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 the "Riverside Shakespeare", considers the publication of "Leir" to have been a response to performances of Shakespeare's already-written play; noting a sonnet by William Strachey that may have verbal resemblances with "Lear", Kermode concludes that "1604-5 seems the best compromise". Dr. Naseeb Shaheen dates the play c1605-6 per line 1.2.103 "These late eclipses in the sun and moon" which relates to the lunar eclipse of 27 September 1605 and the solar eclipse of 2 October 1605. The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, published in 1608 (Q) and 1619 (Q) respectively, and the version in