Mapping Sight and Blindness in King Lear(s) of William Shakespeare and Roberto Ciulli: Towards a Poly-optic Reading

Abstract

Mapping Sight and Blindness in King Lear demonstrates the ploy-optic nature of Shakespeare’s King Lear. The pictorial and metaphorical use of images of sight and blindness and their significance are examined. Lear’s blindness is psychogenic expressing his fear of castration. The multitude of gazes in the play: scopophilic, misandric, gynocentric, phallic, and gazes from the margin have allowed us to conceive a new concept called the poly-optic dimension of the text which implies the presence of different perspectives and angles and distorts the idea of a harmonious single gaze.  Roberto Ciulli’s adaptation of King Lear is another demonstration of the poly-optic dimension of the Shakespearean text. The concept of the transmigratory nature of the text is introduced and defined. This concept allows Roberto Ciulli to experiment with sight and blindness theatrically and create a stage similar to an optical prism where theatrically blinded characters generate visions loaded with possibilities of interpretations independent from the Shakespearean text even while dealing with the very same theme of sight versus blindness. Reading sight and blindness from the lens of language (images) and (psychoanalysis) gazes and performance criticism allows us to prove the poly-optic nature of King Lear.