755 The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear (with Nan Z. Da) | My Last Book with Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Summary

Podcast Summary: The History of Literature — Ep. 755

Title: The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear (with Nan Z. Da) | My Last Book with Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Host: Jacke Wilson
Guests: Nan Z. Da, Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Date: December 4, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Jacke Wilson explores a thought-provoking new reading of Shakespeare’s King Lear through the lens of Chinese history, particularly Maoist and post-Maoist China, with Nan Z. Da, literary scholar and author of The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear. Da draws on both personal experience and literary analysis to illuminate how Lear's dilemma resonates with twentieth-century Chinese political trauma, from the excesses of Maoism to the cultural wounds of scripted obedience and broken familial bonds. Later, biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle shares her choice for the last book she’d ever read, taking a brief poetic detour to the work of Elizabeth Bishop.

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Main Interview: Nan Z. Da on King Lear and the Tragedy of 20th-Century China

Nan Z. Da’s Background and Perspective

• Childhood in China and the U.S. (05:04–05:42)

  • Born in Hangzhou, emigrated to the U.S. at age 6 (Cincinnati, then Philadelphia).
  • Remembers the vividness of late-80s/early-90s China: “Every minute was so vivid that I have… retained many memories of those early years.” – Nan Z. Da [05:16]

• Encounter with Shakespeare (05:57–06:18)

  • First read King Lear in Children’s World Classics.
  • Came to a deeper understanding as a university undergraduate.
  • Fascination: “We have wronged Lear. It’s a play about wronging, and proximity to wronging makes it harder to see other possible cases.” – Nan Z. Da [06:21]

Rethinking Lear’s Opening and Its Chinese Resonance

• Common Misconceptions About Lear (06:55–08:01)

  • "We usually misremember the division of the kingdoms… as a test that encourages cheating, but it is itself a test that has cheated."
  • Lear is not merely rewarding flattery; he punishes deviation from a script, making it more complex than simple vanity.

• Personal and Historical Parallels (09:33–10:55)

  • Da: Lear’s test echoed Maoist-era China's culture of "stupidly scripted speech... unmeritocratic performances... [where] the outcome was long determined in advance."
  • Such scripts “render human life meaningless, essentially.” [10:25]
  • Da draws on memories of empty, forced ritual from her childhood, connecting Shakespeare's narrative to China’s political culture.

Political Leadership and the Dangers of Flattery

• On Truth, Criticism, and Authority (11:45–13:06)

  • “For [Lear] to accept criticism is to die… Criticism is an agonized predicament, both for the truth teller… and for the person demanding it because… if there are no longer surrounded by yes-men, then they will perish.”
  • Confucian ideal: The sovereign needs ministers who will tell uncomfortable truths; Maoism represents the catastrophic failure of that tradition.

• Why King Lear Is "the Most Chinese Shakespeare Play" (13:06–15:03)

  • On its Britishness: “It is about a Britain extinction event… every one of these characters is as English as you could get.”
  • On its Chineseness: “[Lear] understands cheating… when things are not meritocratic, how quickly things devolve into not just absurd cruelty, but absurd stupidity and confusion… abusive children can be to parents and vice versa—a very Chinese theme.”

Comparative History: Lear, China, and the Problem of Redistribution

• 20th Century Chinese Context (19:06–21:38)

  • Lear’s division of the kingdom compared to the Nationalist/Communist contest in China.
  • Early Communism involves “bids for flattery” and scripts of self-congratulation—Mao writing “long compliments to himself.”
  • The culture of political flattery foreshadows later tragedies.

• Parallels and Contrasts: Lear vs. Mao (21:38–22:38)

  • Mao is "significantly worse"; whereas Lear, for all his faults, is sympathetic, especially as he “resembles the people who are the worst victims of Maoism.”

• Redistribution, Meritocracy, and Communist Experiments (23:14–25:54)

  • “Lear… is a play about communism in its most deeply desired and failed form… Redistribution immediately became… handing power to the worst possible human beings.”
  • On the poverty of Lear’s Britain and 1940s China: “You have nothing really to redistribute. And that’s the case in Lear as well—this country is in shambles.”

