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Summary: Great Format for Reading Shakespeare
Review: King Lear is a fantastic book...if you can ever understand it. I tried several times to get a handle on the plot, which is not as easy a task as it sounds. I even tried watching it on PBS, but I only succeeded in catching a few words and an occasional sentence. However, that changed after I purchased this book, which has the original Shakespeare on one page and the same text in modern English on the following page. Half the book is the original text and half is in modern language, with the pages side by side so that you can use the modern language page to understand the Shakespeare text. You can either read the whole book in modern English first to figure out what is going on, or you can just use the modern English part when you need it (which I found was often with the text of King Lear). I find this so much better than a book that just translates an occasional word here and there. Even if you understand the meaning of every word, sometimes it is still hard to understand what Shakespeare meant, but you won't have that problem with this book. Using this book to read King Lear was for me the key to making this wonderful play finally understandable and highly enjoyable.
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Summary: masterpiece, tighter framework and control than hamlet
Review: dense, philosophically comepletely, acheiving catharsis. the best work from the master? quite possibly. we're just waiting for branagh to age . . .
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Summary: Nothing will come of nothing
Review: "Nothing will come of nothing" the fatal line Lear utters to Cordelia sums up the entire play. The wizened king believes he is urging Cordelia not to refrain from expressing her love for him when in fact he is unwittingly prompting her to use the same insincere flattery as her sisters. When Cordelia refuses to acquiesce to Lear's wishes, he banishes her from the kingdom and divides it among her nefarious sisters Goneril and Reagan. In doing this Lear accepts their empty flattery instead of Cordelia's austere profession of paternal love. Goneril and Reagan quickly betray Lear and then turn against each other. Thus Lear's preference for empty flattery (nothing) destroys his authority and embroils his kingdom in civil strife (generates nothing).This theme runs like a thread through other parts of the play. Gloucester's blindness toward the nature of his sons results in his literal blindness later in the play. Metaphorical blindness generates physical blindness (nothing comes of nothing). Similarly, after Edgar is banished he avoids further harm by shedding his identity and disguising himself as a vagrant. In the new order of things eliminating one's status results in no harm (another version of nothing coming from nothing). The motif of nothing coming from nothing has psychological and political ramifications for the play. From a psychological point of view Lear fails to realize that the type of adulating love he wants from Cordelia no longer exists because Cordelia is no longer a child. Her refusal to flatter Lear is, in a sense, an act of adolescent rebellion. Lear's failure to recognize the fact that Cordelia still loves him but not with the totality of a child proves to be his undoing. From a political point of view the fact that Lear divides his kingdom on the basis of protocol (who is the most flattering) instead of reality (whose words can he really trust) also proves to be his undoing. The fact that Lear sees what he wants to see instead of what he should see is the fulcrum of destruction throughout the play. It is interesting to note that "King Lear" was staged barely one generation after England endured a bitter war of succession (The War of the Roses). The sight of Lear proclaiming his intention to divide his kingdom must have shocked contemporary audiences in the same manner that a play about appeasing fascists might disturb us today.
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Summary: Good and Evil at Their Most Intense
Review: Like "The Comedy of Errors," "Hamlet," and "Richard III," this is a phenomenal masterpiece beyond expectations. Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund are the most frightening and demonic characters in Shakespeare's writing. (Only his King Richard III compares). I can not overemphasize Shakespeare's mastery of writing in how he gradually unfolds the evil of these characters. While we may not know what to think of them at first, we soon learn that they would do Satan proud. Lear is handled well. First we don't know what to think of him, but then we are moved into VERY DEEP AND INTENSE pity for him. Cordelia, Kent, and Edgar are three of the most Christ like characters in Shakespeare's writings. The virtuous Albany also displays Shakespeare's best skills. First we hardly see him, but other characters express Albany's contempt for the diabolical Cornwall several times. In 4.2, his fury at his demonic wife shows us that he is planning a bold countermove. By 5.3, Albany actually takes on all 3 of the remaining monstrously evil characters. Shakespeare also offers us powerful dramatic irony with the fool. He also offers us powerful (and very terrifying) images. There are also several moving passages in this play. (Especially Edgar's soliloquy 3.6.111-125). Somehow, Shakespeare even managed to squeeze some welcome comical touches in.
