Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear": plot and history of creation. Great tragedies"

“Lear, the son of Baldud, began to reign over the British in 3105 after the creation of the world; at that time Joash reigned in Judea,” Shakespeare read in Galinshed’s Chronicles, one of his favorite books. The story took us back to ancient times. “Imagine that time,” writes Victor Hugo: “the temple in Jerusalem has just been built; the gardens of Babylon, which are already nine hundred years old, are beginning to fall into disrepair; gold coins are being minted for the first time in Aegina; scales have just been invented by Phiodon, the tyrant of Argos; the Chinese are began to calculate the times of solar eclipses; Homer, if he is still alive, is a hundred-year-old man; Lycurgus, an observant traveler, returned to Sparta... Such was the time when Lear reigned on the islands shrouded in fog."

In Shakespeare's tragedy, Lear swears by the "sacred radiation of the sun", the secrets of Hecate and the night. He compares himself to an angry dragon. Lear and Kent swear by Apollo, the sun god. And indeed: the ancient Britons worshiped the sun. After the Roman conquest, the British learned from the Romans the art of bronze sculpture, and among the monuments of the latter a serpent with a crest - a dragon - is often found. Hecate, the three-headed goddess of the underworld, the goddess of the ancient world, who survived under Zeus from the time of the Titans, is one of the archaic images of ancient mythology, the one to whom dogs, honeycombs and black lambs were sacrificed at crossroads. Shakespeare's thought went back into the darkness of distant centuries. The story of the old British king and his ungrateful daughters was first written down in Latin at the beginning of the 12th century. During the 16th century, this story was retold several times in both verse and prose. We find variants of it in Golinshed’s “Chronicles” and in other authors of the 16th century. In the early nineties of the 16th century, a play about King Lear was performed on the London stage.

Unlike Shakespearean tragedy, pre-Shakespearean Lear in all his variants comes to a happy ending. Lear and Cordelia are ultimately rewarded. In their well-being, they seem to merge with the reality around them. On the contrary, the positive heroes of Shakespeare's tragedy rise above this reality. This is their greatness and at the same time their doom. If the wound inflicted by Laertes’s poisoned sword had not been fatal, Hamlet still would not have been able to reign over the world of the Osrics, the new Rosencrants, the Guildensterns and the Polonievs, just as he would not have been able to return to peaceful Wittenberg. If a feather had moved at Cordelia’s lips and she had come to life, Lear, who had “seen a lot,” as the Duke of Albany says about him in the final words of the tragedy, would still not be able to return to that magnificent hall of the royal castle where we saw him at the beginning of the tragedy . He, wandering bareheaded in the storm and rain through the night steppe, where he remembered the “poor, naked unfortunates,” could not have been content with the secluded, serene shelter that Cordelia would have created for him.

Shakespeare's tragedy differs from its sources primarily in the formulation of a humanistic, truly Shakespearean problem. Lear on the throne, the “Olympian”, surrounded by the splendor of the court (the opening scene is undoubtedly the most magnificent in the entire tragedy), is far from the terrible reality outside the castle walls. The crown, royal robe, titles are in his eyes sacred attributes and have the fullness of reality. Blinded by servile worship during the long years of his reign, he mistook this external shine for his true essence. Why couldn’t he renounce “power, income and rule”, since the royal rank, which in itself had reality in his eyes, remained with him? “We retained the name and title of the king,” says Lear.

In the pre-Shakespearean versions of Lear there is no scene in the night steppe, just as there is no jester in them - the bearer of folk wisdom.

But underneath the outer shine there was nothing: “Nothing will come from nothing,” as the old king himself said. He became, in the words of the jester, “a zero without a number.” The royal robe fell from his shoulders, the scales fell from his eyes, and for the first time Lear saw the world of unvarnished reality - a cruel world over which the Regans, Gonerils and Edmunds ruled. The "Olympian" was thrown to the bare ground. Deprived of royal power, Lear saw himself as "a poor, sick, feeble, despised old man." The gloomy steppe, along which the homeless Lear wanders at night, in a storm and rain, and among which the hut of a mad tramp sticks out alone, seems to embody the gloomy background of Shakespeare's era. None Of his works, Shakespeare did not show the evolution of the image with such completeness as in the central figure of King Lear. In the course of developing events, not only Lear himself changes - the viewer's or reader's attitude towards him also changes. “Looking at him,” notes N.A. Dobrolyubov, “at first we feel hatred for this dissolute despot; but, following the development of the drama, we become more and more reconciled with him as a person and end up being filled with indignation and burning anger no longer to him, and for knowledge and for the whole world - to that wild, inhuman situation that can drive even people like Lear to such dissipation."

