1

King Lear
Chapter-1

1.1 Introduction :

William Shakespeare was born in baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon. English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English
national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.Shakespeare occupies a
position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo
Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers, but no writer’s living reputation can
compare to that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small
repertory theatre, are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. The
prophecy of his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare “was not of an
age, but for all time,” has been fulfilled.
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Chapter-2

2.1 King Lear as a Play:

King Lear, a tragic play written by William Shakespeare, opens with King Lear, the elderly
king of Britain, deciding to retire and divide his kingdom between his three daughters: Regan,
Goneril, and Cordelia. Before splitting his kingdom, Lear asks his daughters to express the
depth of their love for him. Regan and Goneril, Lear's oldest daughters, both offer over-the-
top proclamations of love for their father, much to the egotistical Lear's delight.

Lear's youngest and more beloved daughter Cordelia, however, takes a different approach.
She explains that she could never put the true depth of her love for her father into words. Lear
doesn't get what she's trying to say, and in a fit of rage, he banishes Cordelia. The King of
France happens to be nearby, and he's won over by Cordelia's virtue. She accepts his marriage
proposal and leaves Britain, leaving her father with his two conniving daughters. Lear also
banishes his friend, the Earl of Kent, for publicly standing up for Cordelia. Thus, the play
begins with the two people who are most loyal to Lear being booted from the kingdom.

It doesn't take long for Regan and Goneril to turn on their father and take away his remaining
political power, and it pushes Lear's mind over the edge. Lear wanders the countryside with
his Fool and Kent. Kent remains loyal to the king who banished him, and he's traveling with
Lear in disguise. While wandering among the common people, Lear begins to have a change
of heart as he realizes, for the first time, the wide and unjust gap between the nobles and the
commoners.
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Meanwhile, Gloucester, one of Lear's noblemen, has his own plot line going. His situation is
remarkably like Lear's. Gloucester is a powerful noble with a loyal son, Edgar, and a
treacherous son, Edmund. Edmund tricks Gloucester with a forged letter and makes him think
Edgar plans to usurp his estate. Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, for which Gloucester
disinherits Edgar and proclaims him an outlaw. The two truly noble characters in the play,
Edgar and Cordelia, have both been exiled by their fathers. While Cordelia has escaped to
France, Edgar disguises himself as a madman and hides out in the countryside.

Gloucester comes to understand what Lear's daughters have done to their father. He tries to
help Lear, but Regan and her cruel husband Cornwall catch him. Cornwall ties up Gloucester,
pulls out his eyes, and steps on them. At this point in the play, Gloucester is blinded and
suicidal. His loyal son Edgar seems to have also been driven over the edge. Lear's loyal
servant, Kent, has to disguise himself to care for his king, who has also gone insane, and the
villainous characters have all the power.

Cordelia eventually returns to Britain with a French army in order to rescue her father and
restore him to power, but even this one glimmer of hope fails to pan out. The British army, led
by the wicked Edmund, quickly subdues the French forces, putting an end to the brief war.
Cordelia and Lear are both imprisoned by the British force, though the two are able to
reconnect with each other while in captivity together. While in prison with Cordelia, Lear
comes to realize the true extent of her love for him and the depth of the mistakes he has made
and resolves to be a better man.

The final scene of the play brings everything to conclusion. Edmund signs off on the death
warrants for Lear and Cordelia. Albany, Goneril's husband, has intercepted a letter from
Goneril to Edmund. The letter urges Edmund to kill Albany so they could rule Britain
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together. Albany's second challenges Edmund to a duel, fatally wounds him, and reveals
himself to be Edmund's disguised brother Edgar!

Meanwhile Goneril has poisoned her sister Regan out of jealousy and then kills herself when
she fears being caught for all her treachery. Blind Gloucester has also died after learning, to
his great joy, that his son Edgar plans to fight to restore the family honor. Edmund, hoping to
do one last one good deed before dying, attempts to call off the execution of Cordelia and
Lear, but he's too late. Cordelia has been killed and Lear dies of sorrow. In the end, Albany
suggests that Kent and Edgar share the rule with him. Edgar agrees, but Kent refuses, hinting
that he will not be alive much longer now that his master, Lear, has perished.

Chapter-3

3.1 All Characters :

King Lear - protagonist, tragic hero, and eighty-year-old King of Britain who begins his
demise with a contest in which his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, must explain
how much they love him. This contest results in further bad decisions leading to Lear going mad
and ultimately dying.

Goneril - Lear's oldest daughter and wife of the Duke of Albany whose ruthless behavior and
jealousy for her sister's mutual attraction to Edmund drive her to commit suicide.

Regan - Lear's middle daughter and wife of the Duke of Cornwall shows her malice much like
her sister, especially when she kills a servant. She is poisoned by Goneril for loving Edmund.

Cordelia - Lear's youngest daughter who loves him the most but doesn't know how to express it,
so he gives her no dowry, and she goes off to marry the King of France. Her love for her father
remains strong until the day she is hanged in prison.

Gloucester - an earl and father to Edgar and an illegitimate son Edmund. He is an adviser and
friend to Lear who has trouble seeing that Edmund is lying to him until he has his eyes plucked
out by Cornwall, which helps him see the truth that his son Edgar is the one who truly loves him.
He dies of a heart attack.

