The Tragedy of King Lear

By William Shakespeare and Mint Editions

King Lear is a prosperous but older man who plans to distribute his wealth among his three daughters in accordance to their declarations of love. Two shower him with compliments while the other is unable to participate in a false display of affection.

King Lear decides to step down from the throne and gift his daughters with the spoils of his kingdom. As a test, the size of their inheritance will correlate with how well they flatter him. The two older children, Goneril and Regan, honor him with praise, but his youngest, Cordelia remains quiet. She genuinely loves her father but doesn’t engage in the pageantry. Due to her reluctance, King Lear disowns Cordelia, while his other daughters receive his riches. Once they are settled, Goneril and Regan, begin to marginalize their father, refusing to support him in his old age. This eventually drives him mad as he’s forced to acknowledge the error of his ways.

The Tragedy of King Lear is a heartbreaking cautionary tale. The king’s downfall is a direct consequence of his own arrogance. It’s a powerful story that still resonates centuries after its first performance in the 1600s.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Tragedy of King Lear is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781513276793

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

Book preview

ACT I

Scene I

(King Lear’s Palace)

Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund. (Kent and Glouceste converse. Edmund stands back)

KENT: I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOU.: It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most for equalities are so weigh’d that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety.

KENT: Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOU.: His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blush’d to acknowledge him that now I am braz’d to’t.

KENT: I cannot conceive you.

GLOU.: Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon she grew round-womb’d, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?

KENT: I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

GLOU.: But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.—Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

EDM.: (comes forward) No, my lord.

GLOU.: My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

EDM.: My services to your lordship.

KENT: I must love you, and sue to know you better.

EDM.: Sir, I shall study deserving.

GLOU.: He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.

Sound a sennet.

The King is coming.

Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with Followers.

LEAR: Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

GLOU.: I shall, my liege.

Exeunt (Gloucester and Edmund)

LEAR: Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.

Give me the map there. Know we have divided

In three our kingdom; and ’tis our fast intent

To shake all cares and business from our age,

Conferring them on younger strengths while we

Unburthen’d crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,

And you, our no less loving son of Albany,

We have this hour a constant will to publish

Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife

May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,

Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,

Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,

And here are to be answer’d. Tell me, my daughters

(Since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest of territory, cares of state),

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,

Our eldest-born, speak first.

GON.: Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;

As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;

A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

COR.: (aside) What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

LEAR: Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,

With shadowy forests and with champains rich’d,

With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,

We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issue

Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter,

Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.

REG.: Sir, I am made

Of the selfsame metal that my sister is,

And prize me at her worth. In my true heart

I find she names my very deed of love;

Only she comes too short, that I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys

Which the most precious square of sense possesses,

And find I am alone felicitate

In your dear Highness’ love.

COR.: (aside) Then poor Cordelia!

And yet not so; since I am sure my love’s

More richer than my tongue.

LEAR: To thee and thine hereditary ever

Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,

No less in space, validity, and pleasure

Than that conferr’d on Goneril.—Now, our joy,

Although the last, not least; to whose young love

The vines of France and milk of Burgundy

Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw

A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

COR.: Nothing, my lord.

LEAR: Nothing?

COR.: Nothing.

LEAR: Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.

COR.: Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty

According to my bond; no more nor less.

LEAR: How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,

Lest it may mar your fortunes.

COR.: Good my lord,

You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I

Return those duties back as are right fit,

Obey you, love you, and most honour you.

Why have my sisters husbands, if they say

They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,

That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry

Half my love with him, half my care and duty.

Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,

To love my father all.

LEAR: But goes thy heart with this?

COR.: Ay, good my lord.

LEAR: So young, and so untender?

COR.: So young, my lord, and true.

LEAR: Let it be so! thy truth then be thy dower!

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,

The mysteries of Hecate and the night;

By all the operation of the orbs

From whom we do exist and cease to be;

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me

Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,

Or he that makes his generation messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,

As thou my sometime daughter.

KENT: Good my liege—

LEAR: Peace, Kent!

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest

On her kind nursery.—Hence and avoid my sight!—

So be my grave my peace as here I give

Her father’s heart from her! Call France! Who stirs?

Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,

With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third;

Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.

I do invest you jointly in my power,

Preeminence, and all the large effects

That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,

With reservation of an hundred knights,

By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode

Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain

The name, and all th’ additions to a king. The sway,

Revenue, execution of the rest,

Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,

This coronet part betwixt you.