The scene in the steppe is the moment of Lear's complete fall. He found himself thrown out of society. “An unequipped man,” he says, “is just a poor, naked, two-legged animal.” And at the same time, this scene is his greatest victory. On this stormy night he understood what the jester, who had long known the truth, understood from the very beginning. No wonder Lear calls him a “bitter jester.” “Destiny, harlot of harlots,” sings the jester, “you never open your doors to the poor.” Life around, as the jester sees it, is ugly distorted. Everything about her needs to change. “Then the time will come - who will live to see it! - when they will begin to walk with their feet,” sings the jester. He is a "fool". Meanwhile, unlike Lear’s courtiers, he retains human dignity to the end. Following Li-r, the jester shows true honesty and he himself is aware of it. “That gentleman,” the jester sings, “who serves for profit and seeks profit, and who only in appearance follows his master, will run away when the rain begins and leave you in the storm. But I will stay, the fool will not leave; let him flee.” a sage; a scoundrel running away looks like a jester, but the jester himself, by God, is not a scoundrel." So, from the very beginning, the jester possessed the wisdom that Lear, having thrown off the royal mantle and crown, gained only through severe suffering.

The same freedom is gained by the blinded Gloucester, who, in his own words, “stumbled when he was seeing.” Now, blind, he sees the truth. He appeals to heaven as a symbol of justice: “Let the man who owns excess and is satiated with luxury, who has turned the law into his slave and who does not want to see because he does not feel, quickly feel your power! Then distribution will destroy excess, and everyone will receive enough livelihood."

The fate of Gloucester is shown in parallel with the fate of Lear. Gloucester becomes Edmund's victim. Insulted by his position as an illegitimate son, Edmund in many ways resembles both Richard, embittered by his ugliness, and, to an even greater extent, Iago, stung by the fact that he was passed over for promotion.

The main theme of "King Lear" is the tragedy of learning the cruel reality that surrounded Shakespeare.

The story of the blinding of Gloucester, which became the second plotline of the tragedy, originates in the novel “Arcadia” by F. Sidney, which tells the story of the king of Paphlagonia, deprived of his sight by his illegitimate son Plexyrtus and supported in his beggarly wanderings by his once offended son Leonatus.

Two plot lines running parallel to each other allowed Shakespeare to emphasize the commonality main problem under consideration– human character, placed in difficult conditions of testing for nobility. The stumbling block for all the heroes of the tragedy becomes power and wealth, expressed in the paternal inheritance (the state of Britain for the daughters of King Lear and the title of Earl of Gloucester with the lands belonging to him for Edmond and Edgar).

The first round of the struggle for inheritance begins with King Lear's proposal and looks like innocent fun - the daughters' declarations of love for their father. Goneril and Regan immediately join the game, the conditions of which are close and understandable to them due to their low and vile characters. The girls shamelessly lie to King Lear in exchange for the best pieces of Britain. The youngest daughter, Cordelia, is the only one who dares to tell the truth: that she loves her father exactly as much as a daughter who gets married can do, obliged to transfer part of her feelings from one loved one to another. King Lear's inherent pride does not allow him to come to terms with the honest answer of his once most beloved daughter, and he not only deprives her of his inheritance, but also disowns her. Count Kent, who came to Cordelia’s defense, is expelled from the kingdom on pain of death.

Goneril and Regan, who have received power, do not feel its fullness and, seeing how their father treated Cordelia, they fear (and quite rightly) his extravagant and cruel future desires. They decide to deprive King Lear of his retinue, thereby weakening his theoretical power. The more the father resists the plans of his daughters, the more it inflames their anger against the high-born parent. Ultimately, Goneril and Regan not only drive their father out of their lands (in a terrible storm), but also make plans to destroy him. The sisters justify their cruelty by their national duty, forcing them to go to war against the French who invaded British territory - the new subjects of Cordelia, who was taken as wife by the King of France.

