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William Shakespeare 's Othello And Timon Of Athens

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Of the many people to have critiqued King Lear, A.C. Bradley arguably does the most through job as seen in Lecture VII and VIII of his work Shakespearean Tragedy. In Lecture VII, Bradley begins by discussing the similarities King Lear has to Shakespeare’s other works including Othello and Timon of Athens (245-246). For instance, in Othello, Iago reminds of Edmund and Othello’s trickery reminds us of the deceitfulness of Gloucester. Additionally, the scene where Othello watched Iago and Cassio talk about Bianca bares a similar resemblance to Edmund’s attempt to make Gloucester see his conversation with Edgar (Bradley 245). Bradley then goes on to discuss the lack of clarity in many of the important scenes such as why King Lear would divide the kingdom among his daughters and make them tell him how much they love him (250). Furthermore, although the final battle was of the most importance, it became largely insignificant because of the numerous prior battle scenes and characters involved (Bradley 255). Bradley also raises some very interesting questions in regards to the number of inconsistencies throughout the play such as why Gloucester traveled to Dover to attempt suicide, why Kent stays in disguise during the final scene, and why Shakespeare does not provide us the locations of the scenes like in his other works (257-259). As the lecture progresses, Bradley delves deeper into analyzing King Lear. Bradley starts by pointing out the use of double action, which he

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