Abstract

This article examines the way in which Harold Pinter depicted the knights in his screenplay for William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Lear in 2000. The surviving screenplay demonstrates a fascinating engagement with the text and an insight into how Pinter imagined the play working on screen. His characterization of the knights and their role in Lear's story is built up through additions and alterations made to the text as Pinter “opens out” the stage world of Shakespeare's source text. The social and political structures of the kingdom are represented through the “programmatic violence of the knights,” which is eventually turned against Lear. By exploring Pinter's representation of the knights in his adaptation, this article will highlight Pinter's understanding of the source text, his method of adapting it, and his interaction with the play's existing legacy.

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