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Mar 12, 2010

Bram rated it:

In a world where every king must give up his crown, where tragedies end in death and all comes to dust, this is a hopeful tale. This hope won’t appear in a plot summary or in the morbid sum of deaths by play’s end, and yet there are key moments of reconciliation for both of the aged, long-suffering characters. After experiencing little but anguish for much of the play, Lear and Gloucester are granted a reprieve from the darkest of fates. Granted, these 11th hour reprieves are short-lived, but More...

28 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

David rated it:

This is where Shakespeare takes off the gloves. He brings us right to the edge of the abyss, then kicks us over that edge. King Lear is the most devastating by far of the Shakespeare tragedies -- this is a play which leaves the reader shattered as the curtain falls.

The play has a kind of primal power, which I find hard to explain. The plot is fairly typically Shakespeare, perhaps a little more complicated than usual, mixing elements taken from legend and from the historical record. More...

7 comments like (17 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2009

Manny rated it:

I was lucky enough to be living in Stockholm when Ingmar Bergman staged Lear at the Swedish National Theatre in the late 80s, and I saw it twice. Bergman's take on the play was very interesting and unusual; he interpreted it as fundamentally optimistic.

Obviously, you're wondering why, and in the hands of a lesser director it would probably just have been a piece of unnecessary perversity. Bergman's reasoning was, in fact, not bizarre. He saw the key scene of the play as the reconcili More...

21 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 26, 2008

Amelia rated it:

Spoiler I suppose...

Well, I expected to hate it...being one of the tragedies, I didn't. I actually really loved it. (Thank you Comrade D!)Other than Cordelia, I was comletely fine with everyone who died. I did have to laugh that there were only three main characters alive at the end though!

I found one aspect rather annoyingly unrealistic, the fact that Lear seemed to be homeless without the favor of at least one of his two elder daughters. Kings have many a castle...y More...

11 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2009

Kelly rated it:

As the bright red firament of stars above might give away, I really responded to this play. I may have done so in both negative and positive ways, but this story made a really lasting impression upon me. It did for me what Macbeth could not- gave me geniunely tragic characters who earn the tears and compassion that I gave for them by the end of the journey.

Thinking about it in retrospect, a useful guide for King Lear is provided by another of Shakespeare's characters, Jacques, and hi More...

7 comments like (9 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2009

Paul rated it:

Shakespeare goes to the Ancient Sophocles for this play. King Lear is just like the lost Oedipus as his foolishness makes him blind and causes him to wonder like Oedipus while war unfolds all around him. Only instead of Oedipus' loving daughters, Lears are snakes who fight over his land and plot to kill each other and daddy. There's even Edmund who plays everyone like a fiddle and madtom bedlam and a real blinding. Lear's foolishness is that he can rest on his laurels and give up his crown p More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2008

M.C. rated it:

In his more renowned tragedy "King Lear", William Shakespeare weaves a tale of royal treachery and ignorance.

Set in late Medieval England, the play unveils with a meeting between British monarch King Lear and his three daughters. In his attempt to retreat from royal power, King Lear decides to cede to the daughter who best professes her love to him his wealth. Though by her unyielding conscience, Cordelia, the daughter whom Lear favored most, refuses to profess her love in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Melissa rated it:

I think this was my second time reading Shakespeare's King Lear. When I started it, I couldn't decide if I had read it one time already, or three, which seems like a pretty weird mix-up. I think it was one. Though I saw it in Stratford, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was an inspiring and amazing production.

I think the oft-repeated maxim that Shakespeare's plays are best seen and not read is most true for his sex jokes and for King Lear. Because, in seeing King More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2010

Rachel rated it:

When my A.P. English teacher, Mr. Anderson, asked me if I had read King Lear, I replied something like "Yeah, and I can't believe I have to read that piece of trash again." I think it was the one time he was disappointed in me... Well, after having read it the second time for Mr. Anderson and again in college, I have finally come to appreciate the work that is King Lear...and I now wonder why I had a problem with it in the first place. Filled with political and familial discord, this p More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2009

Ahmad rated it:

