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    King Lear
    King Lear
    King Lear
    Ebook255 pages3 hours

    King Lear

    By William Shakespeare

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    The historical basis for “King Lear” comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of the legendary King Leir of the Britons recorded in the historian’s “History of the Kings of Briton.” King Lear is an elderly man and wishes to retire from power. In the decision to divide up his estate he requests that his daughters profess their feelings for him, vowing to give whomever loves him the most the largest share. His two eldest daughters Regan and Goneril go first and based on their responses are rewarded their respective portions. However when it is his youngest daughter Cordelia’s turn, she refuses to flatter her father as her older sisters have done, insisting that there are no words to describe her love. This enrages the King prompting him to disinherit Cordelia and split the remaining inheritance amongst the two eldest sisters instead. As the play progresses, the foolishness of this decision becomes evident, descending the King into madness. In its portrayal of the tragic effect of human weakness and cruelty, “King Lear” has come to be regarded as one of the most powerful of Shakespeare’s works. This edition is annotated by Henry N. Hudson, includes an introduction by Charles H. Herford, and a biographical afterword.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 21, 2020
    ISBN9781420977530
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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    Reviews for King Lear

    4/5

    2,548 ratings52 reviews

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    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      I read (listened) to this after reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I enjoyed both very much.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      An intriguing play aptly portrayed by the cast, working with an excellent script.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      The illustrations are unremarkable.
    • 5/5
      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
    • 5/5
      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)
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, though it had been a long time since I read it. Didn't disappoint on a reread!
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Shakespeare but I have not read it in a long time and I do not think that I have ever seen it.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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)
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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?"
    • 5/5
      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-?
    • 5/5
      My absolute favorite Shakespeare play. Extra love for the fact that this came up when I searched for Stephen King.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.

    Book preview

    King Lear - William Shakespeare

    cover.jpg

    KING LEAR

    By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    Preface and Annotations by

    HENRY N. HUDSON

    Introduction by

    CHARLES H. HERFORD

    King Lear

    By William Shakespeare

    Preface and Annotations by Henry N. Hudson

    Introduction by Charles H. Herford

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7586-4

    eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7753-0

    This edition copyright © 2021. Digireads.com Publishing.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

    Cover Image: A detail of King Lear and the Fool in the Storm, Act III Scene 2 from ‘King Lear’ by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 1836 (oil on canvas), Boulanger, Louis (1806-67) / Musee de la Ville de Paris, Musee du Petit-Palais, France / Bridgeman Images.

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    CONTENTS

    PREFACE

    INTRODUCTION

    KING LEAR

    DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

    ACT I.

    SCENE I.

    SCENE II.

    SCENE III.

    SCENE IV.

    SCENE V.

    ACT II.

    SCENE I.

    SCENE II.

    SCENE III.

    SCENE IV.

    ACT III.

    SCENE I.

    SCENE II.

    SCENE III.

    SCENE IV.

    SCENE V.

    SCENE VI.

    SCENE VII.

    ACT IV.

    SCENE I.

    SCENE II.

    SCENE III.

    SCENE IV.

    SCENE V.

    SCENE VI.

    SCENE VII.

    ACT V.

    SCENE I.

    SCENE II.

    SCENE III.

    BIOGRAPHICAL AFTERWORD

    Preface

    First heard of through an entry at the Stationers’, dated November 26, 1607, and reading as follows: A book called Mr. William Shakespeare’s History of King Lear, as it was played before the King’s Majesty at Whitehall, upon St. Stephen’s night at Christmas last, by his Majesty’s Servants playing usually at the Globe on the Bankside. This ascertains the play to have been acted on the 26th of December, 1606. Most likely the play had become favourably known on the public stage before it was called for at the Court. On the other hand, it contains divers names and allusions evidently borrowed from Harsnet’s Declaration of Popish Impostures, which appeared in 1603. This is all the positive information we have as to the date of the writing.

    There are, however, several passages in the play itself, referring, apparently, to contemporary events, and thus indicating still more nearly the time of the composition. Of these it seems hardly worth the while to note more than one. In Act 1., scene 2, Gloster says, These late eclipses in the Sun and Moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. A great eclipse of the Sun took place in October, 1605, and had been looked forward to with dread as portending evil; the more so, because an eclipse of the Moon occurred within the space of a month previous. And John Harvey had, in 1588, published a book wherein, with the wisdom of nature, he had reasoned against the common belief, that such natural events were ominous of disaster, or had any moral significance whatever. To all which, add that in November, 1605, the dreadful secret of the Gunpowder Plot came to light, so that one at all superstitiously inclined might well say that nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects, and that machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves: putting all this together, we have ample ground for inferring the play to have been written when those events were fresh in the public mind. This of course brings down the date of composition at least to near the close of the year 1605.