Edgar - Gloucester's older son is initially fooled by his brother Edmund's lies to set him up, so
Edgar disguises himself as poor Tom, a crazy beggar, during which time he reunites with his
father, then ultimately kills his brother in a duel. He is left with Albany to rule in the end.

Edmund - Gloucester's bastard son who wants his father's inheritance, so he lies to his father and
brother, allows his father to lose his eyes, fights and loses to Edgar in a duel and takes
responsibility for Cordelia's death
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Kent - loyal friend to King Lear who is banished for speaking the truth after Lear's bad decision
to not give Cordelia any land. He returns later disguised as Caius to continue to advise Lear and
reveals himself as Kent to receive a pardon before Lear dies. Kent is offered to help rule the
kingdom but declines the invitation at the end.

Albany - husband of Goneril, who is a good person but waits too long to speak up and do what's
right. He learns of his wife's unfaithfulness before her death. He is left to rule in the end.

Cornwall - husband of Regan who is very cruel and gouges out Gloucester's eyes. In retaliation
he receives a wound from a servant that ultimately kills him.

Fool - Lear's jester who despite his songs and poems often tells Lear the truth about his decisions
and tries to impart wisdom in the guise of nonsense

Oswald - steward of Goneril who is obedient until his death. He was told to kill Gloucester, so
he tried, but Edgar killed him first, so he asks Edgar to deliver the letter to Edmund that Goneril
wrote as his dying request.

Burgundy - duke initially interested in marrying Cordelia until he learns she will receive no
dowry.
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Chapter-4

4.1 The Reason behind King Lear as Protagonist :

The protagonist of King Lear is Lear. In dividing his kingdom between Cordelia, Goneril, and
Regan, Lear sets in motion the events of the play. Lear divides his kingdom because he wants
the last years of his life to be restful, and because he expects his daughters will take care of
him. Although Lear has already decided which land to give to each daughter, he insists they
prove their love to him. This insistence on his daughters’ public declarations of love becomes
Lear’s tragic mistake. Lear has no real motivation for requiring his daughters to profess their
love to him other than his own egotism. Lear does not see himself or his situation clearly,
blinded to the fact that Goneril and Regan do not really love him. He cannot see that Cordelia
does love him, and that his own anger with Cordelia is extreme and misplaced. Lear’s lack of
self-knowledge causes his plan to go horribly wrong. He ends up homeless and mad,
wandering in a violent storm.

Once he is reduced to the status of a homeless beggar, Lear begins to acquire real self-
knowledge. The process of acquiring knowledge is painful for Lear, and comes at the price of
everything he previously valued. Lear comes to realize that many of the things he believed in
—like kingship, justice, and his family’s love—are unreliable or non-existent. He sees that
without power, a human is just a “poor, bare, forked animal” (III.iv). Lear realizes he can’t
take for granted even the most basic human necessities like clothes or shelter. Only after he
has lost everything is Lear able to see himself clearly, as “a foolish, fond old man” (IV.vii).
This self-knowledge allows him to be reconciled with Cordelia, and Lear’s loving bond with
her gives him a new sense of meaning. However, Lear’s relationship with Cordelia proves to
be one last thing that can be taken from him. After Cordelia’s murder, Lear ends the play
howling with grief, unable to accept his daughter’s death. He even seems to lapse back into
madness, suggesting he may have lost the self-knowledge he so painfully acquired.
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Chapter-5
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5.1 Conclusion:

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. Goneril and Regan, Lear’s older daughters, give their
father flattering answers. But Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favorite daughter, remains silent,
saying that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. Lear flies into a rage
and disowns Cordelia. The king of France, who has courted Cordelia, says that he still wants to
marry her even without her land, and she accompanies him to France without her father’s
blessing.

Lear quickly learns that he made a bad decision. Goneril and Regan swiftly begin to undermine
the little authority that Lear still holds. Unable to believe that his beloved daughters are
betraying him, Lear slowly goes insane. He flees his daughters’ houses to wander on a heath
during a great thunderstorm, accompanied by his Fool and by Kent, a loyal nobleman in
disguise.
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References

Foakes, R. A., ed. (1997). King Lear. The Arden Shakespeare, third series. Bloomsbury
Publishing. doi:10.5040/9781408160268 (inactive 28 February 2022). ISBN 978-1-903436-59-2.
Hadfield, Andrew, ed. (2007). King Lear. The Barnes & Noble Shakespeare. New York: Barnes
& Noble. ISBN 978-1-4114-0079-5.
Hunter, G. K., ed. (1972). King Lear. The New Penguin Shakespeare. Penguin Books.
Kermode, Frank (1974). "Introduction to King Lear". In Evans, G. Blakemore (ed.). The
Riverside Shakespeare. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-04402-5.
Pierce, Joseph, ed. (2008). King Lear. Ignatius Critical Editions. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
ISBN 978-1-58617-137-7.
Secondary sources
Edit
Allfree, Claire (7 April 2016). "Don Warrington's King Lear is a heartbreaking tour de force".
The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
Armstrong, Alan (2003). "Unfamiliar Shakespeare". In Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena Cowen
(eds.). Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 308–319. ISBN
978-0-19-924522-2.
Ashliman, D. L., ed. (9 February 2013). "Love Like Salt: Folktales of Types 923 and 510".
Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
Beckerman, Jim (21 June 2010). "Hudson Shakespeare Company takes King Lear outdoors".
The Record. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2018.