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Abstract
What is tragicomedy? It may be answered that a serious action with happy ending is termed as ‘tragicomedy’. Shakespeare’s King Lear is considered timeless and universal because the characters and their sufferings presented in this novel are vivid and lifelike. Almost after one and half century, a restoration dramatist Nahum Tate presented its radical adaptation under the title ‘The History of King Lear’. Originally King Lear is a heart touching tragedy which can leave even a hard hearted person moved. But in Tate’s adaptation it has a happy ending. What can be the possible reason for this change of form? Critics believed that Tate wrote a happy ending in order to cater the contemporary public’s aesthetic taste in drama. Apart from the attainment of aesthetic pleasure it has a veiled political context also. The restoration of Lear to his throne is clearly related to the stability of the monarchy since the restoration of Charles II. Many of alteration were made in the light of political as well as aesthetic importance.