I didn’t mean they would know how it would end—I meant they would know that Lear used shallow indicators to judge character, and Cordelia would turn out to be the faithful daughter.
It looks like audiences since before Shakespeare’s time would have gone in knowing the outline of the story. But I’m mostly replying to confess—the same Wikipedia article that I myself quoted makes it clear that there was no really happy ending to King Lear until 1681. I wasn’t paying close enough attention.
I didn’t mean they would know how it would end—I meant they would know that Lear used shallow indicators to judge character, and Cordelia would turn out to be the faithful daughter.
It looks like audiences since before Shakespeare’s time would have gone in knowing the outline of the story. But I’m mostly replying to confess—the same Wikipedia article that I myself quoted makes it clear that there was no really happy ending to King Lear until 1681. I wasn’t paying close enough attention.