The true character of Goneril and Regan is manifested in private actions: Goneril, while her husband is alive, becomes engaged to Edmond, who has been elevated to the rank of Earl of Gloucester, asks the latter to eliminate his husband, who sympathizes with King Lear, and she herself, without any moral remorse, poisons her sister; Regan shows cruelty towards the captives (Kent, Earl of Gloucester, chained in stocks), kills the servant who raised the sword to defend the latter. Regan's husband, the Duke of Cornwall, is a match for his wife: only he is even more bloodthirsty, since with his bare hands he tears out the eyes of the man who provided him with table and shelter.

The illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, Edmond, is a classic type of villain who comes to repentance only on his deathbed. From the very beginning, the hero strives to strengthen his unenviable position in society: he quarrels between his father and Edgar, exposing the latter as a vile murderer; betrays the Earl of Gloucester into the hands of the Duke of Cornwall in exchange for the title; weaves intrigues against the Duke of Albany; promises his love to both Goneril and Regan; gives the order to kill Cordelia and make it look as if she killed herself. Edmond’s chain of crimes begins with the suggestion of the same King Lear, who sowed doubts in the hero’s soul about the sobriety of the minds of people of the older generation.

Reckless due to his natural character, King Lear truly loses his mind under the influence of the misfortunes that befall him. The faithful jester, who accompanies the noble sufferer in his wanderings around Britain, wisely notes that the one who acts as his master clearly does not make friends with his head. If we continue the line of reasoning of the buffoon, we can say that King Lear lost little in terms of sobriety of mind, the clarification of which came actually before his death, which freed the grief-stricken man from further earthly torment.

The mad King Lear in Shakespeare's tragedy at some point is likened to a jester, but not in madness, but in the truthfulness of the sayings expressed. For example, it is he who says one of the wisest thoughts in the play to the blinded Earl of Gloucester: “Weirdo! You don’t need eyes to see the course of things in the world.”.

King Lear dies of grief; the Earl of Gloucester, walking parallel to him in his misfortunes, with joy at the discovery of his son Edgar. Life leaves fathers naturally. The negative characters of the play end their earthly journey violently: the Duke of Cornwall is killed by a servant, Regan by his sister, Edmond by Edgar, Goneril by Goneril herself. Cordelia loses her life on Edmond's orders and is not saved by Shakespeare (although there is a hint of this) due to the fact that her role in this life drama is to put a final point in King Lear's understanding of the essence of what is happening.

The secondary characters of the play - servants, courtiers, counts (Kent and Gloucester) are depicted by Shakespeare as loyal subjects of King Lear, ready to serve their master even on pain of death. Count Kent, for example, is not stopped by the anger of his master, whom he considers wrong in relation to Cordelia and is therefore ready to support in order to insure against the final fall in life. The husband of the eldest daughter of King Lear, the Duke of Albany, is a type of noble, but too soft in character ruler, who acquires the necessary firmness in exactly the same situation as the main character - when the villainies become too obvious to not notice.

Composition

An interesting character who carries within himself both good and evil principles is the main character of the tragedy "King Lear", the old King Lear, who has three daughters. The story of Lear is a grandiose path of knowledge that he goes through - from a father and monarch blinded by the tinsel of his power - through his own “inspired” destruction - to the understanding of what is true and what is false, and what lies true greatness and true wisdom . On this path, Lear acquires not only enemies - first of all, his eldest daughters become them, but also friends who remain faithful to him, no matter what: Kent and Jester. Through exile, through loss, through madness - to insight, and again to loss - the death of Cordelia - and in the finale to his own death - this is the path of Shakespeare's Lear. The tragic path of knowledge.

The dominant place in “King Lear” is occupied by the picture of the collision of two camps, sharply opposed to each other, primarily in moral terms. Given the complexity of the relationships between the individual characters that make up each of the camps, the rapid evolution of some characters and the development of each of the camps as a whole, these groups of characters entering into irreconcilable conflict can only be given a conditional name.