Family, Filial Piety, and Abuse—Confucian and Shakespearean Tragedy

• Familial Betrayal and Confucian Ideals (26:42–28:19)

  • “Lear’s behavior towards his children is, in many ways, classic abuse.”
  • The play manifests “the worst possible Confucian environment,” where balance is lost and relationships become vicious cycles of humiliation.
  • “If you go to the depth of the Cultural Revolution, you see… people turning in their parents… and parents doing it to their children. This goes on… still alive today.”

• Cult of Mao and Broken Reverence (28:39–29:10)

  • Mao was “dearer to them than their parents”; the Party redirected filial loyalty from family to the leader.

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On Writing the Book — Framing History and Genre

• Organization by Genre (29:43–31:29)

  • Chapters: Tales, History, Tragedy, Comedy, Romance—showing how Lear and Chinese history illuminate each genre.
  • Explores mythic British history and the willful ignorance around certain historical periods, which echoes the suppressed history of 20th-century China.

• Lear’s Lessons on Comedy and Romance (32:23–33:53)

  • “Lear is about a certain kind of failure of comedy… the jester… is always after the fact.”
  • Even in seeking romance or redistribution, the play exposes the failure of these ideals.

Literature, Therapy, and History

• Personal Meaning and Literary Criticism (34:13–36:06)

  • Da sees literary criticism as therapeutic: “Comprehension is always therapeutic.”
  • History and literary analysis act as a “testing ground” for real-world understanding.
  • On China’s historical amnesia: “It’s not… China has gotten rid of all books about Maoism… it’s just that people aren’t even interested in reading them.”

• Relevance to Today’s America (36:06–38:21)

  • Lessons from the Cultural Revolution: “Anytime you are within range of such naked asks for flattery, you know something is deeply wrong.”
  • Da resists drawing direct analogies to contemporary America, saying, “The immediate present is the most difficult to historicize… things have to be in the past for clarity.”

• Concluding Reflections (38:21–38:44)

  • On the value of understanding complexity in monstrous periods of history and literature: “There is something worthwhile about the effort…”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

“We have wronged Lear. It’s a play about wronging, and proximity to wronging makes it actually harder to see other possible cases.”
— Nan Z. Da [06:21]

“Lear is not rewarding flattery. He’s punishing the person who refuses to say what was scripted, which is different.”
— Nan Z. Da [08:42]

“Chinese history is my supplying of that analog to this real predicament.”
— Nan Z. Da [09:33]

“Criticism is an agonized predicament, both for the truth teller… and for the person demanding it…”
— Nan Z. Da [11:45]

“Confucian tragedy as well as a Lyrian one.”
— Nan Z. Da [28:39]

“Comprehension is always therapeutic.”
— Nan Z. Da [34:26]

"Anytime you are within range of such naked asks for flattery, you know that something is deeply wrong."
— Nan Z. Da [36:30]

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The "Last Book" Segment with Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Reflections on Elizabeth Bishop (40:48–42:45)

• Iris’s Choice for a Final Book: Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Poems.
  • “I think just to have… especially the images... where she's talking about wisdom like it’s this cold ocean… her deep thoughts as my last thoughts would be really wonderful.” — Iris Jamahl Dunkle [40:59]
  • Praises Bishop’s perfectionism: “She made those poems so perfect… every single image...” [41:45]
  • On Bishop’s timelessness: “She sort of resisted a lot of the literary movements of her era, and I think it’s given her a status… the poems will hold up.” — Jacke Wilson [42:10]
  • Bishop will “be part of what we’d want to read and hopefully 40, 50 years from now.” — Iris Jamahl Dunkle [42:37]

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [04:31–38:44] — Main interview with Nan Z. Da (background, King Lear and Chinese history, themes of flattery, power, history, and familial conflict)
• [40:23–42:51] — “My Last Book” segment with Iris Jamahl Dunkle (on Elizabeth Bishop’s poems)

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Takeaways

• Nan Z. Da’s perspective makes King Lear a hauntingly universal parable about misguided power, autocratic temptation, and the scars of collective memory, especially as reflected in 20th-century China.
• Both King Lear and modern history show the tragedy that follows from leadership demanding submission and flattery instead of honest critique.
• The conversation concludes by valuing literature’s power to help us process, understand, and survive the traumas of history—and, in Iris Dunkle’s words, to offer enduring wisdom and beauty for a lifetime and beyond.