    The tragedy was printed at least twice, some editors say three times, in the year 1608, the form being in each case a small quarto. It also reappeared, along with the other plays, in the folio of 1623. Considerable portions of the play, as given in the quartos, are omitted in the folio; in particular one whole scene, the third in Act IV., which, though perhaps of no great account on the stage, is, in the reading, one of the sweetest and loveliest in all Shakespeare. This naturally infers the folio to have been printed from a playhouse copy in which the play had been cut down, to abridge the time of performance.—I must add that the play has several passages which were most certainly not written by Shakespeare. Two of these have considerable length, one including seventeen lines, the other fourteen. By whom they were written, and why they were inserted, it were probably vain to speculate. All such interpolations, so far as I am clear about them, are here distinguished by having asterisks set before the lines.

    The story of King Lear and his three daughters is one of those old legends with which Mediaeval Romance peopled the dark backward and abysm of time, where fact and fancy appear all of one colour and texture. In Shakespeare’s time, the legendary tale which furnished the main plot of this drama was largely interwoven with the popular literature of Europe. It is met with in various forms and under various names. The oldest extant version of it, in connection with British ‘history, is in Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh monk of the twelfth century, who translated it from the ancient British tongue into Latin. From thence it was abridged by the Poet’s favourite chronicler, Holinshed. I give a condensed statement of the Holinshed version.

    Leir, the son of Baldud, was admitted ruler over the Britons in the year of the world 31o5. He was a prince of right-noble demeanour, governing his land and subjects in great wealth. He had three daughters, named Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordilla, whom he greatly loved, but the youngest, Cordilla, far above the two elder. When he was come to great age, he thought to understand the affections of his daughters, and to prefer her whom he best loved to the succession. Therefore he first asked Gonorilla, the eldest, how well she loved him. She, calling her gods to witness, protested that she loved him more than her own life, which by right and reason should be most dear to her. Being well pleased with this answer, he demanded of the second how well she loved him. She answered, confirming her saying with great oaths, that she loved him more than tongue could -express, and far above all other creatures in the world. Then he called Cordilla before him, and asked what account she made of him. She answered as follows: Knowing the great love and fatherly zeal which you have always borne towards me, I protest that I have loved you ever, and while I live shall love you, as my natural father; and, if you would understand more of the love I bear you, assure yourself that so much as you are worth, so much I love you, and no more.

    The father, being nothing content with this answer, married his two eldest, the one to the Duke of Cornwall named Henninus, the other to the Duke of Albania called Maglanus; and willed that his land should be divided betwixt them after his death, and that one-half thereof should be immediately assigned to them; but for Cordilla he reserved nothing. Yet it happened that one of the Princes of Gallia whose name was Aganippus, hearing of the beauty, womanhood, and good dispositions of Cordilla, desired her in marriage; to whom answer was made that he might have her, but could have no dower, for all was promised to her sisters. Aganippus, notwithstanding this answer, took her for wife, only moved thereto by respect for her person and amiable virtues.

    After Leir was fallen into age, the Dukes that had married his two elder daughters rose against him in arms, and reft from him the government of the land. He was put to his portion, that is, to live after a rate assigned to him, which in process of time was diminished. But his greatest grief was from the unkindness of his daughters, who seemed to think that what their father had was too much, the same being ever so little. Going from the one to the other, he was brought to such misery, that in the end he fled the land, and sailed into Gallia, to seek some comfort of Cordilla, whom before he hated. The lady, hearing he was arrived in poor estate, first sent him privily a sum of money, to apparel himself withal, and to retain a number of servants that might attend upon him. She then appointed him to come to the Court; which he did, and was so honourably and lovingly received, that his heart was greatly comforted: for he was no less honoured than if he had been king of the whole country. Aganippus also caused a mighty army to be put in readiness, and a great navy of ships to be rigged, to pass over into Britain with his father-in-law. When this army and navy were ready, Leir and his daughter, with her husband, took the sea, and, arriving in Britain, fought with their enemies, and discomfitted them in battle, Maglanus and Henninus being slain. Leir was then restored to his kingdom, which he ruled for the space of two years after this, and then died, forty years after he first began to reign.

