly mocked.
Full Act 1, Scene 2 Monologue: Edmund
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