KENT: Royal Lear,

Whom I have ever honour’d as my king,

Lov’d as my father, as my master follow’d,

As my great patron thought on in my prayers—

LEAR: The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.

KENT: Let it fall rather, though the fork invade

The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly

When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?

Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound

When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom;

And in thy best consideration check

This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,

Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound

Reverbs no hollowness.

LEAR: Kent, on thy life, no more!

KENT: My life I never held but as a pawn

To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it,

Thy safety being the motive.

LEAR: Out of my sight!

KENT: See better, Lear, and let me still remain

The true blank of thine eye.

LEAR: Now by Apollo—

KENT: Now by Apollo, King,

Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.

LEAR: O vassal! miscreant!

(Lays his hand on his sword)

ALB., CORN.: Dear sir, forbear!

KENT: Do!

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow

Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,

Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,

I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

LEAR: Hear me, recreant!

On thine allegiance,

Reviews for The Tragedy of King Lear

[therebelprince · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very enjoyable edition. Unlike most of the Arden editions, Foakes comes across more as an educator than an academic-among-friends. This does mean occasionally that he'll cover ground most professional-level readers already understand, but it makes this a really well-rounded introduction to the play.

The decision here is to incorporate both Quarto and Folio texts in one, with the differences clearly delineated. It's probably the best possible option for this play, and well done.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This full-cast audio recording tells the story of King Lear who unwisely divided his inheritance based on his perception of how much each daughter loved him. We see how this leads to a life of isolation and great tragedy within his own family. Some actors were more skilled in their role interpretations than others.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read (listened) to this after reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I enjoyed both very much.

[tobinelliott · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While there's a lot to love here...the actual writing is a standout...overall, this one didn't click with me as much as some of the others did.

Probably me and my personal weirdness, but I despised Goneril and Regan as soon as they opened their mouths (which was likely the point with their awful, fawning fake devotion), but I also took an instant dislike to Lear himself. How does a king manage to rule so well, yet make two stupid decisions in the span of minutes? Who asks their children to essentially fall all over themselves to prove their adoration for their own father? Who is so insecure as to demand that of their children?

And, when the first two play this terrible game, and the third one takes the more measured approach, choosing honestly over hyperbole, he punishes her?

And then, wonder of wonders, he later finds out those first two were bullshitting him, and he's shocked?

All of this kept spinning through my mind through the rest of the play. I suppose, had I been able to get past that initial plot device, I would have bought in hook, line, and sinker to this one because, as I said, there's a lot to love.

But I just couldn't get past that opening.

