Alternative versions of the play

3 important questions on Alternative versions of the play

Why did editor, Samuel Johnson change the ending of the play?

He believed Cordelia's death was contrary to all notions of background-colormoral justice. With the deaths of the wicked children it seemed to him that the play was moving towards a comfortable moral conclusion in which good triumphed over evil.

What happened in Nahum Tate's rewriting of King Lear?

Cordelia, Lear and Gloucester were alive and reunited. Cordelia and Edgar were to be married with the consent of both their father.

Why was "As flies to wanton boys, are we to th' gods. They kill us for their sport" cut from productions until the 1930s?

It represented unacceptable nihilism 

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