لیر شاه، پادشاه کهنسال انگلستان، قلمرو خویش به دو دختر ناسپاس و چاپلوس خود می بخشد، دختر کهتر را که از چرب زبانی و مداهنه پرهیز دارد، محروم می کند، از آن پس دو دختر چنان با پدر پیر خویش، رفتار می کنند که لیر دیوانه می شود. سر به بیابان می گذارد. این قسمت از نمایشنامه، پرتو درخشان نبوغ شکسپیر است. سرانجام لیر دیوانه، جسد بیجان دختر کهتر را، که به دست گماشتگان خواهرانش از پای در آمده، در آغوش می گیرد و از رنج زندگی رها می شود. ا.ش More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Briynne rated it:

I love the three daughters of King Lear, and I love this play. The irony, and ultimate tragedy, of this play is that the King cannot spot love when he sees it. He falls for the false affection and fawning of his mercenary elder daughters Goneril and Regan, and misses the quiet, honest love and duty of his youngest, Cordelia. The sisters are all married to powerful men; Goneril and Regan to dukes eager to sieze control of the kingdom Lear divides between them, and Cordelia to the French king w More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 15, 2011

Elizabeth added it

the byline for these editions are "the page becomes the stage." King Lear has never been numbered among my favorites; I can never remember the plot; but how tremendously these quirky, disturbing illustrations guided me through the text this time. All the references to sight and blindness, nature and kingship, kept leaping out with great clarity. I also found David Gibson's brief introduction to the play to be very useful and enlightening. I'm really burning to see this as an actual More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2008

Paul rated it:

My all-time favorite Shakespeare play. Had a great time teaching it last year, and it's a real testament to the play's universal appeal that a bunch of 17 year olds can empathize so strongly with the aged Lear. I cannot read the last scene without crying, no matter where I am. I'm getting a little misty eyed just thinking about it. "thou'lt come again never never never...". Just heartbreaking and totally unredemptive at the end as well. Also the best and strongest of all the subpl More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Janet added it

I loved this play - which feels a bit wrong since it’s such a tragic story!

Cordelia is banished for refusing to flatter her father, and after the Earl of Kent criticises Lear for this action, he is quickly banished too. Lear announces that he will live alternatively with Gonerill and Regan, but the two sisters quickly show their true colours and greed takes over as they divest Lear of his staff and authority.

Realising too late that he has made a terrible mistake, Lear leaves and goes off into More...

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Feb 08, 2009

Stevie rated it:

It was interesting but I didn't like it as much as some other plays by Shakespeare.

Poignant Quotes:

Edmund - "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were villians on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of More...

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Dec 22, 2011

Ensiform rated it:

Edited by Andrew D. Hadfield. The aging king demands his three daughters express how much they love him; when Cordelia, the youngest, says she cannot put her love into words on command, he becomes enraged and cuts her off, dividing his kingdom between Goneril and Regan, the other two sisters, who are eager to flatter. Deaf to his advisers until too late, the king realizes his daughters now have the power to scheme against him and each other. Meanwhile, the lord Gloucester’s bastard son frames More...

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Nov 17, 2011

Saeed rated it:

لیر:
فکر می‌کنی لطمه‌های این توفان ستیزه‌خو بر پوست‌مان اهمیت بسیار دارد؟ برای تو چنین است. ولی، در جایی که درد بزرگ‌تری ریشه دوانده، درد کوچک‌تر به زحمت احساس می‌شود. تو از پیش یک خرس می‌گریزی، ولی در این گریز اگر پاهایت تو را به کام دریای خروشان بکشاند، به دهان خرس پناه می‌بری. جان که در آسایش باشد، تن زود رنج می‌شود. توفانی که در جان می‌است هر گونه احساس را جز آن یکی که بر قلبم ضربه می‌کوبد از اندام‌های حسی‌ام سلب می‌کند. ناسپاسی فرزند! این آیا به آن نمی‌ماند که دهانم دستم را که برای رسان More...

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Oct 24, 2011

Amanda rated it:

This was a great book, great plot and plots with in the plot. Many different yet relative topics, like betrayal, loyalty, jealousy, love, cruelty, etc... It kept you wanting to read more and wanting to find out what happens next most of the time. An attention grabber.
My favorite part of the book would have to be the ending, when everything comes together and yet falls apart at the same time. When they figure out the people behind the betrayals and the loyal friend is unvei More...

