King Lear By William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) Essays - King Lear

King Lear by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) King Lear by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) Type of Work: Tragic drama Setting Medieval England Principal Characters Lear, King of Britain Cordelia, his faithful daughter Regan and Goneril, his two mean-spirited daughters The Dukes of Cornwall and Albany, their husbands The Earl of Gloucester Edmund , the Earl's treacherous son Edgar, the Earl's true son (later disguised as a madman) The Duke of Kent, Cordelia's loyal helper Lear's Fool, a comical character Story Overveiw England's aged King Lear had chosen to renounce his throne and divide the kingdom among his three daughters. He promised the greatest portion of the empire to whichever daughter proved to love him most. Goneril lavished exaggerated praise on her father; Regan even outdid her sister with a wordy show of hollow affection Cordelia, however, refused to stoop to flattery, and insisted that she loved her father no more and no less than was his due. Lear exploded at what seemed to him her untenderness and immediately disowned her. Moreover, Lear banished the Duke of Kent from the castle for defending Cordelia. Two suitors had come to the British court to seek Cordelia's hand: the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. After Lear had disinherited Cordelia, Burgundy suddenly lost interest in her he aspired to a wealthy bride. The King of France, however, was delighted by Cordelia's honesty and immediately asked for her hand. They departed for France, without Lear's blessing, and Cordelia's part of the kingdom was divided between Goneril and Regan, who were all too happy at their sister's fall from grace. Furthermore, these two daughters decided that Lear had succumbed to a sort of senility, and they set upon a plan to exploit his weakness to their own advantage. Meanwhile, in the Earl of Gloucester's castle, Edmund, Gioucester's bitter and cunning illegitimate son, was fretting over his father's preference toward the legitimate brother, Edgar. Edmund now forged a letter in which Edgar supposedly expressed his intent to murder their father. Gloucester immediately believed the letter and fled in distress from the palace. Then Edmund, in mock concern, went and warned his brother that someone had turned Gloucester against him. Edgar, too good at heart to suspect his brother's treachery' accepted the story and escaped to the forest. Thus, with two clever strokes, Edmund had managed to supplant his brother in his father's affections. After dividing his kingdom, Lear decided to lodge for a time at Goneril's palace. Now that she had her half of his kingdom, however, she no longer feigned love for him. In fact, she so distained her father that she ordered her servants to mistreat and insult him. Accordingly, her servants began to deal with him as a senile old man rather than as a king. In the meantime, the banished Duke of Kent disguised himself and presented himself to the king at Goneril's palace. Lear failed to recognize the disguise and hired Kent as a servant. Then, with the help of the King's Fool (whose biting jibes and puns provide some of the finest moments in all literature), Kent began hinting to Lear that he had acted unwisely in dealing with Cordelia, until the King began to perceive his folly. As Gonerit continued to humiliate him, Lear, bemoaning his fate ("How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"), determined to move on to Regan's household. He did not know that Regan was at that moment on her way to visit Gloucester. (In fact, all of the characters were now converging on Gloucester's castle). Near Gloucester, Edgar, still convinced that his life was in peril from his father, lingercd in a local wood, disguised as a madman - Tom o' Bedlam. Soon Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, arrived at Gloucester. They were followed by King Lear not long after. When Goneril and her household also appeared, the two sisters united to disgrace their father, ordering him to dismiss all his servants. But this humiliation proved too much for the old King, who, in a fit of anger and shame, rushed out of the castle into a furious storm, where he wandered about madly, screaming and cursing. Their plan having succeeded, the daughters locked the doors behind him. Then follows a most famous and stirring scene: Lear raged and cursed in the midnight storm, with his frightened Fool cowering beside him, uttering the most biting and ironic jokes, while Kent watched in disbelief. Fortunately, Gloucester found them and led them to a little hovel, where they encountered Edgar, still disguised as Tom O'Bedlam and pretending derangement. Lear, now half mad himself, set about conducting a bizarre mock trial