King Learのハッピーエンドバージョン

記事にしたこともあり昨日はサムメンデスのリア王を見てきました。TOHO日本橋に行ったのですが満員でした。撮影・翻訳の手間がかかりますが、演劇をこのように楽しめる機会をどんどん作って欲しいと思います。

King Learは悲劇なので、分かっていてもハッピーエンドにならないことにわだかまりが残ってしまいます。Wikipediaで調べてみたら、19世紀になるまではハッピーエンドに改作したものを公演していたようですね。よかった仲間がいて（笑）

（Wikipedia）
King Lear
After the Restoration, the play was often revised with a happy ending for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original version has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship. George Bernard Shaw wrote, "No man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear".

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Tragic
The harsh tragic climax of the play was indeed too bleak for some to take, even many years after it was written. King Lear was at first unsuccessful on the Restoration stage, apparently due to its bleak conclusion, and it was only with Nahum Tate's happy-ending version of 1681 that it became part of the repertory. Tate's Lear, in which Lear survives and triumphs, the fool is completely omitted, and Edgar and Cordelia get married, held the stage until 1838 when British actor and manager William Macready insisted on restoring both the Fool and the tragic ending.[29] Samuel Johnson endorsed the use of Tate's version in his edition of Shakespeare's plays (1765): "Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add anything to the general suffrage, I might relate that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor."

もちろん当時からこのような改作に反対した人もいたようですが、サミュエルジョンソンはpoetic justiceの観点から弁護したとあります。

(Though Joseph Addison protested at this mutilation of Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson defended the poetic justice of Tate's adaptation.)

（オックスフォード）
poetic justice
a situation in which something bad happens to someone, and you think that this is what they deserve

さて、revised with a happy endingとあったことからもハッピーエンドではなくhappy endingが英語的表現のようですね。グランドオープンではなくgrand openingであるように、始まり方、終り方を指しているからでしょうか。

Hi, teachers

can you tell me the difference between " end " and " ending"?

The film has a happy end ending. which word is correct there?

Thanks

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Welcome Purplelavender!

'Ending' is more specific perhaps and usually refers to the way a story, film, etc. finishes:

'The film has a happy ending' is what I'd say.

ハッピーエンドが和製英語だと分かるとすぐすぐ日本人メンタリティーを持ち出しがちですが、ドイツ語でもHappy Endという英語を独製英語として使っているようです。

Happy End
ein Film/Buch/eine Geschichte mit Happy-End
a film/book/story with a happy ending

外国語となるとニュアンス的なものが落ちやすい例として考えるといいかもしれません。-ingの名詞はTOEIC学習でも話題となりやすいですよね。