King Lear by William Shakespeare

“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.” 

One of the works I read with my students each year is Romeo and Juliet, and the experience of teaching this play has caused me to develop a deep appreciation for William Shakespeare. I liked him just fine before teaching his work, of course, but reading Romeo and Juliet so many times has really helped me to understand his incomparable style. The poetry of the lines, the timeless stories, and the unforgettable characters more than earn Shakespeare his reputation of being the greatest and most influential writer of all time.

Despite my admiration for his work however, I haven't read very many of his plays. Aside from Romeo and Juliet, I have only read Othello and Macbeth, and both of those were back when I was in high school. One of my goals as a reader is to explore more of Shakespeare's classics, so when "a classic published before 1800" popped up as one of the categories in my Back to the Classics reading challenge this year, I knew it was time to try another one of his plays.  

King Lear has always appealed to me, both because of its reputation and because I knew three female characters were at the heart of it. I also knew that some top English actors I love, like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, had taken on the title role in various adaptations over the years. I resolved that if King Lear was good enough for Patrick Stewart, then it was certainly good enough for me, and dove in.

The play begins with a famous opening scene - King Lear, old and tired of the heavy duties of being king of Britain, decides to split up his kingdom between his three daughters so that he can retire. He declares that he will divide his kingdom based on how much his daughters profess to love him, with the most impressive declaration getting the biggest slice of land. Goneril and Regan, his two eldest daughters, both give quite impressive, flowery speeches about the depth of their love for him, and are rewarded accordingly. However, when it is his youngest daughter Cordelia's turn to speak, she is barely able to respond. She is shy, not as artful with words as her sisters, and more realistic. She manages to answer that she loves him as a daughter should love a father, and that her past actions should speak for her when words fail her. Furious with her lack of response, Lear disowns her and gives her no piece of his kingdom. He completely strips her of her dowry, which drives one of her potential suitors away immediately. However, the King of France recognizes the strength of Cordelia's character and marries her despite her lack of money, and takes her away to be Queen of France.

Before long, Lear regrets both his decision to give up his lands and to disown Cordelia. Goneril and Regan prove to be cruel and selfish. They do not take care of him in his old age, treat him like a child, and deny him the provisions they agreed to when he first divided the kingdom between them. They believe him to be a senile fool and spend their time ignoring him as much as possible while scheming to acquire more lands and power. They both latch on to another deceptive and loathesome character, Edmund, and wreak havoc on the kingdom and on each other in his name. Lear, humiliated and ashamed of his actions, vows revenge upon his daughters:

I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do such things--
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.

Before long, however, the pain Lear feels become too much to bear, and he is driven mad. After being locked outside of Regan's home, he wanders for hours in a terrible thunderstorm, raging at everything he comes across. A few subjects who are still faithful to him, including his court fool, an old beggar, and a crazy person attempt to help him, but the damage is done and his mind is never truly whole again. Cordelia eventually returns, bringing the armies of France to try and defend her father's kingdom against the treachery of her sisters, but Goneril and Regan's deceptions and schemes are nigh unstoppable by this time, and lead nearly everyone to a tragic end.

The play ends on a funeral note, with one of the surviving characters noting that:

The weight of this sad time we must obey.
Speak what we feel, and not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most. We that are young
Shall never see so much, not live so long.

It is utter nonsense to "review" King Lear, because this is a work of highly recognized literary merit. Many believe it to be Shakespeare's finest tragedy, and my personal opinions wouldn't even register against a work of this caliber. What I will comment on instead are the thoughts I had while reading. My rating is only a reflection of my personal experiences, and not meant to be a comment on the quality of the work as a whole. It's a masterpiece. That being said, there were things I loved and things I wished were a little different.

I was a little nervous when I started reading, because Shakespeare is challenging to understand. The language is beautiful, but Shakespeare wrote King Lear around 1606, and the way we speak English has evolved a lot since then. To combat this, I used the No Fear Shakespeare edition of the play, which contains a line by line translation of the work side by side with the original. Being able to refer to the translation was immensely helpful when I got stuck, but I found that I didn't need it as much as I had feared. I think reading Romeo and Juliet so many times gave me a bit of a leg up in the language department. I got through it just fine.

I loved the characters and the plot. The story contains everything from familial drama, to political strife, to adulterous affairs, to some truly shocking violence (at one point, I literally gasped out loud at the stage directions). It was interesting from page one. It was easy to sympathize with King Lear as he watches his family disintegrate, and even easier to hate the evil triad of Goneril, Regan, and Edmund. The ending was fittingly tragic and the overall message of actions and experiences being more important than words came across clearly. Lear brought his tragedies on himself, through his own arrogance and laziness, but I really felt bad for him in spite of that. Who would ever want to suspect their children of being capable of such evil and callousness towards their own family? This play is sad and serious, more sad that Romeo and Juliet in my estimation, and had little comic relief to lighten the mood.

One things I wished were different about the play was the treatment of Cordelia. After being disowned in the opening scene, she drops out of the play entirely until almost the very end. When she does show back up, she demonstrates her goodness and loyalty admirably, but in a rather weak and quiet way. She spends most of her lines crying and wringing her hands over her father. It was nice to see the strength of her love for Lear, but in comparison to the terrible schemes her sisters are able to set into motion, she appears weak. I understand that she had to fail in order for this to be a proper Shakespearean tragedy, but I wish she had a little more backbone and a lot more to say in the interim. We are left with the overall impression that women should be meek, mild, and obedient beyond reason in order to be "good." I know that these thoughts are a reflection of the time period this play was written in, however, and I do accept that.

One other small aspect of the play that I wished were different was the lack of poetry. There was some rhyming throughout King Lear, but not anything close to what Shakespeare achieved in Romeo and Juliet, in which sonnets frequently appear in dialogue form. I found that I missed that background rhythm, but this didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.

I believe I made the right choice in choosing King Lear to start exploring more Shakespeare with. It is action-packed, full of memorable characters and dialogue, and fittingly tragic. I am sorry that I never got a chance to study this one in an academic setting, but I'm happy that I experienced it on my own. I would highly recommend this one to anyone looking to expand their knowledge of Shakespearean tragedies.


Challenge Tally
Back to the Classics: (A classic published before 1800) 4/12
Classics Club: (#4 on my list) 4/100 
Popsugar Challenge: (A book with a title that's a character's name) 9/40 
Mount TBR: previously owned 9/60