[anniemod · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Edition: Arkangel ShakespeareKing Lear had been one of my favorite Shakespeare dramas ever since I read it for the first time in my early teens in Bulgarian (I read it a few years later in English as well) Back then I never realized that there is a problem with its texts - for all intents and purposes, there are two separate King Lear plays - while most of the plays suffer from this, Kind Lear has the largest differences (or one of the largest) between its Quatro1 and Folio texts (in addition to the inevitable changes and rewrites the Q has 285 lines that the F does not have and F has 115 completely new lines). And they are not just fillers - there are crucial differences between the two - including the end (oh, Lear dies - that does not change but what he believes when he dies is a different story). Each editor picks up their own way through the two texts although a conflated text had become the norm -- but that conflation can be very different between editions. But let's talk about the play itself: Shakespeare takes a existing story from various sources (including Holinshed's Chronicles) and gives it a new life - and a new ending. The king of Britain is getting old and has no sons so he decides to split the kingdom between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia - nothing unusual in this and for anyone in 1606 that would have sounded absolutely correct - primogeniture had been the law of the land and when there is no son, the daughters are equal heiresses under the law. Except that Lear decides to test his daughters and asks them how much they love him - and as his youngest, Cordelia, refuses to pay lip service to him, she is disinherited and leaves with her new husband for France. Except that as usual, lip service and real attachment are different things and as soon as they get the power, the two older daughters try to take away everything else from Lear - who is not very happy about that and flees. But the play is not just the story of one family - it is the story of two of them - Gloucester and his sons (the legitimate Edgar and the illegitimate Edmund) and the dynamic between them is parallel to the dissolving of Lear's family. The two sons of Gloucester and the 3 daughters of Lear exist in parallel but scarily similar lines. Evil and choices become important for the downfalls of both men - the betrayals always having their own blood. But so do the redeemers. And that's where the story of the two men diverge - Gloucester gets his son back early on (even if he does not know it), Lear needs to wait a lot longer. Both learn about their mistakes before they die and both try to make up for them but at the end just one of the children will be still standing. I used to think of King Lear as the play where everyone dies. Not that this does not happen in other Shakespeare dramas but here the number of the survivors at the end is extremely low, even for Shakespeare and a lot lower than it is in the sources of this play. The double end I was talking about earlier comes almost at the end - when Lear dies. In one version he is the cause for Cordelia's death, he knows and he knows that he had not managed to save her; in the other he dies before the final confirmation that she is dead, just when he thinks he sees her moving. One of the ends hints at redemption (Lear is the one who saves her even if he is also the reason for her being killed to start it), the other one is eternal damnation. While this may mean like not much of a difference now, the 17th century drama goer would have considered that a huge difference. The rest of the differences between the versions of the play are less impactful (even though some well known scenes such as the fake trial of the daughters is nowhere to be seen in the later versions). And then there is of course the Victorian version of the play that decided that the play is too dark so gave it a happy end... The two older sisters and Edmund are evil personified - and in the case of the sisters, it has no explanation. The sources do - so one wonders if Shakespeare had relied on people knowing the story so decided not to add the scenes needed to explain it. And at the same time some of the positive characters (Kent, Edgar and even the Fool (who is the moral compass of the story for the first part of it... and then disappears altogether)) are almost one-tone as well - too good to be true. But then... it is a play, what more can you do in such a short time. The play works -- especially because being good or bad does not spell your end - you are as likely to have a "he dies" queue regardless of where you are on the good/bad scale...Almost 3 centuries later, a novel will begin with a now well known sentence: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". King Lear makes me think about that exact sentiment. The Arkangel Shakespeare version of the play uses the Pelican text of the play (the one from the now older edition - they are reissuing again and I am not sure how much the current text is changed compared to the old one). It is a conflated text so most of the missing scenes are added and the end is the one with hope - Lear thinks that Cordelia may be alive. It is a masterful performance led by Trevor Peacock and with a host of other known actors including David Tennant as Edgar, Samantha Bond as Regan and Clive Merrison as Gloucester. If you had never listened to the play before, this is a good version although if you do not know the play, it can get a bit confusing - too many characters with somewhat intersecting goals can lead to confusion.And if you are going to listen and read along, picking up the correct version of the printed play is crucial, especially in this play - or you may get a bit lost.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intriguing play aptly portrayed by the cast, working with an excellent script.

