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Shakespeare's King Lear
Book by Shakespeare, William
124 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1600
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June 29, 2016
King Lear is about a king named Lear who in his old age wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. You can read for yourself why he only winds up divvying it between two daughters, but when he does, the two daughters Regan and Goneril try to control his behavior, and he can do nothing about it since he has no formal place in the kingdom any longer. Lear the man, and all the other characters, are situated in a topsy-turvy world where deceit is rewarded, blind loyalty is more important than virtue, the people who speak the truth are outcast or are not taken seriously because they are considered fools, and, above all, evil overrules goodness. In a way, the play is consistent with age-old themes that are still seen today. Compare this to, for example, Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, whose subtext is the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Here are the summative lines in King Lear that I suppose is supposed to capture the entirety of the play's theme.
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say:
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never so much, nor live so long.
Displaying 1 of 1 review