God King Lear vs. Human Lear

When Lear gives his daughters stewardship, he assumes that they will respect the divine right of rulership that he has not abdicated. No, he never actually abdicated. He is still referred to as the King and still refers to his places as appointed by the gods.

However, Lear has the foresight to see bureaucratic complications due to his age. I imagine the revelation that he needed help to run his kingdom wounded his pride, and I assume much of his anger latched on to the realizations that Goneril and Reagan discounted any divine right Lear believes he has.  I mean, as he loses his faculties and thus his grip on power due to age--the reason for his retirement in the first place--how can he handle that gracefully? A decision he didn't want to make backfires. How bittersweet is it that Lear foresaw the conflicts of his aging mind ruling the kingdom, and yet as his worst fears become validated by his inability to handle power dynamics or control his own family (although, granted, two of them are devil spawn).

I think that Sir Ian McKellan has a point (see video below). Lear's rage is in part due to the conflict of his faith in his kingship and the removal from his humanity that belief instills. If we say Lear loses his faith by the time he is happily and briefly reunited with Cordelia in prison, it seems that giving up pretensions of godliness in exchange for humanity is a central arc to Lear's character. I don't know if that's redemption or just the tragedy of learning a vital lesson too late.

Redeemed by works, not just by grace

We've been talking about the redemption for a variety of characters toward the end of the play, specifically for Lear. What made the idea of redemption for Lear real to me are his actions, not his words. (Well, some of his words detail his actions. But it's the actions-- not the talking about it-- that demonstrates an attempt to atone for his wrongs and those changes ultimately bring about a sort of redemption for him.) As he drags Cordelia's body onstage, he declares, "I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee." What a contrast to the first act of the play, where he kicks Cordelia out of his house and withholds her third of his kingdom because he does not feel that she properly flattered him. He is the one wronging Cordelia. Now, as someone tries to wrong her by killing her, Lear does not simply protest their wrongdoing but enacts vengeance upon the slave for trying to wrong his daughter. He protects her from unrighteous judgment even though months before, he was the one passing unrighteous judgment upon her. This demonstrates a repentance, an understanding that he wronged her and a willingness to make it up to her tenfold. So when Lear whimpers, "She lives! if it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that I have ever felt," he believes that his acts of protecting her against the first hangman and carrying her body to safety have made up for the sorrows he inflicted upon himself by treating her badly at the beginning of the play and pursuing flattery rather than truth. In a way, it's almost lovely that Lear dies thinking that Cordelia revived. He believes that he was ultimately able to save his child.

The Light in the Dark

The ending of the play is full of tragedy and death but there is at least some small mercy for Lear and Gloucester and that for them at the very end the story was not tragic. For Lear, it was the moment right before he died when he thought he saw Cordelia starting to breath after her button was undone. In that moment he believed that his beloved daughter would be alright and not all is lost. He died believing that his mistake did not cruelly take his daughter's life and in that moment, he found some happiness. For Gloucester, he had found out that the stranger who was taking care of him was in fact his son Edgar. He had been shown mercy by knowing that his son was indeed alright and that there must be some feelings of love if Edgar had taken care of him until then. He died feeling torn between happiness and grief but there was at least a sense of bitter sweet for him. Both fathers had that one moment of hope and happiness, even if it was false for Lear, making life seem just a little bit more merciful from their point of view. The play may have been a tragedy for the audience and the characters that survived but for these two men, there was a small light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Death by Grief

In looking through some literary criticism about King Lear, I found this interesting article that compares King Lear mourning over Cordelia to the Virgin Mary mourning over Jesus, which was shown very dramatically in a lot of medieval passion plays. We've already talked a little about Cordelia being a Christ figure, but I had a hard time seeing in in Act V. Not only does she not come back to life, but her death causes Lear to die of grief. However, the point that the article made was that Lear's mourning of Cordelia shows the incredible complexity of grief, especially the grief of a parent mourning a child. The comparison was more about the grief of Mary than comparing Cordelia with Christ.
Another thing from the article that I found really interesting was that it talked about how Lear's mourning was based purely on his true feelings rather than being some sort of performance or mourning ritual for those watching. In a way, his redemption has really come full circle, because at the beginning of the play he placed value only on superficial expressions of love. In his mourning for Cordelia he shows the true depth of his love for her. Even though he dies in the process, it seems that from a Christian perspective, he did achieve redemption.

