Old Age and a Good Death in King Lear

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Age is unnecessary', Lear mockingly says in one of the play’s most devastating lines. In this talk that statement is turned into a question: Is old age unnecessary? In King Lear Shakespeare exploits the figure of the venerable elder statesman in the classical mould of Nestor, contrasting it with the foolish, doddering, and covetous old man stock figure. While Shakespeare mirrored his society’s belief in aging as a dialectic between bodily loss and moral gain, Dr Bui argues that the play eventually subverts the idea that the only thing the aged are entitled to is death.

Dr Hanh Bui is Head of Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, where she oversees the Research and Collections team, heads research and scholarly programmes, and leads on pedagogical development for Higher Education. Dr Bui’s scholarship stands at the crossroads of early modern race, age, disability, and medicine, and her work has appeared in journals such as Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Drama, and Literature/Film Quarterly. Her work also appears in the edited collection Shakespeare’s Things: Shakespearean Theatre and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, and Performance (Routledge 2021). Her monograph project, under contract with Edinburgh University Press, is entitled Birthing Race in Shakespeare's Worlds.

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