[angelarenea-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fairly quick read. I didn't love it as much as I remember. Lear was way obsessed with 'nature' and the whole thing was so pompous. But not as bad as some of his other stuff.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The division of the Kingdom begins the play with first, the Earls of Kent and Gloucester speculating on the basis for the division and second, the actual division by Lear based on professions of love requested from his three daughters. When this event goes not as planned the action of the play ensues and the reader is in for a wild ride, much as Lear himself.The play provides one of Shakespeare's most thoroughly evil characters in Edmund while much of the rest of the cast is aligned against each other with Lear the outcast suffering along with the Earl of Gloucester who is tricked by his bastard son Edmund into believing that his other son Edgar is plotting against him. While there are some lighter moments the play is generally very dark filled with the bitter results of Lear's poor decisions at the outset. Interestingly we do not get much of a back story and find, other than his age of four score years, little else to suggest why Lear would surrender his power and his Kingdom at the outset. The play is certainly powerful and maintains your interest through dramatic scenes, while it also provides for many questions - some of which remain unanswered.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The illustrations are unremarkable.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is especially devastating because (sorry, Aristotle's Poetics, but indeed because) it departs from the conventions of good Greek tragedy. Nobody's led astray slickly by their tragic flaw;* Lear's ennobled by suffering perhaps but at the start he's no philosopher king (as I'd envisioned) but a belching, beer can crushing Dark Ages thug lord who definitely brings it on himself, but not in any exquisite "his virtue was his fall" way. Cordelia is, not an ungrateful, but an ungracious child whose tongue is a fat slab of ham and who can't even manage the basic level of social graces to not spark a family feud that leaves everyone killed (surely a low bar!!). Goneril and Regan are straight-up venial malice, Shakespeare's Pardoner and Summoner; Edmund, obviously, charismatic, but a baaaad man; and the default good guys, the ones with the chance to win the day and transform this blood-filled torture show into two hours' pleasing traffic of the stage, obviously fumble it bigly (Albany, unbrave and too subtle; Kent, brave and too unsubtle; Gloucester, a spineless joke; and what is Edgar doing out in that wilderness when he should be teaming up with Cordelia and Kent to plan an invasion that's a MacArthuresque comeback and not a disaster, to go down as the plucky band of good friends who renewed the social compact with their steel and founded a second Camelot, a new England). They're not all monsters, and there are frequent glimmers of greatness, but they fuck it all up; in other words, they're us.And then Lear's madness has much too much of, like, an MRA drum circle meeting, with the Fool and Kent and Edgar/John o'Bedlam (that's a name, that) farting around the wastes going "Fuckin' bitches, can't live with em, can't smack em one like they deserve" (though of course this is a Shakespearean tragedy, so everyone pretty much gonna get smacked one sooner or later). Not tragic flaws, in other words, but just flaws, with only glimmers of the good, and all the more devastating for that because all the more real. It's haaard to keep it together for a whole lifetime and not degenerate into a sad caricature of you at your best, or you as you could have been, and I wonder how many families start out full of love and functional relations and wind up kind of hating each other in a low key way just because of the accretion of mental abrasions plus the occasional big wound and because life is long.This seems like a family that just got tired of not hating each other, standing in for a social order that's gotten tired of basically working from day to day, and everyone's just itching to flip the table and ruin Thanksgiving. I have little faith, post-play, that Edgar or Albany in charge will salvage the day--historically, of course, their analogues did not--and it's gonna be a long hard road to a fresh start (we don't of course try to find one such in the actual history--I mean, 1066?--pretty sure fresh starts don't happen in actual history--but I trust the general point is clear). This seems like the most plausible/least arbitrary of Shakespeare's tragedies, I am saying here, and thus also the most desolate, and one with lessons for any family (cf., say, Hamlet, with its very important lessons for families where the mother kills the dad and marries his brother and the dad's ghost comes back to tell the son to kill his uncle, a niche market to say the least), and one that I'll revisit again and again.*Side note, my friend Dan calls me "My favourite Hamartian," and I'm recording that here because we may grow apart and I may forget that but I never want to forget really and so, hope to find it here once more

[composingcomposer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are three main reasons for the disorder already occurring by the end of Act I. The first and most obvious is Lear's madness. He certain seems to be loosing it a bit, and his crazed banishment of Cordelia and Kent couldn't possibly have done anything but harm to him. The second reason is Cordelia's sister's treachery. It could be argued that they appear to be trying to protect him and their people by taking away his knights, he is crazy after all, if it weren't for Cordelia's parting words to them; "I know you what you are;/And, like a sister, am most loth to call/Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father:/To your professed bosoms I commit him:/But yet, alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place." And a few lines later; "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning/Who cover faults, at last shame them derides." These lines seem to indicate that Cordelia knows that Goneril and Regan are not only flattering Lear for gain, but also that they hold him in contempt, and will likely do him harm, and revealing the second harbinger of disorder.

The third indicator of the chaos to come is Edmund. I feel bad for him, for the contempt others hold him in because of the doings of his parents, but he quickly does what he can to dispel my pity for him with his evil attitudes as he works to turn his father and brother against one another. I find it ironic that he distains his father's belief in fate through astrology, yet confesses that because of when he was born he was supposed to be 'rough and lecherous,' yet doesn't believe himself to have those traits he was just showing.

Shakespeare's purpose in showing this disorder seems to come from the idea of dividing his kingdom. A divided kingdom would often lead to civil war and chaos, so Lear's deliberate dividing of the kingdom would probably have been viewed as deliberately inviting disorder.

Power in England was structured in a pyramid. The king on top, and wealth and power went to a few nobles who had all the money. Lear was trying to disrupt that structure in a way that would have alarmed the people watching the play. Cordelia took a great risk in not bowing to her father's wishes, as his denying her dowry could have driven away both her suitors, leaving her alone and destitute in a world that didn't favor lone women. In her case, however Cordelia's suitor from France still marries her, which would be very unusual since she had no dowry, and she wouldn't gain him an alliance with England.

