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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Pages: 400
Started: 26 July 2023
Finished: 31 July 2023
Summary:
King Lear, ruler of Britain, is growing old, so he decides to divide his power between his three daughters: half to Goneril, who flatters him profusely when asked, to be managed by her husband the Duke of Albany; half to Regan, who matches her sister's flattery, and whose power will be managed by her husband the Duke of Cornwall; and nothing to Cordelia, who refuses to lie, and instead tells the King she loves him dearly, but no more than a daughter should love her father, and is cast out, handed away to the King of France. However it doesn't take long for King Lear to realize he doesn't enjoy being powerless, and he is quickly driven to madness by the perceived betrayal of his daughters' refusal to give him back his power.
Protesting King Lear's actions as far too hasty, the Duke of Kent is also banished. Refusing to abandon his King, Kent returns in disguise, attempting to protect the fate of King and country. By contrast, the ignoble Edmund is the second son, the bastard son, the son always in the shadow of his older brother Edgar. Determined to gain wealth and control, Edmund concocts a scheme to present his loyal brother as a traitor to his father and to the crown, before going after his father the Duke of Gloucester himself.
Madness and violence loom, but all are overshadowed by the threat of the French army, come to take over Britain. Battle can be the perfect backdrop for revenge and for absolution, but even the most noble of men can fall victim to a sharp blade.
Thoughts:
There were enough characters in this play that I struggled to follow all of them for parts of it, but I felt that by the end it all made sense. Each character had a desire, and acted with the goal of achieving it. My new system of summarizing each page at the the top of the page was very helpful; with the concrete summaries in place, I was able to look back through the language for especially interesting or lovely phrases. I did keep getting frustrated at all the chaos and damage that was catalyzed by an old man giving away his crown and then realizing he wanted it back, but all the suffering and misery was quite fun to read. I was reading more for fun than for analysis, but I did have a few thoughts.
Tragedy? I have had this thought swimming around in my head ever since reading Macbeth: if a tragedy is defined by the downfall of the hero, I don't know if either Macbeth nor King Lear can really count as tragedies. Certainly, the eponymous characters of the two plays meet tragic ends, but they also have committed enough atrocities to deserve their fates. At the end of King Lear, it's Edgar, Albany and Kent, the three characters who consistently make noble choices, who remain standing. Because the victor tends to tell the story, I might argue it is they, not Lear, who are the heroes of the story, and thus the story isn't necessarily a tragedy. I haven't thought this idea all the way through, but it's an interesting thing to think about at least.
Important Themes: fate, madness, honor, shame, age,
Catalysts: Lear's giving up his power is the most important catalyst, but Shakespeare also utilizes devices like storms and approaching armies to add urgency and exciting backdrop to his story.
Disguise: I recognize that people wearing disguises makes things more dramatic, but my god. Disguise or no, I feel that siblings would recognize each other, and that parents would recognize their children's voices even if the kid looked different or the parent was blind.
I had a lot of fun reading this play, and definitely intend to re-read it at some point for in-depth analysis now that I am familiar with the plot and structure.