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For more from The History of Literature, including past episodes on drama, poetry, and the entanglement of art and politics, check out their archives or connect on social media.

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

Hello. At the start of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, King Lear promises to divide his kingdom based on his daughter's professions of love. But he portions it out before hearing all of their answers for our guest today, Nan Da, a professor of English literature who emigrated from China to the United States as a child in the 1990s. This startling opening scene sparked a reckoning between Shakespeare's cruel and confounding story and the tragedy of Maoist and post Maoist China. We'll talk to Nanda about the Chinese tragedy of King. Learn today on the history of Literature.

Okay, here we go. Welcome to the History of Literature Podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for being here today. Rest in peace to Tom Stoppard, who has passed away at the age of 88. Here's a quote by Mr. Stoppard to inspire us all. Quote words they're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that meaning the other. So if you look after them, you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore. I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead. End quote. That's from his play, the Real Thing. Stoppard himself did quite a bit more with his words. And during his time on the planet, he was a fantastic thinker and writer, a fixture on the theatrical scene since 1967, when his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was first produced. He was also a great film and television scriptwriter and script doctor who wrote the Oscar winner Shakespeare in Love, among many other credits. For more on Sir Tom Stoppard's life and works, you can check out an episode in our archives with our friend Scott Carter, the playwright and television producer who has been a huge fan of Stoppard for many years. That's episode 425. Later today, we're going to hear from Iris Jamal Dunkle, a great literary biographer, to find out her choice for the last book she will ever read. But first, let's talk to Nanda about her reading of Shakespeare's King Lear and how Lear made her think about the world of Maoist China.

[C]

Okay. Joining me now is Nan Zi Da.

[A]

Who was born and raised in China and educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan. She's currently an associate professor in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University.

[C]

And she's here today to discuss her.

[A]

Book, the Chinese Tragedy of King Lear.

[C]

The most Chinese Shakespeare play seen through.

[A]

The lens of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Nan Da, welcome to the history of literature.

[D]

Thank you for having me.

[C]

So where exactly did you grow up.

[A]

And what was your childhood like?

[D]

I grew up in the city of Hangzhou very briefly. We immigrated to the United States in 92 when I was 6.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[D]

But it was such a.

You know, that moment in China, which we didn't recognize at the time, was in fact a renaissance. And everything, every minute was so vivid that I have, you know, I've retained many memories of those early years.

[C]

Yeah, right. And then where did you immigrate to?

[D]

Cincinnati, Ohio first, and then Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Okay. So you've sort of got this, I guess, much of your schooling in the United States. When did you become aware of Shakespeare and King Lear in particular?

[D]

I had a copy of a Children's World Classics when I was a child that had the story of Lear in It as well as Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. I believe I really understood the play much later in life as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

[C]

And did you study it there as part of a course?

[D]

Yeah, just Shakespearean tragedies. But the gambit was immediately interesting to me, which is that, you know, we have wronged Lear. It's a play about wronging, and proximity to wronging makes it actually harder to see other possible cases. So we've wrong Lear just in our misremembrance of what he does, which is so fascinating to me that it could be so simple, and yet there's the possibility of getting it completely wrong.

[C]

When you say we've wronged Lear, do you mean the characters in the play, or you mean we as readers?

[D]

I mean we as readers.

[C]

So what are we getting wrong?

[D]

There's lots of things that we could get wrong, but we usually misremember the division of the kingdoms. That was my inspiration for writing this book, which is that the division of the kingdoms is a test that encourages cheating, but it is itself a test that has cheated. You know, it's a test that doesn't proceed the way that it says it does. And although this doesn't feel like we've wronged Lear, that is what it seems like he does is even worse than what we remember. We remember him as rewarding flattery.

[C]

Right, Right.

[D]

Which is incorrect. What he actually does is to set up this. This pretty blunt proforma. So while it seems like what he does is worse, this is just the beginning of all the misremembrances that will happen in this play. And this play, of course, makes it maximally difficult to remember what happened.

