"Advice to King Lear" is a short lyric poem of thirteen lines that are divided into two stanzas. The first stanza has six
lines, and the second stanza has seven; the same end rhyme is employed for all thirteen lines. Turner Cassity has made his reputation by writing structured verse. "Advice to King Lear" was included in his 1986 collection
Hurricane Lamp. Like many poems in this collection, "Advice to King Lear" is a compressed creation in which Cassity wryly combines the profound past with the seemingly ordinary present. The poem combines the Shakespearean tragedy
King Lear (c. 1605–1606) and the bizarre Texas setting in which it is being
staged.
Cassity reprints as an epigraph a description from
San Antonio: A Pictorial Guide, which states that the Arneson River Theatre is unique because its stage stands on one side of the San Antonio River, but its grass seats are located on the other side. The final comment of the guide notes that "Occasional passing boats enhance audience enjoyment." This particular setting fits well with Cassity’s use of the ironic. As the title states, the narrator of the poem will be advising King Lear. The first word of the poem is "
Unlikely," which—as becomes evident as the poem progresses—is a definite understatement; the unlikely and the unusual are common in Cassity’s poems. (Other poems in
Hurricane Lamp that illustrate this theme include "News for Loch Ness," "A Dialogue with the Bride of Godzilla," and "Scheherazade in South Dakota.") After the "Unlikely," Cassity contrasts the locale where the play is being staged and the artificial weather that must be created in order to produce
King Lear correctly. The San Antonio area is a "semi-desert," and on the night of the play, the night is "azure." To create the illusion that there is a storm on stage, the crew must resort to the use of a wind machine. Through it all, "Advice to King Lear" juxtaposes King Lear’s tragedy against the almost silly notion of staging the play in a place where the locale, not Shakespeare’s instructions, dictates the ending.
With King Lear’s situation becoming increasingly desperate, the freak coincidence happens, and "Pleasure craft now part the placid water." The stage weather has become "glummer" with each succeeding act, but the poet interjects that no matter where
King Lear is staged, a "mummer’s still a mummer." A mummer is an actor, and therefore the opening has been created for something "unlikely" to happen in this particular production of
King Lear. Circumstances allow King Lear to alter his fate, if he wishes, and take the advice finally given to him as the "pleasure craft" passes: "Get on the boat, Old Man, and go to summer."