Shakespeare's Lear compared to Edward Bond's Lear

[all.dat.cash]

Greetings everyone!
I would like to ask you all one thing and I have a feeling that I am in the right place. I need help with my master thesis which deals with connection between Shakespeare, Edward Bond and Tom Stoppard. Since I made this topic in King Lear's section I will exclude Tom Stoppard part for now. To be precise, my mentor suggested me to compare Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' with Edward Bond's ''Lear''. Anyway I've been browsing the web and found couple comparisons between the two plays but I am curious. Having in mind the fact that both plays deal with the Lear character there must be a reason why Bond wrote modern version of Shakespeare's classic play. Could you give me any suggestions or opinions or even suggest me some free material which I can use in writing my thesis ? Thanks in advance. If I need to paraphrase any part of my question let me know.

[Trevor Gower]

Never having read or watched Edward Bond's work, I'm afraid I can be of limited use. All I know is the claim that it was meant to be more overtly political and apparently he notches up the violence, being consistently interested in the socio-political causes of violence. It's worth noting, as Ian McKellan rather mildly put it that Lear "is not a very nice man. He's not a kind man." I'd suspect that Bond looked at the raging tyrant abusing power at the start of the play, both as a king towards Cordelia and in the fear his knightly entourage kindles, and compared this to the peaceful figure without power or position at the end, and found that he'd like to play up that contrast. From what I've just read of the play, he strongly emphasizes the damage done by Lear before abdicating and keeps Lear around after his spiritual conversion.

One of the most interesting things I've ever read in relation to King Lear is a rather thorough introduction to Elizabethean medical views on madness:
http://web.uvic.ca/~mbest1/ISShakesp...arMadness.html