King Lear : A Shakespearean Shakespearian Tragedy

Shakespeare’s King Lear is a tragic about an aging King of Britain and his three daughters. When it comes time to divide his kingdom, he puts his daughters through a test to prove how much they love him. The two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, give King Lear flattering answers and therefore receive great amounts of finer land. The third and youngest daughter, Cordilia, says that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. King Lear becomes enraged with Cordilia and disowns her and gives her no land. The rest of the play tells the story of how the two older daughters become corrupt and get greedy. King Leer is thrown out of his own house by his daughters and begins his

Shakespeare's King Lear is a play which shows the consequences of one man's decisions. The audience follows the main character, Lear, as he makes decisions that disrupt order in his Kingdom. When Lear surrenders all his power and land to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him, the breakdown on order in evident. Lear's first mistake is to divide his Kingdom into three parts. A Kingdom is run best under one ruler as only one decision is made without contradiction. Another indication that order is disrupted is the separation of Lear's family. Lear's inability to control his anger causes him to banish his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and loyal servant, Kent. This foolish act causes Lear to become vulnerable to

King Lear, overall, is a testimony of a literary work that somehow manages to bind us deeply into a strong sentiment of empathy or a metaphorical attachment of assumed tragic hero. Tragedy, exclusively, has consistently and substantially been proven to be the most emotionally compelling of literary works, and to most critics King Lear, although noting that it lacks in that regard in some aspects, is the most tragic of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The scenes written evoke a certain magnitude of tragedy, each one arousing emotions of fear and pity.

   King Lear meets all the requirements of a tragedy as defined by Andrew Cecil Bradley.  Bradley states that a Shakespearean tragedy has to be the story of the hero and there is exceptional suffering and calamity slowly being worn in.  Also, the current time must be contrasted to happier times.  The play also depicts the troubled parts in the hero’s life and eventually he dies instantaneously because of the suffering and calamity.  There is the feeling of fear in the play as well, that makes men see how blind they are not knowing when fortune or something else would be on them.  The hero must be of a high status on the chain and the hero must also possess a tragic flaw that initiates the tragedy.

Often times we take our eye sight for granted. We never think about what would happen if we could not see and believe our eyes. There is an old saying that says, “Seeing is believing;” however, what we see is not always the truth. As we read King Lear it becomes clear that people can physically see events, believe that what is being seen is the truth, and be totally blinded to the truth. We choose to see what we want to believe because that is what we want to happen. Many times our emotions take over and what is right in front of our face is blinded by what we want the truth to be. There are several characters in King Lear who are blind to the truth, not because their eye sight is impaired but because they have selective sight and only see what they want to see. Sight or lack thereof, has many literary facets beyond the obvious physical meaning, as intricately portrayed in Shakespeare’s King Lear; where the ability to see the truth is clouded by mental blindness, love, greed, and ambition until a transformation occurs and the characters can truly see the truth.

Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote the book Poetics. Poetics explains what goes into a tragedy to make a tragedy a “good tragedy”. Aristotle noted that there are six elements to a tragedy which are most important. These six elements being Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle.

What aspects employ the genre of tragedy within novels, plays, and cinema? Tragedy is something that is defined universally as the upheaval of any plot, story, or play where an event causes or leads to great suffering for everyone. Authors, playwrights, and even directors all know the certain scene or event that is key for the foreshadowing of tragedy to take place. This signal in any work allows us as an audience or reader to understand the meaning and significance for the need for a certain event to occur. King Lear the renown play about family ties by William Shakespeare has the genre tragedy stamped all over it due to the chaotic and brutal ending. The historian Hayden White’s essay “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact” focuses

Although King Lear by Shakespeare and Candide by Voltaire are very different on the outside they share internal values. King Lear is a play written by William Shakespeare, who was an English poet and playwright who was widely regards as the greatest writer in the English language and the world pre-eminent dramatist (Shakespear, 1998). Candide by Voltaire is a satire, Voltaire was born Francois-Marie Arouet, he use his satirizing style of writing to make fun of the Powerful Frenchmen of his time (voltaire, 1991). The internal values of both books connect them with the Human Condition of man, His love of family in King Lear, with his

King Lear is a great piece of tragedy as many characters fall with their swords throughout the play like the King Lear himself as he dies of grief after perceiving his lovely daughter Cordelia dead. He lost his kingdom and his life because of a wrong definition he had of

William Shakespeare displays how oppression can stem from a formerly unjust relationship in the play King Lear. While the character of King Lear descends into madness, his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, all suffer from the dominance of their father as he begs for their love. During this time of power transition, the daughters turn their oppressing father into the oppressed. Through the use of juxtaposition in how Lear's three daughters oppress him, Shakespeare conveys how previously oppressed people can free themselves from the ill-treatment and inflict pain on the former oppressor, a concept that is prevalent in today's society with the increase of sexual assault victims speaking out and exposing their perpetrator.

Terrible things happen in all stages of life, no matter how well people prepare for, or try to avoid them. It comes as no surprise when reading William Shakespeare’s play King Lear, a tragedy, that tragic and traumatic events occur to the characters in the play. A point of interest to these traumatic events in the play is how each individual character responds to the events. In the play, King Lear and his daughter, Cordelia, both share traumatic event and, both characters cause the traumatic event for the other. In the play, King Lear, Shakespeare uses the trait of sanity, or a lack thereof, to contrast King Lear’s and Cordelia’s responses to traumatizing events and to emphasize the importance of love.

King Lear is frequently regarded as one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces, and its tragic scope touches almost all facets of the human condition: from the familial tensions between parents and children to the immoral desires of power, from the follies of pride to the false projections of glory. However, one theme rings true throughout the play, and that very theme is boundless suffering, accentuated by the gruesome depictions of suffering our protagonists experience . There is no natural (nor “poetic”) justice depicted in this pre-Judeo-Christian world Shakespeare presents, as the relatively virtuous individuals (Kent, Gloucester, and Cordelia) in this

The opportunity to view both productions of King Lear has appeared twice for me in the past two years. The first time I viewed Trevor Nunn’s 2009 production of King Lear my review would have been based solely on my ability to understand the dialogue and my appreciation of the acting of Ian McKellen. Two years later I have a better understanding of the actual play and while I still enjoy the 2009 production the 1982 production directed by Jonathan Miller presents the words of William Shakespeare in a more accurate and period specific manor.

The most prevailing images in King Lear are the images (metaphoric and actual) of nature. The concept of nature seems to consume the dialogue, monologues, and setting.

     The play, “King Lear” by William Shakespeare, starts with noblemen Kent and Gloucester having a conversation and the audience finds out that Gloucester has two sons. Edgar who is his heir, and Edmund his unimportant son. This info. leads to the mini-plot. Then, Lear enters to say that he is going to end his life’s tasks and problems. He then points to the map, he tells the people there that he will split his land into three parts. They are going to be given to his three daughters. The two oldest, Goneril and Regan, tell their father that their love for him goes beyond expectations. The youngest one, Cordelia, tells him that she loves him, but only as she should love her father. He is then