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King Lear by William Shakespeare, written around 1605-1606, stands as one of the Bard’s most tragic and profound works. Set in ancient Britain, the play tells the story of King Lear, who, in a moment of tragic folly, decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters based on their expressions of love for him.
Lear, the aging king of Britain, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom evenly among his three daughters. First, however, he puts his daughters through a test, asking each to tell him how much she loves him.
King Lear is a play about blindness – blindness to others’ motivations, blindness to one’s own true nature, blindness to the emptiness of power and privilege, and blindness to the importance of selfless love. Lear’s only desire is to enjoy a comfortable, carefree old age, but he fails to see the role his absolute power has played in ...
A list of all the characters in King Lear. King Lear characters include: King Lear, Cordelia, Edmund, Goneril and Regan, Gloucester, Edgar, Kent, Albany, Cornwall, The Fool, Oswald, France.
A summary of Act 1: Scenes 1 & 2 in William Shakespeare's King Lear. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of King Lear and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.
King Lear is a brutal play, filled with human cruelty and awful, seemingly meaningless disasters. The play’s succession of terrible events raises an obvious question for the characters—namely, whether there is any possibility of justice in the world, or whether the world is fundamentally indifferent or even hostile to humankind.
Important information about William Shakespeare's background, historical events that influenced King Lear, and the main ideas within the work.
An important question to ask is whether Lear develops as a character—whether he learns from his mistakes and becomes a better and more insightful human being. In some ways the answer is no: he doesn’t completely recover his sanity and emerge as a better king.
King Lear endorses primogeniture—the law which required all property to be passed down to the oldest male child—by showing the disastrous consequences of Lear’s decision to ignore primogeniture and divide his kingdom between several heirs.
A list of important facts about William Shakespeare's King Lear, including setting, climax, protagonists, and antagonists.