The article I talked about is called "Inverting the Pietà In Shakespeare's King Lear" by Katherine Goodland.

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

This play has been full of deceit and lies from the beginning, with Goneril and Regan undermining Lear, and then Kent and Edgar in disguise. Oh and Edmund committing treason. One interesting part of the script though is the use of the "aside". In just the fifth act alone Goneril has three asides to the audience. Moments where she steps out of the scene for a moment to remind the audience of her evil actions, or to clue them in to what is going on. Shakespeare could have simply had these same asides play out later, in the same scene even, but as actual actions within the play. For example, Goneril poisons her sister. She could have been seen administering the poison, or the play could have relied on the fact that they reveal this later. Instead, there are purposeful and obvious deceits that the audience alone is privy to for a moment. One possible reason for these choice could be that it drives home the them of lying that is prevalent throughout the play. Instead of having their actions simply lead to situations, etc., we see the characters pull themselves out of the action to acknowledge something that they are thinking or doing, but keeping secret from everyone else. The breaking down of the fourth wall actually heightens the drama in these situations, rather than alleviating it or simply involving the audience. 

Missing Madness

From what I can gather, familial ties were very important during Shakespeare's time-- they governed much of the social interactions of the day. It's slightly appalling, then, to watch Goneril and Regan (as well as Edmund) turn on their fathers for titles and wealth. This betrayal ultimately drives Lear (and in some ways, Gloucester) mad. As I explored the backstory of the play using the Shakespeare Oxford Reference, I was reminded that Shakespeare loosely based the script off of existing stories, histories, and plays about the same king. Though he based Lear off of an existing storyline, he added one more element to the play that was historically incorrect-- Lear's descent into madness. Historically and in earlier representations of the story, Lear doesn't go mad! But that's one of the main focuses of Shakespeare's play-- how family betrayal can set a man mad. Why did he characterize Lear as a madman? Perhaps his descent into madness, especially evident in Acts 3 and 4, demonstrates how grotesque Goneril and Regan's betrayal is because it's committed against family. Because he has vested his daughters with the power of his kingdom, Lear gives them a sort of parental control over him and steps into the role of a child (further emphasized by his association with the fool and Tom/Edgar).  His return to almost childlike behaviors-- erratically cursing the weather, blaming the people surrounding him, whining about his daughters' abuse-- highlights their unnatural turning upon the man who raised them. 

Escaping Reality

I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a moment. The more I read King Lear the more I feel that Lear's madness and Gloucester wanting to die are their ways of escaping the reality in which they have ruined. They have both shunned the only family that truly cared for them and have given power to the family that would rather have them dead. Lear's method to escape reality is his decent into madness. When he is out in the storm, his thoughts start to become more irrational but they always lead back to his two horrible daughters. Because of the way his daughters treated him and because he had started to realize what he had done, Lear starts losing his rationality as a coping mechanism to escape the reality that the daughters that he thought loved him didn't and the one who actually did he had sent away. With Gloucester it is similar but he instead wishes for his death as his means for escape. Both men realize that they have made wrong choices in their lives and their immediate reaction is to run away in an extreme way.  

Loyalty

Poor, poor Gloucester. 

Well. This play keeps getting more and more depressing. I haven't seen this play since high school and much of it escaped me then. So the sheer hopelessness in this play is getting to me quite a bit more this time around. One tiny ray of light in this play though is the theme of loyalty throughout. We see this most obviously displayed in Kent. He was mistreated by Lear, and yet he still continues to labor on his behalf. Fighting, disguising, etc. He goes and finds him in the dangerous storm, and like the good friend that he is, he gently and consistently persuades Lear to listen to him. That's dedication, without a doubt. 

I found an interesting article about Kent on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship about Kent and his potential historical counterparts, here. The author quoted a piece by Samuel Coleridge on Kent's character, and I thought I'd include it here because it's so interesting. 

