King Lear (MAXNotes Literature Guides)REA's MAXnotes for William Shakespeare's King Lear The MAXnotes offers a comprehensive summary and analysis of King Lear and a biography of William Shakespeare. Places the events of the play in historical context and discusses each act in detail. Includes study questions and answers along with topics for papers and sample outlines. |
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actions Analysis asks banished battle Bedlam behavior blind father blind Gloucester bring Cite examples Cornwall and Albany Cornwall and Regan daugh deceitful Dover Duke of Albany Duke of Burgundy Duke of Cornwall Earl of Gloucester Earl of Kent enters essay explaining evil characters Fool Fool's Gentleman give Gloucester says Gloucester tells Gloucester's castle gods Goneril and Regan heath hovel husband insight Kent's kill King Lear King of France King's kingdom knights L. C. Knights Lear and Cordelia Lear and Gloucester Lear's daughters loyal loyalty madness main plot MAXnotes mock trial natural Oswald play to support poor previous scene promptly reduce his train Regan wants servant Shakespeare's day shelter sister soliloquy speaks in verse speech Stanley Cavell stocks storm Study Questions subplot suffering Suggested Essay Topics Summary support your answer support your view thinks train of followers traitor true identity turn unnatural Write an essay
Popular passages
Page 85 - The bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe. Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead. force should be right ; or, rather, right and wrong, (Between whose endless jar justice resides,) Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Page 123 - I'll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, — Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; — And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies...
Page 54 - Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow ! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks ! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head ! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world ! Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man ! 9 Fool.
Page 11 - Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to nothing.
Page 46 - Go to the Ant, thou Sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise : which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her 15 meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
Page 85 - Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself.
Page 63 - Turk: false of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Page 80 - Oh! dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father's wrath; Might I but live to see thee in my touch, I'd say I had eyes again. OLD MAN How now! Who's there ? EDGAR (aside.) 0 Gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?
Page 10 - Tell me, my daughters, Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state, Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge.
Page 125 - 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 see so much, nor live so long.