King Lear (Shakespeare Made Easy: Modern English Version Side-By-Side With Full origiNal Text)

Rating:
Summary: Not for me
Review: First I'd better explain my reasons for the three stars. This book didn't do a lot for me because of my own inability to understand Olde English. I don't have the version I read of King lear listed on amazon so I don't know if other versions are dumbed down for the lies of me or if they're all in Olde English. But I feel I have to concede it is a great book and that if I gave it one star it might affect the overall rating. I understand that each of us are individuals and if I think it was bad because I couldn't really understand it then I've a right to mark it down. But I can't when I know it's myself and not the book that's the problem. Anyway, I needed to refer to Amazon reviewers twice to understand what was going on. And although I could write down a pretty accurate summary of the plot I couldn't become emtotional at all while reading it due to having to work out what I was reading. I read this book due to the feeling that I'm missing out on something and I still feel that now. I would advise people like me to find a modernised version if they can and good luck.

Rating:
Summary: A Play that runs the gamut of human emotion.
Review: I love the story of King Lear. The theme of the play is filial ingratitude, and this is portrayed as two parallel stories. The play is actually a parable. It is also a great acting play, and though it's difficult to stage, an actor only in the prime of his career is considered equal to the task of portraying Lear. Lear is a very complex part. He is obstinate, arrogant and hot-tempered at first. When his favourite daughter refuses to treat him in the way he thinks he should be treated he casts her off, and then Lear suffers physical and emotional suffering. He begins a descent into madness. Then from this pit he rediscovers love and tenderness when he is finally reunited with his favourite daughter. So many emotions to portray! No wonder it takes such skill to play this part! Truly a masterpiece!

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding play
Review: Before this year, I hated shakespeare. However, this play is willing to give the nonbelievers a run for their money.

The play begins with the old King Lear dividing up his kingdom between his three daughters. However, angered by the daughter that truly loves him, he expels her and gives all the land to the other two sisters.

The play is driven by these two sisters actions to slowly erode Lear of all his power. Shakespeare does a great job of developing Lear who initially appears to be a self centered snot and eventually becomes a character that all can sympathize with. He like many of the characters in this play, are given depe emotions and all appear realistic.

A secondary plot acts as a foil to the main action as the character of Gloucester is led to believe that one of his sons is secretly acting to betray him. This back story complements the main story nicely and is told well.

Combined, the two plots make a remarkable story. While it is often hard to follow if you aren't used to the older English, it is still worth a read. I'd recommend it to anyone alongside Macbeth.

Rating:
Summary: blood isn't thicker than water
Review: This great work is immense so I will just mention two themes that had an impact on me. This play shows both the self-destruction that unrestrained greed can lead to and also how someone who loves his or her sons or daughters can easily be exploited by them. In addition, this play made me think about the relationship I have with my parents.

This play describes how unchecked human desires for prestige and land lead to a life full of suspicion and unhappiness. Goneril and Regan, immediately after acquiring their father's kingdom, begin to treat him with less and less respect because he isn't rich anymore. For instance, neither sister allows King Lear to stay in the castles of their respective husbands to provide him with shelter from a violent storm. In another example, both Goneril and Regan have the Earl of Kent, a high ranking dignitary who is openly a loyal supporter of King Lear, put out in the stocks without King Lear's permission. Again, this is symbolically an act of disrespect against Lear. But, this unrestrained and unprincipled selfish attitude catches up with the two sisters, Goneril and Regan. They eventually turn against each other when they both compete for the handsome Edmund. Maybe what Shakespeare is saying here is that if one seeks happiness through material wealth or status, then that individual is doomed to always feel jealous of others who are more wealthy or who have more prestige in some way.

Another theme I found in this play relates to how a loving parent can easily let him or herself be manipulated by his or her own children. In the beginning of the play, King Lear was basically controlled by his two daughters, Goneril and Regan. King Lear strikes me as a capricious person because he makes important decisions based on a whim. For example, Goneril and Regan, knowing that King Lear both loves them and that he is impetuous, give him what he wants -- approval and attention. By contrast, King Lear becomes exasperated with Cordelia when she refuses to feed his ego with flattery. King Lear, in a subsequent fit of rage, decides to bequeath his entire kingdom to Goneril, Regan and their respective husbands with nothing remaining for Cordelia. Perhaps what the author is trying to get across is that if we are to ever entrust a daughter, son or friend with land or a large sum of money, then what we feel for that person can prevent us from properly evaluating whether that daughter, son or friend is really responsible and loyal.

Thirdly, this situation between King Lear and his three daughters made me think about what will happen to the relationship I have with my parents. My mom and dad raised, fed and clothed me. Eventually, however, my parents will become weak, infirm and forgetful of what they say or do. So, will I ditch my parents and leave them to fend for themselves in an elderly home? Or will I remain by their side even if they may no longer be in a position to provide me with money or property? In other words, will the "Goneril-Regan" side of me win over my "Cordelia" side?

In conclusion, King Lear offers humanity an example of how an individual's sincere love for another person can blind his or her sense of judgment. When King Lear gave away his kingdom, he didn't evaluate the character of his sisters, he just evaluated what came out of their lips.

Rating:
Summary: My father the king, and Lear the father
Review: I came to Lear later than I came to Hamlet. And yet it too seemed to me to rage in connection with my own father's light. It too seemed to interpret and be interpreted by him. Lear in his great pain driven to madness by grief was like my father a great king wounded into screaming by life. The Lear story , the three daughters , ungrateful Goneril and Regan, and lovely Cordelia true to her troth , loving with the mean and proportion a daughter's love required- that story and the father's dispossession and madness and grief and reconnection with the loving daughter and her death and his grief breaking into madness- that story the story of the tragedy itself- as too the secondary plot with there too a father misapprehending the virtue of one child, and being deceived by another- that plot and the heart of the Lear story did not speak to me at the time. No , just Lear poor bare forked unencumbered man himself this spoke to me .For again in the great language of grief and madness came those metaphors which likened themselves to the kind of thing we heard every night from my father around the kitchen table. So I did not then read Lear truly and wholly, but rather took for myself some part of it which connected with my life.
A great work of art is not simply all the readings made of it, and not even all the misreadings made of it, but all the truth it reveals and inspires in us. Again it told my father's story and suggested that story greater than any Literature could perhaps be Literature one day.
And this without Cordelia's death and without ' Never, never, never , never, never. Why should a horse a rat have life and her no breath at all? With only a different cry and one for us anyway more painful still ' No, a thousand times no '


Rating:
Summary: Another Macbeth
Review: Average, mediocre play. Boring, tedious, and grim plot, with an unoriginal cast of characters. I don't really recommed it.