"Kent is, perhaps, the nearest to perfect goodness in all Shakespeare’s characters, and yet the most individualized. There is an extraordinary charm in a bluntness, which is that only of a nobleman arising from a contempt of overtrained courtesy, and combined with easy placability where goodness of heart is apparent. His passionate affection for and fidelity to Lear act on our feelings in Lear’s own favor: virtue itself, seems to be in company with him. (Complete Works of Samuel Coleridge, Vol. IV, edited by W.G.T. Shedd, Harper and Bros., New York: 1884, pp. 138-39.)"

I think that the contrast between Kent and Lear is especially important because in Lear we see this childish yet senile person who selfishly throws tantrums, all the while inspiring a sympathy of sorts. Kent however keeps a level head, and despite his unfortunate situation in being cast aside and in disguise, he remains loyal. 

On the flip side we have Gloucester, who actually exemplifies both sides of this. He easily switches loyalties from Edgar to Edmund with very little to persuade, but when considering his loyalty to Lear he gets his eyes gouged out. That's another pretty strong display of love. 

Sweet Justice

Although this play isn't overtly Christian, the characters do invoke the gods or the stars a lot, mostly to blame them for everything that's happening. This made me think about whether the misfortunes the characters face in Act III and IV, especially King Lear going mad and Gloucester getting his eyes gouged out, can be seen as some kind of divine justice or fate catching up with them for being bad fathers. In Gloucester's case especially, it does seem like fate is really playing with him, since he becomes literally blind after being so figuratively blind about his sons. King Lear going mad also has a feeling of divine justice about it, especially since the storm is what seems to be the last straw for him. He blames his daughters first and foremost for his madness, but his own guilt seems to play a part in it as well, as we see when he meets up with Cordelia again. Overall, the characters in this play face some pretty heavy consequences for their actions, some of them quite immediate, like Cornwall's death. Is this because of divine action or simply natural consequences?

Spit, fire! spout, rain!

Lear is angry.

He's not just mad; his emotions consistently manifest in rages that fixate on the most convenient target, be it a daughter or loyal subject. I was particularly captivated by Lear's anger being manifested and further fueled while he's out in the storm with the Fool. In fact, Kent and the Gentleman set up the tone for Lear for all of act three during the first scene.

Kent

Where's the King?

Gentleman

Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
That things might change, or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blases with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury and make nothing of,
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to and fro conflicting wind and rain;
This night wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wold
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Lear is taunting the destructive force of a storm that exceeds any in living memory. When cautioned against his exposure to it, Lear argues that it's a storm of justice and he's "a man more sinned against than sinning." Again, when Kent tries to convince Lear that staying outdoors is too dangerous, Lear declares to "let me alone." Lear battles his own anger as he refuses to seek the peace of shelter. The "wrathful" storm is an outlet for Lear's emotional pain of losing three daughters, a kingdom, and possibly his mind.

Lear

This tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there...

I can't help but relate. Anger is numbing and powerful and makes you feel as if you could retain some control despite all evidence to the contrary. Lear dies from heartbreak and grief in the end. The pain of reality doesn't need to be felt in the moment all of the time. The only way to survive sometimes is to shut out everything you don't need and cling to what is necessary. Something has to remain to motivate action. It's almost as if Lear as a man dies in the storm and only endures to ensure a righting of his kingdom.

(In a very abrupt shift of tone, I found King Lear Limericks.)

Honesty Is the Best Policy

I had a hard time choosing just what to talk about for this post, since there was just so much packed into those two acts. So I decided to talk about honesty, since it seems to be one of the main characteristics that set apart the "good" characters and the "bad" characters so far. It's emphasized first in the beginning scene, when Cordelia refuses to exaggerate her love for her father for the purpose of gaining a greater inheritance. For her, honesty has both good and bad consequences because even though she's banished for it, it leads to her ending up with the best suitor, the King of France, who values her honesty. The next scene that stuck out to me was Act II, scene II, when Kent talks about being honest and plain. Although he isn't totally honest himself (since he's in disguise at this point) he uses honesty as an excuse for his treatment of Oswald. It seems that the good characters, even if they aren't completely honest themselves, at least see the value of honesty. The bad characters don't seem to care about honesty at all, and they rely on deceit for their plans to work.