[C]

So we remember. We think he's being flattered by the older sisters, and he's kind of unnecessarily harsh on the daughter, on Cordelia, the youngest daughter. And we see even at the outset that she's the one that probably should be listened to, and that the older ones are selfish and greedy and so on. But you're saying that it's not so much that he's responding to flattery and swayed by them, but that he's devised this division as kind of a loyalty test, or just that he's devised this division of his kingdom just as kind of a mistake or kind of a misstep by a king who's nearing the end of his reign.

[D]

Yes, that's all true. So he's not rewarding flattery. He's punishing the person who refuses to say what was scripted, which is Different. Right. These are different from one another. They lead to different consequences.

[C]

Right. And there's a connection that you made. I mean, you could have written a book that was just about that, but you've written a book called the Chinese Tragedy of King Lear. So there must have been something about that, about that test and about the way we've remembered it that tied in for you with something you had experienced or something you knew about China during that period. So was there a connection there that sort of started your critical thinking, antenna twitching?

[D]

Absolutely. Attaching China to the problem is just a way of having skin in the game. I think that if you make critical observations, there should be a real world analog that proves that these critical observations are accurate or that they are consequential. Chinese history is my supplying of that analog to this real predicament. I have very, very deep memories of stupidly scripted speech, stupidly scripted actions that everyone was just supposed to go through. Unmeritocratic performances, unmeritocratic demonstrations in which, you know, the outcome was long determined in advance.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Which renders, you know, human life meaningless, essentially. Right. That's what that does. And this was in the late 80s, early 90s, so this was the tail end of something. So then I went back in time to figure out what produced this unnatural situation, these unnatural behaviors. And that story begins much, much earlier, not in the Cultural Revolution, but in the 20s and 30s. My book begins in the 40s.

[C]

Right. And so we often. Speaking of historical leaders, there's been a bunch of things in the last 10 years or so to talk about Abraham Lincoln and the way he constructed his cabinet and the team of rivals, and that he wanted people who would tell him the truth or who would argue with one another, and that that was his way of getting at the truths or the facts that he needed to hear in order to make decisions. And the opposite of that is surrounding yourself with yes men and yes women. And I never really thought of it, but Lear, in some sense, is kind of committing that cardinal leadership sin of rewarding the people who are telling him what he wants to hear and ignoring the people who are willing to tell him when he's going down a path he shouldn't be going down.

[D]

Right. So Lear has stack things together to be maximally consequential. So for him to accept criticism is to die. Those are effectively the same things, is to be abandoned by your. Not even your favorite child, maybe your only beloved child. So in Lear, the stakes are so, so high, and the play understands that criticism is an agonized Predicament. It's an agonized situation, both for the truth teller who only knows that they are telling truth by virtue of being in harm's way, and for the person who's demanding it because they've gotten the situation to such a degree where if they're no longer surrounded by yes men, then they will perish. This is the situation. And you know, Chinese history is always the understanding is that the sovereign must have a parrhesiatic, a ministry, that he must have ministers who are willing to speak truth to power. And when this goes well, then China as well. And when this goes wrong, China fares poorly. There are no structural guarantees for this possibility that the sovereign allows the critic to live. Maoism is an example where that completely fails.

[C]

Now, I had a question on my list for you. Which is what makes King Lear the most Chinese Shakespeare play? Is that the answer?

[D]

Well, I should begin by saying that in many ways King Lear is the most English play, it's the most British play.

And I'm saying at the same time that it's the most Chinese play. So I guess.

That needs some explanation. So I think it's the most British play because it is about a Britain extinction event.

It's about what happens in the mythical lineage when.

One of the original founders of Britain from Troy, what happens to his line over time in 800 B.C. nothing good. Nothing good happens essentially before the coming of Christ. And Lear also takes place in Leicester. Leicester is Lear city. And Lester has historically a fraught city for British monarchs. So it's English through and through Kent and Gloucester. And every one of these characters is.

About as British, about as English as you could possibly get. At the same time, it is to me, it's a Chinese play because so many reasons. It understands cheating, you know, it understands what happens when things are not meritocratic, how quickly things devolve into not just absurd cruelty, but just absurd stupidity and confusion. It understands how abusive children can be to their parents and their parents to their children. And to be caught up in this kind of vicious cycle, which is a very Chinese theme. There are many other reasons.

[C]

Right, okay, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll tie this back into the china of the 20s and 30s.

[D]

Sounds good.