If we base the classification of these camps on the central plot episode of the tragedy, we will have the right to talk about the clash between the Lear camp and the Regan-Goneril camp; If we characterize these camps by the characters who most fully express the ideas that guide the representatives of each of them, it would be most accurate to call them the camps of Cordelia and Edmund. But, perhaps, the most fair would be the most conventional division of the characters in the play into the camp of good and the camp of evil. The true meaning of this convention can only be revealed at the end of the entire study, when it becomes clear that Shakespeare, when creating King Lear, did not think in abstract moral categories, but imagined the conflict between good and evil in all its historical concreteness.

Each of the characters that make up the evil camp remains a vividly individualized artistic image; This method of characterization gives the depiction of evil a special realistic persuasiveness. But despite this, in the behavior of individual characters one can identify features that are indicative of the entire group of characters as a whole.

The image of Oswald - albeit in a crushed form - combines deceit, hypocrisy, arrogance, self-interest and cruelty, that is, all the traits that, to one degree or another, determine the face of each of the characters that make up the camp of evil. The opposite technique was used by Shakespeare when depicting Cornwall. In this image, the playwright highlights the only leading character trait - the unbridled cruelty of the Duke, who is ready to put any of his opponents to the most painful execution. However, the role of Cornwall, like the role of Oswald, does not have a self-sufficient significance and essentially performs a service function. The disgusting, sadistic cruelty of Cornwall is interesting not in itself, but only as a way for Shakespeare to show that Regan, whose soft nature Lear speaks of, is no less cruel than her husband.

Therefore, the compositional techniques with which Shakespeare removes Cornwall and Oswald from the stage long before the finale are quite natural and understandable, leaving on stage at the time of the decisive clash between the camps only the main bearers of evil - Goneril, Regan and Edmund. The starting point in the characterization of Regan and Goneril is the theme of children's ingratitude towards their fathers. The above description of certain events typical of London life at the beginning of the 17th century was intended to show that cases of deviation from the old ethical norms, according to which the respectful gratitude of children towards their parents was something taken for granted, became so frequent that the relationship between parents and heirs turned into a serious problem that worried various circles of the then English public.

In the course of revealing the theme of ingratitude, the main aspects of the moral character of Goneril and Regan are revealed - their cruelty, hypocrisy and deceit, covering up the selfish aspirations that guide all the actions of these characters. “The forces of evil,” writes D. Stampfer, “acquire a very large scale in King Lear, and there are two special variants of evil at work: evil as the animal nature, represented by Regan and Goneril, and evil as theoretically based atheism, presented by Edmund. Mix these varieties should not in any way."

Edmund is a villain; the monologues spoken repeatedly by these characters reveal their deeply hidden inner selves and their villainous plans.

Edmund is a character who would never commit crimes and cruelty in order to admire the results of villainous “exploits.” At each stage of his activity, he pursues very specific tasks, the solution of which should serve his enrichment and elevation.

Understanding the motivations that guide the representatives of the evil camp is inseparable from the theme of fathers and sons, the theme of generations, which, during the creation of King Lear, occupied Shakespeare's creative imagination especially deeply. Evidence of this is not only the story of Lear and Gloucester, fathers plunged into the abyss of disasters and ultimately destroyed by their children. This theme is repeatedly heard in individual remarks of the characters.

The characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are contradictory in many ways, but they also have many similarities. They have their own understanding of good and evil, and the expression of good human qualities in them is also different.), for Macbeth, crime is not a way to overcome his own “inferiority complex”, his inferiority). But Macbeth is convinced (and rightly convinced) that he is capable of more. His desire to become king stems from the knowledge that he is worthy. However, the old King Duncan stands in his way to the throne. And therefore, the first step is to the throne, but also to one’s own death, first moral, and then physical - the murder of Duncan, which takes place in Macbeth’s house, at night, committed by himself.

And then the crimes follow one after another: Banquo’s faithful friend, Macduff’s wife and son. And with each new crime, something also dies away in the soul of Macbeth himself. In the finale, he realizes that he has doomed himself to a terrible curse - loneliness. But the witches’ predictions give him confidence and strength:

Macbeth for those born of woman

Invulnerable

And that is why he fights with such desperate determination in the finale, convinced of his invulnerability for a mere mortal. But it turns out “that Macduff was cut out before his time // With a knife from his mother’s womb.” And that is why it is he who manages to kill Macbeth. The character of Macbeth reflected not only the duality inherent in many Renaissance heroes - a strong, bright personality, forced to commit a crime for the sake of realizing himself (such are many heroes of the Renaissance tragedies, for example, Tamerlane in K. Marlowe) - but also a higher dualism, bearing truly existential character. A person, in the name of embodying himself, in the name of fulfilling his life’s destiny, is forced to violate laws, conscience, morality, law, and humanity.