Family dynamics can change depending on the health of a person, as others may come into their lives and as children grow up. Cordelia was Lear's favorite child, yet when she would not lie to him with flattery, he cast her off. Why? Did he not realize that her impending marriage would change is relationship with her? She would still love him, of course, but even with the play being in pre-Christian era, the belief would probably have been that the wife's foremost alliegence should be to her husband, and Lear should have understood this. In fact, it seems strange that he would have even questioned this part of the structure of society at all.

No one has a perfect family. This is shown in Edgar and Edmund's family. Gloster (or Gloucester as some versions call him) may have been unfaithful to his wife, it's never stated whether she was alive at the time of Edmund's conception. If Gloster was unfaithful to his wife than he was dishonest and breaking one of the oldest understandings of marriage. If Edgar's mother had already died, that Gloster was not responsible enough to remarry, and to marry Edmund's mother, or at least admit himself Edmund's father when the boy was a child, instead of waiting until Edmund was old enough to distinguish himself, and in doing so, add to Gloster's reputation. It seems very unfair that Edmund, and almost any other illigitmate child born until the the late 1900s should be punished for something that their parents did. Yet neither should Edmund take out his misfortunes on his brother, who was, in all probability, guiltless in tormenting him. After all, Edgar trusts Edmund completely, which does not seem like an attitude he would hold had he tormented Edmund before. I think that Gloster could have stopped his fate had he treated Edmund with kindness from the beginning of his life, rather than waiting until Edmund could add to his reputation to acknowledge him.

I don't actually seem him mocking Edmund, so much as simply being ashamed of his illegitimacy because it was Gloster's own act that was the cause of Edmund's bastardy. As Gloster was speaking to Kent, he was very frank about the manner of Edmund's conception, to the point that we would say he was being rude to Edmund, but really, for the time, the fact that he had acknowledged Edmund as his son at all was better than many bastards would have gotten. For this reason I think that more than anything it was the fact that he took so long to acknowledge Edmund, that led to Edmund's bitterness and Gloster's downfall.

(This review is patched up from posts I made on an online Shakespeare class)

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To sum up the play in one sentence: this is the story of a king seeking to divide his kingdom among his three daughters based on who could articulate her love for him the best. Beyond that it is the tragedy of emotional greed - of wanting to be loved at any cost. It is the tragedy of politics and family dynamics. Youngest daughter Cordelia is unwilling to conform to her father's wishes of exaggerated devotion. Isn't the last born always the rebel in the family? As a result Cordelia's portion of the kingdom is divided among her two sisters, Goneril and Regan. The story goes on to ooze betrayal and madness. Lear is trapped by his own ego and made foolish by his hubris.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

King Lear makes a fateful decision to divide his kingdom between his three daughters. The reaction of one daughter, Cordelia, displeases the king so much that he cuts her out of any inheritance. The kingdom will be divided between the other two daughters, Goneril and Regan. His plan is that they will take care of him in his old age. They soon decide that they don't want to use their inheritance to support their father, and the king finds himself with nowhere to shelter in a violent storm. Meanwhile, the Earl of Gloucester's illegitimate son plots to usurp his legitimate brother's place as their father's heir. As in many of Shakespeare's plays, there are characters in disguise. It's filled with violence and cruelty without comic relief like the gravedigger scene in Hamlet. The family conflict at its heart will continue to resonate with audiences and readers as long as there are families.

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, though it had been a long time since I read it. Didn't disappoint on a reread!

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This did not quite top Hamlet as my favorite Shakespeare play but it is way up there. With the exception of the black and white hatted Gloucester boys there is a lot more moral complexity and ambiguity than you normally see in Shakespeare play; it wasn't until well into the play that I had any idea who I was supposed to sympathize with between the king and the daughters and that suspense actually adding a great deal to my interest while reading. Edgar's antic disposition is a lot more interesting and entertaining to me than Hamlet's but he doesn't have anything like Hamlet's soliloquies.

[jscape2000 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The version of Lear I saw in 2012 too closely matched the texted: too many story lines, too many gag scenes, and too much talking about how hard it is to be king. The tragedy of Lear is that he gets exactly what he deserved. For me, it lacks much of the intrigue of Macbeth or the poetry of Hamlet or Othello.

