A Thousand Acres of King Lear: Reading Shakespeare Through Smiley

Abstract:Smiley came to write this novel after noticing that critics uniformly censured the elder sisters, Goneril and Regan. Though Ginny, Rose, and Carolyn have their flaws, the novel is a case of literary revisionism that forces us away from great sympathy for their father. Smiley recognizes that the daughters are used up in the play, just as the land is, that they are resources that Lear wastes through pride or dementia. Obviously, Shakespeare isn't concerned with pesticides or hog farms, but Lear's abuse of natural resources is an awareness brought by Smiley that seems quite apt. She intimates that Shakespeare shows "a dawning awareness" of the use and potential abuse of the natural world, and that this constitutes an undercurrent running throughout the play.