The “Shadowy Forest” And Why to Withhold the Light from King Lear

         I agree with Bantam. Choosing the Folio’s variant, declaring the “forests” Lear gives to Goneril and Albany “shadowy” rather than “shady” (1.1.64)—this decision, as it complements other instances of Shakespeare’s revealing layers of meaning within seemingly harmless words, seems appropriate. But in many regards the motives behind this decision turn suspect when analyzed in the light of the edition’s explanatory notes. Rather than, as it often does, discussing the medieval implications of the word, or providing multiple definitions of it, or unpacking the discrepancies between the Folio’s and the Quarto’s choice—rather than even omitting any explanation altogether, the Bantam’s explanatory notes single out the Folio’s choice of “shadowy” and define it as the Quarto’s “shady.” Thus the explanatory notes in many ways cement “shadowy” to its most concrete definition, discouraging the reader from engaging further with the word.

         Understanding “shadowy” as a synonym for “shady,” as meaning “abounding in shade” (OED, 2nd ed, s.v., “shadowy,” 2a), is useful for the irony created by its juxtaposition with other definitions of the word. “Shadowy” can also mean “transitory, fleeting” (OED, 2nd ed, s.v., “shadowy,” 1a), and the value of such an understanding is made apparent when analyzed against Lear’s declaration for his division to “be…perpetual” only three lines down (1.1.67): The shade’s protective capacities (the other clause of 2a’s definition of “shadowy” is “protected by the sun”) will, ironically, later in the play prove fleeting, as Lear’s hope that the division of his land will allow “future strife” to be “prevented now” (1.1.44-45) turns in vain.

        Ignoring the explanatory note even allows for an analysis of this passage in support of a claim in this edition’s introduction. The introduction writes of Shakespeare’s exploitation in Lear of the fairy tale tradition he inherited from the play’s sources, of the resultant tension “between an idealized world of make-believe and the actual world of disappointed hopes” (x). Just as the division of land by a father amongst his daughters, a common trope of fairy tales and the scene in which the “shadowy” passage is included, is not an injustice that resolves itself happily ever after, the “remote, inaccessible” (OED, 2nd ed, s.v., “shadowy,” 2c), enchanted and liberated forest of many fairy tales (and many of Shakespeare’s comedies) becomes just another spot on a map that foreshadows tragedy and disappointed hopes.