Sisterly Love

First off, this play is my jam. One of my favorite dynamics in the show is the relationships between Lear's daughters. I secretly delight in how cunning and terrible Goneril and Regan are, but they're also *cue Jean Ralphio* the woooorst. As I reread Act 1, I admired Cordelia's grace in the face of complete humiliation at her father's hands in front of court. Her unwillingness to pander to her father's ego and choice to refrain from criticizing her father in front of his family and advisors demonstrates her love for him. Acting as foils to Cordelia's behavior, Goneril and Regan gloat about their success over their sister in acquiring large parts of their father's kingdom, discussing their father's degeneration in a manner that suggests they care little for his actual health and more for the power they obtain as he grows older and sicker. Their flattery, when compared to Cordelia's plain speech, sounds all the more false. Because of his their  ill-concealed self-interest, I don't feel that bad on when Goneril and Regan mistreat Lear because he heard what he wanted to hear even though he knew Cordelia was a much more devoted daughter.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

I couldn't help but notice the similarities between King Lear and his daughters, Goneril and Regan. At the beginning King Lear shows his self-centered attitude when he asked his daughters to say how much they loved him and based the amount of land they would get by how much they "loved" him or in this case how much they flattered him. When Cordelia didn't flatter him like he wanted, he immediately became angry and shunned her. When it came time for Lear to be at the mercy of his two daughters, they showed their self-centered attitudes and throw him out of their houses into a storm. His own attitude is thrown right back at him through his two evil daughters. It seems that karma is already coming into play right from the start. Lear's character flaw, his blindness of the truth and his self-centered attitude, has quickly taken affect in bringing his downfall.

This makes me wonder how Cordelia became so nice and generally a good person when all around her there were people like her sisters and her father.  

Joss Whedon and Shakespeare Are Bros

I'm a sucker for a good Fool. It explains my dating life.

The Fool is a trope that has never really disappeared. It's grown and evolved to immerse itself in the stoner, the deadbeat, the nerd--any one that falls into a outcast social group has the freedom to get layers.

Ideally. I can think of many examples of lazy writing, so let's just specify that well-written genre entertainment has this trope.

"[The Fool] may be seen as half-witted, a natural whose wisdom is instinctive clairvoyance, or as a sage rationalist, shrewd and thoughtful. [...]He has also been portrayed as embodying the conscience of the King, as a voice of social protest, and as a court fool who 'shrivels into a wretched little human being on the soaking heath' (Bayley, 61)." R.A. Foakes, "Introduction to King Lear," Bloomsbury, pg. 133.

The writer/director who most forcibly embraces this conceit is Joss Whedon. If you have watched any TV show, seen any movie, or read any graphic novel that Whedon has been involved in, you know that amid the character dynamics and clever quips is a character who seems to see through illusion and transcend distraction. The best example is probably Cabin in the Woods (2012), in which Whedon parodies popular entertainment by relegating initially complex and varied characters into static tropes, including "The Fool." However, as Cabin in the Woods is rated R, so a more approachable example would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Firefly. Characters who don't fit into any of the societal categories such as Spike, a vampire who can't hurt humans, and River, an insane prodigy that straddles the divide between culturally human and instinctively animal. These characters see what other characters don't, and these characters can say what other people can't. There is another excellent Fool in Twelfth Night. I'm eager to see how Shakespeare varies the role.

Old King Lear

Acting

I watched a production of King Lear in high school, done by a high school, and I honestly assumed that once I actually started reading it I would suddenly have all of these "aha!" moments where I realized that the play I saw wasn't that great of a telling. Surprisingly, that has not been the case thus far. My initial thoughts about King Lear match perfectly with my thoughts of him as I read this play.

Anyway. One of the most interesting aspects of this play so far is the power struggle that runs through each storyline. Even down to the servants-Kent is trying to do right by his king, and instead gets treated like a cheap villain. That type of thing. Edmund wants the glory and power that his brother has, and Goneril and Regan want the power that their aging father is clinging to. The power that they seek overrules the familial connections that should be of the utmost importance. I was particularly intrigued by the treatment of Lear by Goneril and Regan during Act II, when they keep denying him access to their homes, and by attempting to reduce his number of servants, they essentially undermine his power and authority. As they take away the number of people who are literally there to serve and obey him, they are increasingly reducing his symbolic power over both them and the world. The fewer people at his command, the less powerful he is. I find it a great use of a tangible, quantifiable tactic that knocks him down a rung, more than once. And if you think about it, power is the ultimate undoing in the beginning as well. Lear isn't really that concerned with "love", in the traditional sense in Act I. He isn't asking them if they love him. He's a powerful king who wants to be sure that he adored, and that his love can be rewarded with monetary gain. Interesting commentary on power..