[C]

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[C]

Okay, we're back with Nanda. So, Nan, you mentioned the 20s and 30s. Is that because we're looking at kind of the origin story of Mao, or are we pretty Mao at this point?

[D]

Yes, this is both pre MAU and the origin stories of Mao.

[C]

How does Lear's plan to divide his kingdom compare with what we're seeing there? Or how did that period lead to what you saw later happening in 20th century China in terms of the issues that you're interested in?

[D]

Sure. The 20s was mostly the end of what was called the warlord era, and it was nominally kind of unified under the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai Shek. So in the 1920s, China was a divided and chaotic country. This prepped the ground for the rise of the Communist Party part because the Nationalist Party had, you know, had had its own problems. It was trying to. It was fending off Japanese imperial invasion. And the Nationalist Party is also characterized by, you know, kind of Chinese version of fascism, violence, kleptocracy, and ultra nationalism. So the ground was ready for its opposite in the Communist. Rise of the Communist Party. And when Mao gets to Peking University, he begins to initiate his plan. So we have early days when things are not yet clear what kind of regime we will get. But it's a regime that's characterized even at the start by essentially bids for flattery. So after the Long March, this is the march that Mao took. The Communist Party, fleeing from the Nationalist Party, finally settled in Yan'. An. That particular event was actually a quite disastrous event. No one could talk about how disastrous, how many people had perished in the Long March. Mao wrote poems. He took the tune that was used by another Chinese historical hero named Yue Fei. So he took the kind of pattern of those poems and wrote one himself. But his poems were all long compliments to himself. They were essentially forms of self flattery. So thus begins the Chinese Communist Party. And they would start to implement the cruelties that we see again and again in larger and larger scale. 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

[C]

It sounds like you see parallels between Lear and Mao, or at least the Lear that we see in the opening scene, for example.

[D]

Yeah, just in the opening scene. Mao is significantly worse than Lear, who is. Who is kind. You see him almost immediately afterward to be quite kind, if belligerent. And in that way, he really much more resembles the people who are the worst victims of Maoism, people who had been made, whose egos were shattered, who had Been turned into beings that were needy and insecure and needed profuse amounts of attention and flattery. So Maoism created victims in its form, in its likeness. So I think Lears is a quite sympathetic character, especially when you start to think about him as both the beginning and the end of what he created or the type of environment that he created.

[C]

Right. And maybe Shakespeare is saying that what Lear. The way Lear was during the opening scene is kind of the danger for any ruler, for any monarch, for anyone with that much power, that the danger is always going to be that you might start to drink your own Kool Aid, so to speak.

[D]

Right. Yes.

[C]

Do you see any parallels with Mao's attempts to redistribute property? Is that kind of an analogy? We can draw between that and Lear's plan to divide his kingdom?

[D]

Certainly. And I wouldn't be the first not to connect it to Maoism, but to see Lear as a play that's about communism in its most deeply desired and failed form. This sort of different versions of leftist readings of Lear have all picked up on this. That Gloucester talks about redistribution, undoing, excess, and each man having enough. So the redistribution is the design of the play. It's commented on throughout the play. It's, of course, very stupid because it's unmeritocratic. And that is essentially the problem with redistribution in Lear's particular case. The play has isolated the options so that you either have extremely meritocratic or extremely unmeritocratic. And there seems to be no middle ground. Right. So whether you go to Gloucester's sons or Lear's daughters, you don't have a. A picture of redistribution that can just go amongst normal people. And that is also part of what the problem would happen is that redistribution immediately became effectively the same as handing power over to the worst possible human beings.

[A]

Right.

[C]

When you said it was kind of all or nothing, I was going down an imaginary path of, well, what if they had given Cordelia just a smaller share? And then she could have proven herself to be the most capable steward of the land or the person who was best equipped for doing something, you know?

[D]

Yeah. And in Lear, that redistribution is a normal redistribution so desired. You could very easily see it as a play that wishes for a more felicitous version of redistribution. And of course, in Lear's case, however, there isn't really too much to redistribute, which is the situation that you find China in in the 1940s. It's a country completely ravaged by the Nationalist Party, by warlordism, by, of course, the Brutality, the Japanese invasion. And so, you know, and you have cities like Chongqing that had been ravaged by the Soviets, so you have nothing really to redistribute. And that's the case in Lear as well, that you go out just a little bit and you see that this country is in shambles. Nothing is, well, husbanded, Nothing is kept up. We're dealing with a poor kingdom.

