http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZBS6e1msHs
I chose this resource because I wanted to find something out of the ordinary that might help someone who is Shakespeare "illiterate." This source is a decent starting block for those who find Shakespearean plots and/or language overly convoluted. This video in particular breaks down King Lear for us in manageable chunks, although it at times becomes unmanageably annoying. The major questions it raises for me are ones of Shakespeare's complexity versus his accessibility. Are Shakespeare's plots simple but portrayed in a convoluted way or are they convoluted inherently in the amount of levels they operate on? At least this puts the plot in terms that those of us who find the Elizabethan wordplay a bit much to start with. Is it best to understand the plot first and then dive into the text or is it better to derive the plot from the text to better understand it? I tend to believe the prior, or else Shakespeare would not give us all this exposition in the form of asides and soliloquy. This is a pretty useful resource for those just starting on reading King Lear, but becomes obsolete when one needs to consider deeper meanings in the text.
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