1 comment like

Oct 04, 2011

Lady Jane rated it:

This play is about a king who was starting to feel old and tired, and endeavored to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters. All he required of them in return was to express their love for him. So the two eldest daughters, being the Machiavels that they are, promise him the moon and the stars. The youngest daughter, who in the end proved to love him the most, replies in a nonchalant manner that she cannot compete with her sisters' expressions of love, and henceforth, she haughtily asserte More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 14, 2011

Ryan rated it:

I've never read that much Shakespeare, and I've never been as big of a fan of his as most writers seem to be. However, I did enjoy King Lear, in which a King is growing old and attempts to divide up his kingdom, while betrayal and murder ensue. One of the aspects of the story that spoke most to me was the use of the fool as the only sensical character. It's an interesting tactic to use one character as the voice of reason, but also to have that character be the one considered to be a bit slow. I More...

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Aug 11, 2011

Brenda rated it:

This has to be the most depressing Shakespeare play I have read. All of his plays usually have some sort of comic relief at one point, but this play was tragic. King Lear is about him and one of his three daughters, Cordelia. Everything goes well until the King's daughters have to state how much they love their father. Cordelia's sisters are able to do this at ease, but obviously show no real affection to their father. When Cordeila goes up to talk about her love to her father, she tells them th More...

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Jul 23, 2011

David rated it:

This is by far and away my favourite Shakespeare play. It is a very dark and brooding play that is not only incredibly violent, but also ends very badly for most of the main characters. King Lear is one of Shakespeare's great tragedies (along with the Scottish Play and Hamlet) though I find that Hamlet is a lot tighter and the plots are a lot more intertwined than King Lear.
What I mean by this is that there are, I'll say two, plots running side by side and then merge at the end of the pla More...

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Apr 16, 2011

Lydia rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 05, 2011

Irene rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Nov 19, 2010

Nicholas rated it:

So, I like some of this. My problem, as it almost always is with Shakespeare, is how everything just kind of gets piled on to build drama. He gets away with so many ridiculous things just for the sake of drama and no one ever mentions it. Ever.

I know this was set before Christianity, apparently during Pagan times, but the power that Lear's children wields I'm just not sure I buy. These are his soldiers, why in the world would they listen to his bitchy daughters? For that matter, how More...

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Oct 21, 2010

Prof. Mohamed rated it:

1. The fool in ‘King Lear’

The fool is one of the most important characters of ‘King Lear’. In fact, he is more than a fool; he is the wisest man that we find in the play. The fool becomes prominent in the fourth scene of the first act. The king has just started to get insulted by Gonerial, his first daughter. At this time, the fool makes fun of the stupidity of the king in his act of dividing the kingdom among his two daughters. He advises the king to
‘Have more th More...

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Sep 03, 2010

Angie rated it:

King Lear, why don't I love you the way I love Hamlet and Macbeth? Is it that your fatal flaw seems to be being dumb as a brick and I just can't respect that? Being overly pensive and angsty or being power mad and not being able to handle your wife calling you a pansy---those are flaws I can go for, but extreme stupidity masquerading as pride? I don't know, Lear. For whatever reason I just don't enjoy your play as much as I do the other great tragedies. In many ways, Lear towers as the blea More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 14, 2010

Lars rated it:

A large hole in my education finally filled. How I got into my sixties without reading or seeing 'King Lear' is a mystery. Especially since I have read Jane Smiley's 'A Thousand Acres,' and particularly because 'Lear' is so powerful and shocking.

Reading Shakespeare isn't easy and one has to be aware that he leaves so much open to performance, but there can be little doubt of how to interpret a stage direction which reads, 'Glouchester's eye put out.' The scene in Act III where Glo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 14, 2010

Trevor rated it:

I went to see Lear again last week. It must be the fifth time I have seen it performed and I’ve read it three or four times. It is a play that I can never become ‘familiar’ with. It is like no other play I know.

This time was the second time I have seen it performed by the Bell Shakespeare Company. This one was much better than the last – and I think I can say that because this time the performance brought out lots of the humour of the play. This is a play that is as dark as it i More...

6 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2010

Rowland rated it:

Shakespeare authored King Lear around 1605, between Othello andMacbeth, and it is usually ranked with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. The setting of King Lear is as far removed from Shakespeare’s time as the setting of any of his other plays, dramatizing events from the eighth century B.C. But the parallel stories of Lear’s and Gloucester’s sufferings at the hands of their own children reflect anxieties that would have been close to home for Shakespeare’s audience. One possible ev More...

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