[C]

Right. That it's sometimes easier to divide these things up if during good times or when there's enough to go around, although that can also make people greedier, I suppose. So one of the things we haven't talked about yet is the relationship in China between children and their parents and.

[A]

The elders, which is also such a.

[C]

Prominent theme in Lear. Does. Does Lear's relationship with his children strike you as analogous to the relationship that Chinese people will exhibit or the idealized version that they have of how children should behave toward their parents and elders?

[D]

So Lear's behavior towards his children is in many ways classic abuse.

This kind of abuse is common. It's not, I suppose, in the Chinese imaginary. This is not.

An anomaly. But the intensity of all the different kinds of abuses that's concentrated in this play reflects kind of the worst possible Confucian environment. Right. The worst possible Confucian environment is when there's no sense of balance. So there's no such thing as a normal, properly redistributed. Right. A balanced sense of action. And so everything is vicious. Everything is to strip down and humiliate Lear when he talks to Goneril and Regan, it's, you know, it's enraged and it's entire to strip down and humiliate, to make them nothing. And then, of course, they return the favor and so on and so forth. And this scenario reached its realization in Maoist China. What could be the worst possible relation between children and their parents? If you go to the depth of the Cultural Revolution, you see people by the hundreds, by the thousands turning in their parents to be. To certain cruel punishment. And because it's a totalitarian state at that point, that's the only thing to do. And parents doing it to their children. And this. This goes on, you know, this. This is still alive today.

[C]

Was there something in Maoist China where they were trying to break that relationship or the. The reverence. They viewed it as kind of an outdated form, the Confucian respect for elders and the kind of reverence people had for the wisdom of teachers and other. And parents and other elders.

[D]

Yeah. Just to concentrate it in the Communist Party to redirect. Right. To redirect reverence to the figure of Mao himself, who was, you know, as the saying goes, bigger than your. Than your mom or dad, more dear than your parents. That was what my parents were raised on them. I was dearer to them than their parents. So, yes, it is a Confucian tragedy as well as a Lyrian one.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Okay, so let's talk about your book. One of the things that I wanted to mention is how you take us through different historical contexts. Pre Christian Britain, where the play is set, and. And Jacobean England, where the play was written, where there was the resurgence of the Black Plague, and then into 20th century China, which we've talked about already. But how else is the book organized? What topics do you cover? How's this framed?

[D]

So the most obvious organizational scheme in the book is by genre. So I divided the chapters into genres. The first chapter is called tales. The second chapter is history. Third chapter is tragedy. Fourth chapter is comedy, and the last chapter is romance. That allowed me to tell the story five different ways, essentially. And I do think that Lear and this particular episode in Chinese history will teach you everything you would wish to know and you wouldn't wish to know about genre, about each of these genres. In terms of historical coverage, yes, I was really fascinated by pre Christian Britain, and I'm really fascinated by the interest in pre Christian Britain during the late Elizabethan, early Jacobean period. So you have, you know, people like Spencer and Thomas Sackville and the people who wrote Gorbaduk are looking at Lear and Lear's, the history that comes right after lear. So from 800 BC to about 600 BC, which is a time in British history that's pretty much, as far as I understand, almost completely mythological. So this moment, our kind of collective historical ignorance towards what happens in England from the know, 1000 BC to about, say, 200 BC is itself very, very interesting. And the revival of interest in this history, from Mirror for magistrates and onward to Spenser and Shakespeare, is just itself such a.

Such a, such a fascinating form of historical consciousness. I find that because 20th century Chinese history is so hard to tell, right, even the names don't help. For example, the Cultural Revolution is a confusing, misleading name because it makes you think that whatever happened in the Cultural Revolution only happened in the Cultural Revolution, that it wasn't just an intensification of what had already been done at scale in the decades before. So it's such a confusing piece of history. It's such an unpleasant, you know, piece of history. I was really glad to have slightly More pleasant forms of history and historical consciousness to be in conversation with.

[C]

Well, and also, as you mentioned, there's chapters on comedy and romance. So what is it about Lear that takes you into those worlds?

