King Lear

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 2022 - 130 pages
A new translation of Shakespeare's great tragedy that renews it for today's audiences.



Marcus Gardley's translation of King Lear renews the language of one of Shakespeare's most frequently staged tragedies for a modern audience. Gardley's update allows audiences to hear the play anew while still finding themselves in the tragic midst of Shakespeare's play.



This translation of King Lear was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present the work of "The Bard" in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare's verse. Enlisting the talents of a diverse group of contemporary playwrights, screenwriters, and dramaturges from diverse backgrounds, this project reenvisions Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. These volumes make these works available for the first time in print--a new First Folio for a new era.

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About the author (2022)

Marcus Gardley is a poet and playwright. He is the author of many plays including The House that Will Not Stand, The Gospel of Loving Kindness, and The Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry. He was the 2012 James Baldwin Fellow and the 2011 PEN Laura Pels award winner for Mid-Career Playwright.

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