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Summary: A classic made classic by the Twisted Sisters
Review: While all of Shakespeare's works are indisputable hallmarks of literature, this is by far my favourite of them all, and for two reasons: Goneril and Regan. I'm aware that when everyone reads/acts/produces this play that most of the attention goes to Lear and Kent and Edgar, not to mention that sap Coredlia. I'm aware that Goneril and Regan are usually dismissed as hypocritical, fawning, flatterers who get their just desserts. To dismiss them like that is horrendous! There are two main schools of thought on Goneril and Regan (disincluding the aforementioned dismissal). One is to say that they are--Goneril especially--purely evil, malevolent creatures. If that was Shakespeare's intention, then you can hardly call their evil--Goneril's especially--a weakness. In fact, if Goneril is purely evil, then it is her evil which galvanises her as one of the strongest characters in the play, if not THE strongest! She is so malevolent and beyond the reach of 'justice' that she escapes trial by taking her own life. Oh yeah, sounds really pathetic, huh? NOT. However, to see them as plain shades of black and white is rather over-simplifying everything. The question then arises: what made them evil? Their father? It is evident that the degress of love they receive is directly proportional to how evil they are: Goneril, the most 'evil', is referred to merely as 'our eldest'; Regan, the quasi-'evil' sister, is referred to as 'our dearest Regan'; while Cordelia, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, is referred to as 'our joy', amongst other flattering and doting pet-names. Allows you to extrapolate some kind of familial history for the Lear family, doesn't it? I don't know about you, but if I was Goneril I would have done what she did a long time ago. If she is indeed the victim of Lear's fathering, then she sure as hell turns the victimhood back on the old goat and makes him suffer. If this is the 'true' interpretation of Goneril, then any similar sufferer of teenage angst should read what she does and roar. I know that readers of this may be furious that I've ignored the many other facets of this play in favour of one which would seem largely unimportant in comparison. It is not. Lear may evolve into a play of politics in the final Acts, but it starts out as a tragedy of the nuclear family. If anyone had known Goneril, "God help that girl" would undoubtedly been a phrase they would have uttered more than once when witnessing the 'share' of her father's 'love' she received. Goneril wasn't going to wait for God. She took matters into her own hands. Good for her.
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Summary: An old fool learns too little too late
Review: An annoying old fool named King Lear doesn't know the true character of his own children. He divides all of his property between his two disloyal daughters simply because they flatter him, and he gives nothing to his loyal daughter because she refuses to play the flattery game. In retrospect I can't blame the two flatterers for their behavior, considering that their father is an obnoxious fool. He gets his just desserts in the end - the short end of the stick. So there's a happy ending after all. Shakespeare wrote it with sympathy for the old king. He excuses arrogance in kings. I don't. The hell with King Lear.
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Summary: Another Shakespeare Masterpiece.
Review: All good Shakespeare tragedies have strong conflicts. The inheritence of kingdom is serious, and realistic. People have been fighting over power and control of land for thousands of years. Shakespeare shows how ingratitude and greed destroys not only a person, but the entire family. A must read.
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Summary: Better audio version is available
Review: I won't review Shakespeare or King Lear but instead focus on the quality of this audio production. I am familiar with the BBC version of Lear, with Sir John Gielgud as Lear and Kenneth Branagh as Kent. I prefer the BBC version of King Lear to the Caedmon version. For example, the clown in the BBC version is an older man, poignant and fascinating, while the clown in the Caedmon production is a young man, shrill and annoying. The Caedmon Audio Skakespeare series is a great resource but has occasional flaws. Their production of Lear is an example.
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Summary: What is nature?
Review: This book is a profound study of nature. Characters such as Lear, Gloucester, and Edmund voice their opinions and questions on the subject of fate, the gods, human nature, and relationships between parents and children. I personally love Edgar, and think that he made this play great. He's as loyal to his father and Lear as Kent and Cordelia, but more creative and effective in his action. I believe that he was Shakespeare's favorite character too, because of his talent as an actor (as evidenced by his mad act and the cliff scene) and because he survives in the end! Shakespeare poses many questions of human, parental, and divine nature in this play, and some are resolved, but not all. Are we to the gods or nature as flies to wanton boys? We must all decide which opinion is right.
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Summary: THIS PLAY MAKES NO SENSE
Review: I like plays, but this play was boring and shallow! The dialogues were completely unrealistic and too long. Also, I didn't understand how it kept going back and forth between a bunch of different stories. Hey Shakespeare: Stick with one topic at a time. Nobody's gonna think you're smart just because you use big words and try to be complicated. I didn't like how people died in the end. When i read a play, I want to be entertained, not depressed! Life's too short to waste reading nonsense!
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