[D]

Yeah, so Lear wants to show you. I think all of Shakespeare's plays want to tell you exactly what happens as preconditions or consequences in each of the genres in a particular predicament. Right. So everything that is relevant to romance and comedy in Lear is connected to the overall predicament. So comedy, for example, I think it's really interesting that the player is about a certain kind of failure of comedy. It's about the jester who is not exercising jester's privilege before the fact that, but rather always after the fact. So we learn that the fool, like Lear, who is a doppelganger for Lear, who's a kind of lyrian twin, misses Cordelia as much as Lear does, and he is embittered and enraged, just as Lear is. So this is not going to be effective comedy. Same with romance. I think that Lear understands all the failures in romance that would lead to this kind of Lyrian situation. It also understands itself to be very, very romantic. Redistribution, so that every man has enough is itself a romantic notion. So communism is a romantic notion, but so are. So many of the other forms of desire in the play are governed by romance. So I thought it was a great opportunity to max out each of these genres.

[C]

Right. You mentioned that your parents had their experiences in China, and you remember vividly some things that happened to you or that you can remember other people saying, for example, even at the young age, when you were there, has Lear helped you understand your own history?

[D]

I mean, most certainly.

[C]

Right.

[D]

I think that literary criticism is therapeutic. That is to say that it. Because it deals with comprehension.

Comprehension is always therapeutic. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And we bring everything inside us in order to have kind of a practical application of the things that we're reading. And we try to make sense of the world and vice versa. I mean, it helps us to understand the text in order to bring what we in particular bring to the text.

[D]

It just sort of gives a testing ground because people make literary critical claims all the time. But those literary critical claims have to be tested, otherwise they're just claims. So having the example of history and personal history, to me, is the best way to. To test the veracity of what you're saying. Is this true? Is this way of understanding things correct? Because it's such a confusing period of history, its confusions are so deep because it's revisionist. It's traumatic in a particular kind of way that would encourage everyone to avoid reading. So it's not like trying, you know, China has gotten rid of all books about Maoism and the Cultural Revolution. Not at all. It's just that people aren't even interested in reading them. And then, of course, we have, at a more global scale, everything that contributes to the disavowal of what happened during that time. So, you know, you're dealing with something quite formidable as a historian, as an amateur historian, as someone who's trying to figure out history for yourself. So if you're dealing with something formidable, I think it's good to have something formidable as well in your back pocket.

[C]

We are currently going through a pretty tumultuous period in America, and we see a turning away from science and education and even the basis of fact. Does the example of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and your studies of it offer anything to Americans in 2025?

[D]

That's a good question. I mean, I don't really feel like I'm the right person to opine on this, but I think that one of the lessons of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Chinese revolution from 49 onward, is that anytime you are within range of such naked asks for flattery, you know that something is deeply wrong. But there were things in the previous administration that was quite Maoist too, so things get more and more confusing in time. And my book makes an analogy between two items. Right. I don't think I'm quite ready to make an analogy or to add a third item to that analogy.

[C]

Right. Well. And when you say that.

The asking for flattery can lead to negative consequences, I suppose we could say that Lear helps as well as the Chinese Cultural Revolution in terms of offering us something to look at and compare to 2025. Do you feel like you're more comfortable using a text like that in order to have help explain things that are going on today? Or do you similarly feel like that's maybe it might be a little overly easy to draw an analogy like that?

[D]

I think I take the basic kind of historian's principle that the immediate present is the most difficult to historicize, most difficult to write about accurately. Things have to be in the past for there to be clarity. So I think the historical presence is too difficult to analogize, and it would be irresponsible maybe to do so.

[C]

Right, right. Well, one thing we can say, though, is there is something worthwhile about the effort in understanding the complexities of these things as we try to figure out who we are as human beings and how we go forward leave things there. The book is called the Chinese Tragedy of King Lear. Nan Da. Thank you so much for joining me.

[A]

On the history of literature.

[D]

Thank you so much.

[C]

Every drop of Jack Daniels is mellowed.

[A]

Through sugar maple charcoal, giving Jack itself smooth taste. That's what makes Jack Jack.

[B]

Please drink responsibly. Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey 40 alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast, Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle. Home and auto bundle. Just another way to save with a personal price plan, like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[C]

And finally today.