Nyssa Silvester: "I'd Say I Had Eyes Again": Redeeming Shakespeare's Gloucester for the Blind

In the recent rise of disability studies, scholars like Georgina Kleege have drawn attention to the lack of role models for the blind in classic literature. Instead, literature tends to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of blindness, including blindness accompanied by compensatory powers and blindness as punishment for sin. Shakespeare's King Lear would seem to fall into these stereotypical traps in its treatment of Gloucester during the Dover Cliff scene, where his son Edgar supposedly fools him into thinking he's jumped off a towering cliff. Based on textual evidence, though, we can read Gloucester as collaborating with Edgar in constructing this scene for the audience. Therefore, Gloucester exhibits agency and hope in crafting his renewal, and he can serve as a start for blind role models in classic literature.

Paper found here.

The Proto-Final Draft

Okay, all. After grueling hours of figuring out what I was trying to say, I think I have my draft down pretty well. I think there are some things I want to tweak in my thesis so that it's a little more cohesive, but I'm going to call that good for tonight. Let me know if you have any comments!

A New Paragraph: Traditional Readings of Sight in King Lear

When I met with Dr. Burton, he suggested that my paper's argument would be stronger if I established more of a counterargument in the traditional readings of King Lear. Here is a paragraph detailing the usual way blindness is read in the play and the problems it brings up for blind studies. The next paragraph I'm going to be putting together is one that takes seriously the unity that might be disturbed in the play with my rereading. I'll take the play more seriously and try to find a new way to establish Shakespeare's parallels if I'm saying that Gloucester isn't be tricked by Edgar the way he's tricked by Edmund.

So anyway, here's the first of the new paragraphs:

The traditional reading of Gloucester’s blindness capitalizes on blindness as a reductive literary symbol. Harold C. Goddard presents a typical reading of the blind Gloucester in his essay on King Lear. Goddard points out the theme of sight and perception throughout the play: “The scene in question [Dover Cliffs scene] . . . is centered on the eyes and eyesight of Gloucester. But consider King Lear as a whole: does not practically everything in it turn on this subject of seeing? Darkness and light; blindness and vision--visions and blindness, indeed, of every kind” (143). Goddard is assuredly right to draw attention to the sight that pervades the text--there is ample evidence and justfication to bring up these parallels--but, published in 1960, his work comes from a critical tradition that does not problematize representations of disability in literature. His writing comes on especially shaky ground by today’s standards of criticism when he says, “In this, his version of The Last Judgment, Shakespeare has demonstrated that hatred and revenge are a plucking-out of the human imagination as fatal to man’s power to find his way in the universe as Cornwall’s plucking out of Gloucester’s eyes was to the guidance of his body on earth” (170). Goddard has gone so far in his textual analysis that blindness has become merely a symbol for him, abstracted as far as the Final Judgment, with no mention of the Gloucester, the actual blind character, except to say that his lack of sight equates to a lack of guidance. Even more recent and informal looks at blindness in King Lear do not push back against the purely metaphorical meaning of blindness. Sylvia Morris, an academic Shakespeare blogger, says, “The most striking [references Shakespeare makes to eyes and sight] occur in King Lear where the physical act of seeing is a metaphor for understanding and self-awareness. Sometimes words aren’t enough, and then Shakespeare translates the metaphor into action.” Even when blindness is enacted onstage, Morris chalks this action up not to character but to an extension of metaphor. It is just these types of analyses that Georgina Kleege rebuffs in her own work as “merely another version of the old story--the blind man as instructive spectacle, useful to everyone but himself” (90). Kleege seems, in essence, to want the blind in literature to be instructive in a different way, to learn how to live without site and thus, by implication, to serve as a model for blind readers. To be able to read blind role models into classic literature, we have to suspend, at least for a moment, our sighted focus on the symbolism of blindness and explore the character presented on the page without this imposed interpretive weight.

