King Lear of King Lear" (1949), argues that "Lear" dramatizes, among other things, the current meanings of "Nature". The words "nature," "natural" and "unnatural" occur over forty times in the play, reflecting a debate in Shakespeare's time about what nature really was like; this debate pervades the play and finds symbolic expression in Lear's changing attitude to Thunder. There are two strongly contrasting views of human nature in the play: that of the Lear party (Lear, Gloucester, Albany, Kent), exemplifying the philosophy of Bacon and Hooker, and that of the Edmund party (Edmund, Cornwall, Goneril, Regan), akin to the views later formulated
King Lear roles in the play; most commonly the Fool, who has been played (among others) by Judy Davis, Emma Thompson and Robyn Nevin. Lear himself has been played by Marianne Hoppe in 1990, by Janet Wright in 1995, by Kathryn Hunter in 1996–97, and by Glenda Jackson in 2016. Shakespeare wrote the role of Lear for his company's chief tragedian, Richard Burbage, for whom Shakespeare was writing incrementally older characters as their careers progressed. It has been speculated either that the role of the Fool was written for the company's clown Robert Armin, or that it was written for performance by