[rbeene-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare but I have not read it in a long time and I do not think that I have ever seen it.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vain and silly King Lear demands that each of his three daughters describe their love for him. When the youngest and favored Cordelia gives a reply that is less gushing, but more reasonable, than her sisters, the King banishes her. This sets up a chain of miserable events in which the sisters and their husbands scramble to replace Cordelia in their father's heart, but fail because ambition brings out their cruelty.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Probably the best of Shakespeare's works thematically, but not the easiest to follow. The sub-plots, the various intrigues, makes for a very convoluted plot. Some great roles though -- Lear, Edgar playing a madman, the Fool, the evil Edmund and the scheming daughters ... some serious scene-stealing material.

[rosenstern · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays. King Lear asks his daughters who truly loves him, and the oldest two spin golden words of flattery while the third one cannot do so. Lear abandons his third daughter and this opens the story to the madness that follows. Brilliantly imagined characters and psyches. Worth it

[jmcgarry2011 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent work. I saw this performed at the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN. Very powerful performance. I liked this edition in particular because it explained the nuances of the language right next to the original text. That plus the performance made this easier to understand.

[neurodrew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

King LearWilliam ShakespeareThursday, March 27, 2014 In my Shakespeare class, senior year of college, the professor thought this was the play central to understanding Shakespeare. The tale is familiar; Lear gives up his Kingdom to avoid the cares of ruling, dividing it among his daughters. Cordelia, the most honest, points out that she owes him a duty but also owes her fiancé, the King of France, love and affection. Lear casts her out, because she is not as effusive as her sisters, Regan and Goneril. Goneril, hosts the King first, instructs her servants to ignore his knights, and when he goes to Regan, she sends a letter to ensure he is cast out there as well. Lear goes mad in a storm, succored by Kent, a loyal knight whose advice was unwelcome in the initial scene, and by Edgar, the son of the Earl of Gloucester, who has been usurped by the machinations of Edmund, a bastard son, and who is the lover of Regan and Goneril. Cordelia brings an army to rescue Lear, but is defeated, and in the schemes of Edmund is killed in captivity. Regan dies, poisoned by Goneril jealous of Edmund, Goneril dies by suicide after Edmund is killed by Edgar, Gloucester dies after a blinding, and Lear dies of heart attack. Lear's speeches while mad are the essence of the mature understanding of the human situation "Striving to better, oft' we mar what's well""Let me kiss your hand!" Lear, in response "Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality"Leather bound, Franklin Library, Tragedies of Shakespeare ($34.60 4/28/2012)

[bradgers-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When people want to rank Shakespeare's plays, usually Hamlet comes out as number one. This, in my experience, is the only other of his plays that I have seen mentioned as his greatest. If I were to rank his plays solely based upon their impact upon the world, I would probably agree with the usual placement of Hamlet as number one. However, were I to rank them based upon their impact on me, Lear gets the nod. Lear accurately and horrifyingly portrays the primal nature of man like few other works of literature; the only other to come to my mind is Lord of the Flies. Yet it's more than that; Lord of the Flies can afford to ignore the effects of sexual attraction and familial ties upon our nature, but Lear (the work, not the character) meets these head-on and uses them to devastating effect. This play alone would guarantee Shakespeare a place as one of the greatest English authors. With the rest of his body of work, there's no question that he is the greatest.

[ron_peters-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy the Folger editions of Shakespeare - to each his own in this matter. Some find Lear to be overblown, I am tremendously moved by it, and haunted by the image of the old man howling across the barren heaths with his dead daughter in his arms. 'I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.' Lear 4.7.52-54

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thoughts on the play: -A classic tragedy in which almost everyone dies at the end. -I really didn't have much sympathy for Lear. He acted incredibly foolishly, not just once in turning his back on Cordelia, but many times. -At first, Goneral seemed to be acting reasonably. If Lear had restrained his knights, much of the tragedy would have been lessened. (This was one of the foolish actions of Lear's I mentioned above.) However, as the plot moves on, she is revealed as being more and more terrible. -Edmund struck me as the villain, and he also acted as a catalyst for villainy. So I found the scene at near the end after he & Edgar had dueled a bit hard to believe - after everything, Edgar just forgives him!?! -I was shocked when Cornwall plucks out Gloucester's eyes. I didn't know that was going to happen! Gloucester struck me as the true tragic hero, rather than Lear. Both of them cast off deserving children, but Gloucester realized his error and suffered for it. It wasn't clear to me that Lear recognized his own faults the way Gloucester did.

