King Lear (Wordsworth Classics) by William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare

Genres: Plays

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About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

Reviews

[Aurelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

To my understanding, King Lear is a play about human delusion, how it spreads and procreates inside of our minds, pushes us to make the worst of decisions, and even while we struggle against its consequences, we are deluded to the verge of madness. We make mistakes which are so obvious yet so unavoidable and fatal.

The play kicks off with a classic Shakespearian compulsive decision making, that sets the other characters on their inevitable way to tragedy. The action is swift, the wheel of fortune turns on everyone involved. The most powerful human weaknesses and passions are once again highlighted in the most splendid manners. We witness how greed and power strife overwhelm humans and pushed them to the most improbable machinations, building sandcastles in their minds. It is a whirlpool that sucks them in only to throw them out empty handed, realizing that they were chasing shadows created by their minds.

The other form of delusion that this play describes is what we usually call madness. In the utmost stages of despair, humans become even more convinced of their delusions. In fact, they create ones in which they find their consolation and stick to them stubbornly. It becomes a way to delight in despair, a way to rebel against fortune’s blows, reestablish oneself beyond its scope even if the verdict was already proclaimed.

The subtle form of delusion comes in the ambiguous speeches of the fool, a prominent character in the play. His speeches are ridiculous and vulgar but speak painful truths for those who dare to listen. His manner is insolent, even savage. He sings obscure songs and interrupts himself with random fortune telling. But in between, he delivers messages which remind us of the irony of life events.

Other parts of the play were simply brilliant in the way that some particular scenes are staged. We get the impression that they are staging a play inside of a play. The characters sometimes sound perfectly aware of their foolishness and delusion, as they stop and address the reader or the audience. The scene of the mock suicide by Gloucester is particularly amusing and thought provoking as he is tricked into thinking that he has jumped over a huge cliff. It is a combination of the serious and the absurd that only Shakespeare can pull off.

In the end, King Lear is also a play about the divine and its real relationship with human affairs. Are we pawns in the hands of Gods that they are using to amuse themselves? Do they watch over some order and re-establish it when disturbed by human action? or human action is in itself completely under their power, for even the most self-destructive and obviously foolish decisions? The characters are back in forth between all these questions without ever settling on an answer. The just and the good are innocent victims while the vile and the treacherous thrive usurping rights which do not belong to them, nor do they deserve them. The reader is left in the hot spot of trying to create a moral of the story for himself.

[Ghilaine Cornelissen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Justice for Cordelia & Edgar man

[Amy Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays so far! Started in the morning and couldn’t put it down. The storm and the heath make for a good December read.

A deep exploration of human suffering counterbalanced by a wealth of sharp-pointed humor.

[Elyssia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why was this lowkey funny (3.5 stars rounded up)

[Marija · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75