Therefore, Shakespeare's Macbeth is not just a bloody tyrant and usurper of the throne, who ultimately receives his well-deserved retribution, but in the full sense a tragic character, torn by contradictions that constitute the very essence of his character, his human nature. Lady Macbeth is a no less bright personality. First of all, in Shakespeare's tragedy it is repeatedly emphasized that she is very beautiful, captivatingly feminine, and bewitchingly attractive. She and Macbeth are truly a wonderful couple worthy of each other. It is usually believed that it was Lady Macbeth’s ambition that prompted her husband to commit the first crime he committed - the murder of King Duncan, but this is not entirely true.

In their ambition they are also equal partners. But unlike her husband, Lady Macbeth knows neither doubts nor hesitations, knows no compassion: she is in the full sense of the word “iron lady.” And therefore she is not able to comprehend with her mind that the crime committed by her (or at her instigation) is a sin. Repentance is alien to her. She understands this only when she loses her mind, in madness, when she sees bloody stains on her hands that nothing can wash off. In the finale, in the midst of the battle, Macbeth receives news of her death.

Shakespeare is a talent without equal

William Shakespeare's versatile talent was revealed to its maximum in his time, leaving priceless literary treasures for future generations. Today, each of his plays is something truly unique.

In each of them, with particular accuracy and detail, he reveals the characters and actions of the characters, who are always forced to act under pressure from the outside. As the author of such internationally revered plays as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice and King Lear, Shakespeare can answer almost any question that concerns the modern world. human soul. Times pass, and only the shell of the world lends itself to change. The problems remain the same, and are increasingly passed on from generation to generation.

It couldn't be more difficult

I would like to note that King Lear is one of Shakespeare's most complex plays. Its complexity is that the author depicts here the image of not only a distraught king, who at the peak of his madness understands the whole tragedy of what is happening, but also the entire royal entourage, including the king’s children. Here, in addition to the theme of madness, there is also a theme of love, betrayal, mercy, the theme of fathers and sons, generational changes and much more that is difficult to notice right away.

Shakespeare has always been famous for writing between the lines - the essence is hidden not behind a single word, but behind a couplet, behind a set of words. Lear gradually begins to understand the evil that reigns in life. The main conflict of the work arises from family relations in the royal family, on which the fate of the entire state depends. In this work, like no other, there is a crushing fall into the abyss of madness that King Lear experiences. He is forced to stoop to the level of a beggar and reflect on the key questions of life, being in the shoes of the simplest person.

King Lear - analysis and opinions

In 1800, a certain Charles Lamb declared that Shakespeare's King Lear could not be staged in any theater without losing the colossal meaning and energy of the work that the author invested. Having taken this position, he enlisted the support of the eminent writer Goethe.

In one of his articles, Leo Tolstoy was critical of the play. He pointed out a number of absurdities that clearly appeared in the text. For example, the relationship between daughters and father. Tolstoy was irritated by the fact that in 80 years of his life, King Lear did not know how his daughters treated him. Besides this, there were several other oddities that caught the eye of such meticulous people as Leo Tolstoy. Thus, the plot of this tragedy seems very implausible. The main problem is that Shakespeare is more of a “theatrical” person than a “literary” one. When creating his plays, he counted, first of all, on the stage effect of the narrative. If you watch the production in the theater, you will notice that everything begins so quickly that you do not have time to follow how the situation develops. The whole effect of such a beginning does not allow the audience to doubt the veracity of the relationships that King Lear carries within itself. Shakespeare fully trusted this effect of instant spectator shock - the story gradually grows before the eyes of the audience, and soon, as if after the smoke has cleared, clarity comes...