[alanwpowers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Maybe the fifteenth time I've read Lear (this time in the tiny red-leather RSC edition). Always impressed, especially with the curses and curse-like screeds. I can't stand Lear onstage, particularly the blinding of Gloster (so spelled in this edition). How sharper than a serpants teeth it is / to have a thankless child--though having a thankless parent like Lear, Act I Sc I, ain't so great either. I do love the Russian film Lear with music by Shostakovich, and the King's grand route through his bestiary of hawks and eagles.I suppose this is Shakespeare's great (that's redundant, since "Sh" is mostly "great") assessment of homelessness. The undeservingly roofless. it is also his only play on retirement, which he recommends against. Or perhaps Lear should have had a condo in Florida? Of course, his hundred knights, a problem for the condominium board, as it was for his daughters. And Shakespeare, who says in a sonnet he was "lame by fortune's despite" also addresses the handicapped here, recommending tripping blind persons to cheer them up.Of course, Lear has his personal Letterman-Colbert, the Fool, so he doesn't need a TV in the electrical storm on the heath. That's fortunate, because it would have been dangerous to turn on a TV with all that lightening. The play seems also to recommend serious disguises like Kent's dialects and Edgar's mud. Next time I go to a party I'll think about some mud, which reduces Edgar's likelihood of being killed by his former friends.And finally, the play touches on senility, where Lear cannot be sure at first Cordelia is his daughter.I'm not sure, but the author may be recommending senility as a palliative to tragedy--and to aging. A friend of mine once put it, "Who's to say the senile's not having the time of his life?"

[karl6steel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Teaching it for the second time. The Folger edition is okay, but it badly needs to be updated; and the illustrations in the facing page are, to my mind, badly chosen, unless they're meant only to promote the grandeur of the Folger library. I think they would have done much better to provide photos of scenes taken from various productions/films/adaptations of Lear; no doubt the students would pay more attention to such things, to say nothing of nonexpert instructors like me.

Oh, the play: certainly very good at cutting the legs out from under the notion that suffering can be redemptive. Lear discovers compassion and love, Gloucester grows up, but what do they get? Death. And what are we left with? The two appalling milquetoast prigs, Albany and Edgar,* perhaps the two characters in Lear who understand least well what the whole thing is about. At least Kent has the grace to go off and wait to die.

* Hilarious: I just googled these names and the second hit is some plagiarism mill that's selling an essay that reads "Albany and Edgar both possess honest and kind characters." You have got to be kidding me! Please, please, please let someone try to get this paper past me. How stupid or desperate would someone have to be to pay for a paper that's, at best, a B-?

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My absolute favorite Shakespeare play. Extra love for the fact that this came up when I searched for Stephen King.

[kant1066 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don’t really know what to say about King Lear, or anything by Shakespeare, really. A summary would be redundant and out of place. So would gushing about the stunning beauty of the poetry, or how this is some of the greatest writing in the history of the English language, or any language.Only one thing comes to mind when I think of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Think what you will of Harold Bloom (and there are certainly many opinions about him), I always think, more than anything else, of the title of his book of essays on the plays: “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.” Is the title a typically hyperbolic publishing stunt? The more I read and re-read the plays, the less I’m starting to think so. Words simply fail me. They really do. The wonderful things about Modern Library/RSC edition are the introduction, critically informed notes on the text, folio notes, and a sizeable section on historically important performances of “King Lear.” These do a superb job of contextualizing the play, especially in how it performed on stage.

[albertogiuseppe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Where is the 6th star, or even up to the 101st? Most likely the best English language play ever written, with one of the most phenomenal characters ever created. Hundreds of years before neural imaging began (like, last Tuesday,) to reveal the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic networks on behavior, the different tendencies between men and women and between man and man, the pyramidical, male-dominated social structures our species has tended to create over the last 10,000 years or so, Shakespeare intuited so, so much. From the start, where nothing will come from nothing, (a pun on 'noting' or social mores which, perhaps, the Bard intended in a more comprehensive way,) to Lear's failed, heartbreaking attempt to return to and save something greater than himself, it's a devastating, crystal clear work. We should use our tongues and eyes to crack heaven's gate, but we don't. A lifetime of careful observation, a brilliant mind, and a one-in-a-billion talent for prosody concentrated into a few hours.