Response to Criticism

I didn't have a lot of time in class to talk about my draft with Paul and Bailey, but Paul did have some good tips for me. He mentioned that I was possibly making too big of assumptions of what a general audience would know and gave recommendations about how I could fix that perception. He also helped me work out the flow of my paper and be able to read it at the sentence and word level. That way it will read a lot easier, and the editing process should really refine it.

Lizy had a good suggestion on my post of my essay, too. She mentioned a counterargument that I should address, namely the invasion of France that grows in the background until act V. Truth be told, that plot point of the play had always been really confusing to me, so Lizy has inspired me anew to contextualize my reading in the play, even the parts that I didn't understand as much. Thank you!

Bibliography: Updated and Annotated

OK, PEEPS! THE PROCRASTINATION IS OVER!

If looking at the above picture gives you a worse headache than looking at the rough draft of my paper, then I'm off to a good start. If not, I won't be surprised because it has a long way to go. 

In my attempt to expand my sources, this is what I have found:

 

Social Proof: Finally, Someone to talk to!

 

As some of you may have noticed, I have been having difficulty finding people to talk to about my topic. However, I did follow up on Dr. Burton's hint to post our "tweethis statements" on the internet, and I have been doing so on Facebook, and this caught the attention of my cousin Gloria. One of the small miracles that happened around my grandfather's funeral last weekend was being able to discuss this with her. Gloria's family has never been active in the LDS Church. Gloria attended a ministerial college and has studied religious history, and she told me when she was visiting me that she is currently an all-but-confirmed Anglican. That's what set my radar off, so I asked her a few questions about the Tudors and the start of the Church of England. From what I remember of our conversation off the top of my head, she said that when considering the Tudors it is important to separate the religious from the political. The pope had no reason to not grant Henry VIII a divorce other than the fact that the Holy Roman Emperor was leaning on him to say no, and Henry separating the English Church from Rome was a bluff. Henry needed a male heir more than anything else. If he had to have one legitimate heir, the other child had to become illegitimate. His divorce from Katherine of Aragon estranged him from his daughter Mary and estranged her from Elizabeth. Gloria says it is Mary we need to remember to be sorry for: had the divorce and its aftermath not been so traumatic, she might have been a more competent ruler. Henry made a lot of mistakes, and he realized this in later life, but although his wives Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr attempted reconciliation and Henry made room for Mary and Elizabeth in his will, the damage had already been done. Had he attempted to reconcile himself with his daughters--and reconcile them as well--things would have been better. *wants to cry*

Scholarly Articles: I found these two right when I got back from Arizona and read them during breaks at work (because my coworkers take notoriously long breaks).

• • Neill, Michael. “'In Everything Illegitimate:' Imagining the Bastard in Renaissance Drama.” The Yearbook of English Studies. 23: Early Shakespeare Special Number. 1993: 270-292. Web. 1 April 2013. In case you haven't inferred from the title, this paper is all about THE HORROR OF BASTARDS! ...Specifically in Renaissance Drama. Plenty of discussion about Edmund in King Lear.
   
  • Trace, Jacqueline. “Shakespeare's Bastard Faulconbridge: An Early Tudor Hero.” Shakespeare Studies. 13. 1980: 59-70. Web. 1 April 2013. The author of this article is mainly trying to discuss the possible historical figures relating to the Bastard in King John, but it does discuss the Bastard's motivations and loyalties. 
  
  
  Books: 
  
  
  • Pierce, Robert. Shakespeare's Histories: The Family and the State. Ohio State University Press, 1971. Print. Pierce talks about the family dynamics of the women in the history plays. A beneficial source on Richard III and King John as well as on ideas about the family in Elizabethan times.
  •  Loades, David. The Tudor Queens of England. London: Continuum, 2009. Print. A biography and analysis of the women who shaped pre-Tudor and Tudor England. This will be my reference for the specific historical discussion of the Tudors. I was going to use The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir but it only focuses on the six wives and it is also to detailed. This other book is much more succinct.