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King Lear
King Lear
King Lear
Audiobook3 hours

King Lear

Written by William Shakespeare

Narrated by William Devlin

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Full cast unabridged recording of what is considered to be one of Shakespeare's greatest plays about the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 12, 2011
ISBN9781908650016
Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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Rating: 4.0714552148176 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    At the risk of sounding flippant, I realized that there are two productions of King Lear that need to be done: one set in the Klingon Empire, and the other performed by Monty Python. Go ahead, I dare you, read Poor Tom's lines like Eric Idle and try not to laugh!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Een van de krachtigste stukken van Shakespeare; een confrontatie van extremen.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    There is some kind of horrible deep rumbling bass in the background of the recording - very distracting and uncomfortable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not my cup of tea, but it was nice to read it because I haven't before.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shakespeare but I have not read it in a long time and I do not think that I have ever seen it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fourth book of the readathon. Read in snatches during a car journey and between acts in a concert! Which is probably not the best way to experience Shakespeare, laying aside the issue that I think the best way to experience it is by watching it, but I enjoyed it. I've always rather liked Cordelia, with her steadfast truthfulness, and I do remember some very vivid mental images regarding eyes being put out when, at the age of nine, I read a children's version of the story.

    And of course, Shakespeare's use of language, his sense of timing, his grasp of what will look good on stage -- that's as expected: he was a master.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Thoughts and Observations Upon Looking Into King LearBy William Shakespeare‘Nothing can come from nothing, speak again.’King Lear speaks these words in the opening scene of the play. It speaks to a world devoid of meaning. A man comes to the end of his life and must die. What is he left with in the days of his death? In so living, he travels the arch of humanness and dissolves into the earth. He has lived so that he may live. Each act is an act for life built on the act of living. What is life but a life lived. What does it mean to be alive? To be alive is the act of living where a life lived is the act of dying? We come into this world with a breadth of air sustainable only to our last. To speak again is to breathe new life into the act of dying. But King Lear never speaks again. This is the tragedy where nothing can come from nothing.Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. --Macbeth'Which of you shall we say doth love us most,That we our largest bounty may extendWhere nature doth with merit challenge?'King Lear is so loved in reverence that his desire to be loved rules his perception of what it is to love. He supposes he has nurtured a bond with his youngest daughter Cordelia but stubs his toe in his final love for Cordelia. He seeks to bind Cordelia to his love. He cannot see to love Cordelia is to set her free to love on her own. Love blinds, and reveals weaker passions that lead to madness. How did the King and Queen raise their three daughters? Lear has shown a tendency for a quick temper and foolish judgments. Could there be some violent secrets within Lear’s family. The actions of Goneril and Regan could be a result of previous acts by Lear. Cordelia not participating in Lear’s public announcement of the division of the kingdom could also speak to this. Lear may have thought of himself, as lovable, loving, and greatly loved but is not seen this way by his daughters. This is a play of sins of the father as well as the unnaturalness of children to their parents. Where did Goneril and Regan inherent their evil natures? Is the love of King Lear a love of reverence to the King? Lear mistakes this for true love. He knows this hence his banishment of Cordelia with the words 'Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower.'Proverbs 11:29He who brings trouble on his family will inherent only wind,And the fool will be servant to the wise.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    After all these years, I still cannot understand Shakespeare. I read every single word. The Fool made me laugh out loud exactly twice. I give it three stars because I'm sure it's great, but I just don't get it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I hadn't read Shakespeare since my sophomore year of high school, and I remember the language as beautiful but seemingly antiquated to my fifteen year old mind. When I had to read King Lear for my British Literature class in college, I worried about having a similar experience. One forgets how one grows as a reader. It was a foolish presumption. Lear was, in fact, one of the most readable dramas I have yet read. Shakespeare's masterful penchant for creating psychological depth and painfully human conflict is his characters makes for many riveting scenes. Shakespeare's beautiful language and great skill in composing a narrative makes this a tragedy in every sense of the word. Though it has a couple laughs, thanks mostly to the banter of the Fool, this play has a truly bleak ending that strikes you right in the gut.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read this simply because it's one of Shakespeare's best plays. There is so much substance in this tragedy that it almost becomes overwhelming. If you want dark and depressing, this is for you!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I decided to overcome longstanding feelings of inadequacy which had until now kept me away from Shakespeare's plays, which I had never studied in school and which seemed indecipherable to me. There is no particular reason why I chose to start with Lear, other than the fact that I had gotten my hands on an excellent audio version of a performance featuring John Gielgud as the king. One of Shakespeare most bleak and depressing, plays, it tells the story of how King Lear chose to divide his kingdom between his two eldest daughters because of their flattering words, disowning his most faithful daughter, Cordelia when she fails to shower him with compliments, and thereby bringing himself unending torment and sorrow. I've yet to listen to that performance, but I read the play first, and with SparkNotes helping me to decipher all the nuances of Shakespearean English, was surprised to find myself enjoying it to the point of laughter when the unremitting bleakness had one of the central characters putting it succinctly when he said: "Our present business is general woe". That's one Shakespeare quote I'm not likely to forget!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I had never read this play before the afore-mentioned Shakespeare course and I was absolutely blown away by it. Hamlet remains my favorite Shakespeare play (and, basically, favorite play ever) but King Lear is right behind it. Again, this was helped by seeing a great production in London (at the Young Vic). Still, the play itself is so beautiful and tragic. I love Cordelia’s speech and character, and Lear himself is so tragically flawed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Perhaps the best of Shakespeare's plays. I have read this one a few times and it is a play to which I can return and return. I say "perhaps" Shakespeare's best only because I truly love several of his plays and whore-about in my preference, tossing my Willy-love hither and yon to any Dark Prince that may happen past. Ah love! 'Tis a fickle mistress.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not my favourite play, but I did read it for completeness. A king, worn down by the trammells of office, divides his domain among his children and suffers from the flaws in his parenting. He is eventually reduced to roaming the fields and assailling "Deaf heaven with his bootless cries."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read (listened) to this after reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I enjoyed both very much.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An intriguing play aptly portrayed by the cast, working with an excellent script.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The illustrations are unremarkable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    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)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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.