In King Lear, the problems of family relationships are closely intertwined with social and political problems. These three planes share the same theme of the clash of pure humanity with callousness, self-interest and ambition. Lear at the beginning of the tragedy is a king of the medieval type, like Richard II, intoxicated by the illusion of his omnipotence, blind to the needs of his people, disposing of the country as his personal estate, which he can divide and give away as he pleases. From everyone around him, even from his daughters, he demands, instead of sincerity, only blind obedience. His dogmatic and scholastic mind does not require a truthful and direct expression of feelings, but external, conventional signs of submission. The two eldest daughters take advantage of this, hypocritically assuring him of their love. They are opposed by Cordelia, who knows only one law - the law of truth and naturalness. But Lear is deaf to the voice of truth, and for this he suffers cruel punishment. His illusions of being a father and a man dissipate. However, in his cruel collapse, Lear is renewed. Having experienced the need and deprivation himself, he began to understand much of what was previously inaccessible to him and began to look at his power, life, and humanity differently. He thought about the “poor, naked poor people,” “homeless, with a hungry belly, in holey rags,” who are forced, like him, to fight the storm on this terrible night (Act III, scene 4). The monstrous injustice of the system that he supported became clear to him. This rebirth of Lear is the whole meaning of his fall and suffering.

Next to the story of Lear and his daughters, the second storyline of the tragedy unfolds - the story of Gloucester and his two sons. Like Goneril and Regan, Edmund also rejected all kinship and family ties, committing even worse atrocities out of ambition and self-interest. With this parallelism, Shakespeare wants to show that the case in Lear’s family is not isolated, but general, typical of the “spirit of the times”, when, in the words of Gloucester, “love grows cold, friendship perishes, brothers rebel against each other, there is discord in cities and villages, in palaces there is betrayal, and bonds are broken between children and parents.” This is the disintegration of feudal ties, characteristic of the era of primitive accumulation. The dying world of feudalism and the emerging world of capitalism confront truth and humanity in this tragedy.

28. The originality of Shakespeare's tragedies. Analysis of Macbeth.

Shakespeare refuses to idealize man. The man is contradictory. There are no goodies (except for Cardelia). Time does not tolerate the best (the intrigues of low people reveal contradictions in good heroes). A man in a mad world (a man in his mind - crazy actions; a mad man - insight). Mannerism style is garish contrasts, contradictions that cannot be resolved. Each of the heroes has a rich nature. The heroes of Shakespeare's tragedies are extraordinary people endowed with titanic spiritual powers. They may be mistaken and make mistakes, but they always arouse interest. They have such human qualities that cannot fail to attract attention. Shakespeare tries not to make any moral judgments - Shakespeare calls us to come closer to understanding human nature. In most tragedies written in mature years of life, evil triumphs. Outwardly it may suffer defeat. Man is far from perfect. Always look at significant, interesting, energetic, strong-willed people. Shakespeare's understanding of man: man, personality, in all his diversity. Macbeth understands the differences between good and evil. He realizes that by committing murder, he is breaking the moral laws in which he believes. Having committed murder, Macbeth forever loses peace: he ceases to trust others, suspicions take possession of him. He achieved power, but deprived himself of the opportunity to enjoy it. The tragedy of Macbeth is that he, a once wonderful and noble man, a true hero in his personal qualities, fell under the influence of bad passion and the lust for power pushed him to many insidious crimes. But Macbeth does not fight to the end, does not give up, even when everything is against him, for the soul of the hero lives in him to the end, although stained by his bloody crimes. Macbeth is a talented commander, a strong-willed and unbending person, fearless in battle, cruel and at the same time mentally sensitive in everything that concerns him. William Shakespeare creates the tragedy “Macbeth”, the main character of which is a similar person. The tragedy was written in 1606. "Macbeth" is the shortest of William Shakespeare's tragedies - it has only 1993 lines. Its plot is borrowed from the History of Britain. But its brevity did not in any way affect the artistic and compositional merits of the tragedy. In this work, the author raises the question of the destructive influence of individual power and, in particular, the struggle for power, which turns the brave Macbeth, a valiant and renowned hero, into a villain hated by everyone. W. sounds even stronger in this tragedy. Shakespeare's constant theme is the theme of just retribution. Fair retribution falls on criminals and villains - a mandatory law of Shakespearean drama, a peculiar manifestation of his optimism. His best heroes die often, but villains and criminals always die. In Macbeth this law is especially evident. In all his works, William Shakespeare pays special attention to the analysis of both man and society - separately, and in their direct interaction. The conflict in Macbeth is that two worldviews fought in it. On the one hand, a person serves himself, but on the other, he a member of society serving it.