[A]

Today, Iris Jamal Dunkle was here to talk about her biography of Charmian Kittredge London, who might be best known as the wife of famous American writer Jack London, but who deserves more recognition as a literary trailblazer herself. After Iris and I talked about that, I asked Iris a special question.

Okay. We're joined now by Iris Jamal Dunkle, author of a biography of Charmian Kittredge London, Jack London's second wife, and a remarkable person in her own right. Iris, this question comes from a listener who asks, what do you want your last book to be? This will be the last book you will ever read. You can either choose one that exists or describe one that has not yet been written.

[E]

I love this question, but I think rather than choosing one that hasn't been written, I would love to read Elizabeth Bishop's Collected Poems as my last book.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

Just to have, you know, especially the images that, like at the Fish Houses, where she's talking about wisdom like it's this cold ocean and just thinking about her deep thoughts, as my last thoughts would be really wonderful.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And she made those poems so perfect. I mean, there aren't that many of them.

[C]

It's not like some poets, the collected.

[A]

Works, you'd maybe feel like there's some.

[C]

Wheat to separate from the chaff there.

Infrequently. But when you.

[A]

It's such an impressive collection because the poems are of such high quality and you know that she labored over them to get them in that form.

[E]

Totally.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

I feel like every single image, you know, I get the honor of teaching her often, like I just taught Crusoe in England. And I think just it's such a long poem, but it's so perfect. Like you said, every. Every image seems to be sewn together in a way where when you get to the last stanzas, you're just like, how did we even get here? Or one art, you know, the art of losing.

[C]

Right, right.

[A]

She also has a kind of timelessness to her.

[C]

I think she sort of resisted a lot of the literary movements of her era, and I think it's kind of given her sort of status that you could imagine when you're in this position.

[A]

50, 60 years from now that you'll be. The poems will hold up. They won't feel dated or stale or embarrassingly of their time.

[E]

Totally. I think that Bishop will be part of what we'd want to read and hopefully 40, 50 years from now.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Iris, Jamal Dunkal, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.

[E]

My pleasure. Thank you.

[A]

Okay, that's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature. My thanks to both Iris, Jamal Dunkel, and Nanda for those insightful conversations we've been immersed in George Orwell and James Baldwin people episodes on those two luminaries are coming up soon. And we're going to reclaim Ebenezer Scrooge and maybe the story of the Nativity too, this holiday season. Why not? Speaking of holidays, you can sign up for our Patreon account to make your season a little brighter for you or someone else. And that someone else might be me or Emma. You can do [e-mail] literature or you can splurge and treat yourself to our tour of literary England. Sign up now for the very first History of Literature podcast tour where you.

[C]

Can meet Emma and me.

[A]

We'll be on the tour, too. And what looks like maybe four or five guests of the show. Some of your favorite guests are going to join our little group for meals and conversation, and you'll get to meet fellow listeners of the podcast. Plus, we'll visit the haunts of Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Dickens and Dr. Johnson and the Inklings and more. And we'll hear from local experts at all of these stops. That's in. Well, I'm running out of theme song. That's in May of next year, 2026. And you can learn more at historyofliterature.com or at John Shores Travel. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

[F]

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[G]

You might be curious what it takes from equipment to general know how to make a podcast like this come to life. Maybe you're interested in making your own series as your New Year's resolution. Which is why you should check out my show Podcast Perspectives. The award winning series hosted by me, Jeff Umbro and produced by the Poglomerate. Recently named the best podcast production and marketing agency by PR Daily, Podcast Perspectives explores the audio industry through conversations with the experts behind the podcasts you love. From The Washington Post, iHeart, Pushkin, La Manada and beyond. We discuss everything from how to produce the best series to how to monetize and grow your shows to reach more audiences. If you're looking for a place to start, check out our recent Podcast Predictions episode where we bring on podcast leaders like Lemonada's Jessica Cordova, Kramer, Pushkin's Greta Cohn, Bumper's Dan Misner, NHPR's Rebecca Lav Devoy and NASA's Katie Conan's to share inspiring takeaways for 2026. Podcast Perspectives is designed to be approachable and actionable for anyone, regardless of podcasting experience. So follow Podcast Perspectives with Jeff Umbro on your favorite podcast app today.