    The same story, with certain variations, is told briefly by Spenser in The Faerie Queene, book ii., canto Io; also, at much more length, in a versified form written by John Higgins, and published in The Mirror for Magistrates; also in an old ballad, printed in Percy’s Reliques: but this latter was probably subsequent to the tragedy, and partly founded upon it. It appears, also, by an entry at the Stationers’, dated May 14, 1594, that there was an older play on the same subject. Finally, a play, entitled The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three Daughters, was entered at the Stationers’, May 8, 16o5, and published. Possibly this may have been another play than that heard of in 1594, but probably it was the same. Be this as it may, the piece is a wretched thing, and cannot be supposed to have contributed any thing towards Shakespeare’s tragedy, unless it may have suggested to him the theme.

    Thus much as to what the Poet had before him for the main plot of King Lear. The subordinate plot of Gloster and his sons was doubtless partly founded upon an episodical chapter in Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, entitled The pitiful state and story of the Paphlagonian unkind King and his kind son; first related by the son, then by the blind father. Of this’, also, I give a condensed statement.

    The Princes who figure in Sidney’s work, being overtaken by a furious storm, are forced to seek shelter in a hollow rock, where, themselves unseen, they overhear a dialogue between an aged man and a young, both poorly arrayed, extremely weatherbeaten; the old man blind, the young man leading him. At length, the talk became so sad and pitiful, that the princes were moved to go out to them and ask the younger what they were. He answered, Sirs, I see well you are strangers, that know not our misery, so well known here. Indeed our state is such that, though nothing is so needful to us as pity, yet nothing is more dangerous unto us than to make ourselves so known as may stir pity. This old man, lately rightful Prince of this country of Paphlagonia, was, by the hard-hearted ungreatfulness of a son of his, deprived not only of his kingdom, but of his sight, the riches which Nature grants to the poorest creatures. By this and other unnatural dealings he hath been driven to such grief, that even now he would have me lead him to the top of this rock, thence to cast himself headlong to death; and so would have made me, who received my life from him, to be the worker of his destruction. But, noble gentlemen, if either of you have a father, and feel what dutiful affection is engrafted in a son’s heart, let me entreat you to convey this afflicted Prince to some place of rest and security.

    Before they could make answer, the father began to speak. Ah, my son, said he, "how evil an historian are you, that leave out the chief knot of all the discourse, my wickedness, my wickedness! If thou doest it to spare my ears, assure thyself thou dost mistake me. I take to witness that Sun which you see, that nothing is so welcome to me as the publishing of my shame. Therefore know you, gentlemen, that whatsoever my son hath said is true. But, besides, this also is true, that, having had in lawful marriage this son, I was carried by a bastard son of mine, first to mislike, then to hate, lastly to do my best to destroy this son. If I should tell you what ways he used, to bring me to it, I should tediously trouble you with as much poisonous hypocrisy, desperate fraud, smooth malice, hidden ambition, and smiling envy, as in any living person could be harboured. But no remembrance of naughtiness delights me but mine own; and methinks the accusing his traps might in some manner excuse my fault, which I loathe to do. The conclusion is, that I gave order to some servants of mine to lead this son out into a forest, and there to kill him.

    But those thieves spared his life, letting him go to live poorly; which he did, giving himself to be a private soldier in a country near by. But, as he was ready to be greatly advanced for some noble service which he did, he heard news of me; who suffered myself to be so governed by that unlawful and unnatural son, that, ere I was aware, I had left myself nothing but the name of a king. He, soon growing weary even of this, threw me out of my seat, and put out my eyes; and then let me go, neither imprisoning nor killing me, but rather delighting to make me feel my misery. And as he came to the crown by unjust means, so he kept it as unjustly; disarming all his own countrymen, so that no man durst show so much charity as to lend me a hand to guide my dark steps; till this son, forgetting my abominable wrongs, and neglecting the way he was in of doing himself good, came hither to do this kind office which you see him performing towards me, to my unspeakable grief. Above all, it grieves me that he should desperately adventure the loss of his life for mine, as if he would carry mud in a chest of crystal: for well I know, he that now reigneth will not let slip any advantage to make him away, whose just title may one day shake the seat of a never-secure tyranny. For this cause I craved of him to lead me to the top of this rock, meaning to free him from so serpentine a companion as I am. But he, finding what I purposed, only therein since he was born showed himself disobedient to me. And now, gentlemen, you have the true story; which I pray you publish to the world, that my mischievous proceedings may be the glory of his filial piety, the only reward now left for so great merit.

    HENRY HUDSON.

    1881.

    Introduction

    The first edition of King Lear, in Quarto (Q1), was printed in 1608, and has the following title-page:—

    M. William Shak-speare: | HIS | True Chronicle Historie of the life and | death of King LEAR and his three | Daughters. | With the unfortunate life of Edgar, sonne | and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his | sullen and assumed humor of | TOM of Bedlam: | As it was played before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall upon | S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. | By his Maiesties seruants

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