Jonathan O'Neill’s Reviews > King Lear > Status Update
Jonathan O'Neill
is 40% done
LEAR
Who put my man i'the stocks?
'Kent in the stocks becomes emblematic of 'Virtue locked out', of a 'situation timeless and recurrent, catching in a mirror the world's way with virtue when separated from power'.
Love this scene. Not one that screams intensity off the page but in performance is dazzling! Lear desperately clinging to power that he has already relinquished and meeting no reverence.
— Nov 05, 2026 08:06PM
Who put my man i'the stocks?
'Kent in the stocks becomes emblematic of 'Virtue locked out', of a 'situation timeless and recurrent, catching in a mirror the world's way with virtue when separated from power'.
Love this scene. Not one that screams intensity off the page but in performance is dazzling! Lear desperately clinging to power that he has already relinquished and meeting no reverence.
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Jonathan’s Previous Updates
Jonathan O'Neill
is 43% done
REGAN
...So will you wish on me [these curses] when the rash mood is on.
LEAR
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse...
7 Pages Later...
LEAR (to Regan and Goneril)
... No, you unnatural hags,
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!
To be fair, she deserved it!
— Nov 06, 2026 04:22AM
...So will you wish on me [these curses] when the rash mood is on.
LEAR
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse...
7 Pages Later...
LEAR (to Regan and Goneril)
... No, you unnatural hags,
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!
To be fair, she deserved it!
Jonathan O'Neill
is 17% done
FOOL
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.”
KENT
This is nothing, fool.
FOOL
Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer, you gave me nothing for't
— Nov 01, 2026 03:01AM
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.”
KENT
This is nothing, fool.
FOOL
Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer, you gave me nothing for't
Jonathan O'Neill
is 13% done
Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'Bedlam. — O, these eclipses do portend these divisions. Fa, sol, la, mi.
Edmund sings, as if unaware of Edgar's approach, in order the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th notes of the Elizabethan scale (the Old Solfege syllables), a discordant motto, appropriate to his character...[cont.]
— Oct 30, 2026 04:16AM
Edmund sings, as if unaware of Edgar's approach, in order the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th notes of the Elizabethan scale (the Old Solfege syllables), a discordant motto, appropriate to his character...[cont.]
Jonathan O'Neill
is 12% done
EDMUND
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; [cont.]
— Oct 30, 2026 12:15AM
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; [cont.]
Jonathan O'Neill
is 2% done
Tell me, my daughters...
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.
Me displaying faux authority at the dinner table, deciding who will get the largest slice of apple crumble for dessert.
— Oct 22, 2026 09:10PM
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.
Me displaying faux authority at the dinner table, deciding who will get the largest slice of apple crumble for dessert.
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Nov 05, 2026 09:00PM
Yes, the scene is subtle and devastating. Lear is unable to grasp that his power has become merely ceremonial, and Kent is punished for his virtue. The fact that moral integrity cannot stand against political authority makes the whole scene really bleak. A very nihilistic moment in Shakespeare, no poetic justice to be found.
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Shakespeare can instill his characters/plays with ghastly nihilism at times can't he, V. Thinking also of Macbeth's soliloquay after the death of Lady M or Hamlet's frequent descent into nihilistic procrastination.A good Lear actor in this scene, to me, should appear to be holding it together when addressing Regan (as it's sort of the last daughter he has left as he sees it) but have the idea of kent in the stocks and the message that sends, as well as the thought of, and eventually the appearance of, Goneril, constantly nagging at him and sending him into fits of madness.
Followed swiftly by the sisters' cruel diminishing of Lear's knights. Cruel, despite the fact that 100 knights is indeed quite ridiculous :D What need one?, says Regan... What a piece of work she is.
Jonathan wrote: "Shakespeare can instill his characters/plays with ghastly nihilism at times can't he, V. Thinking also of Macbeth's soliloquay after the death of Lady M or Hamlet's frequent descent into nihilistic..."A piece of work indeed, that demon!
Oh yes, there is so much nihilism in his work. I'm sure some scholar must have explored it in greater depth. A good Bloom essay should do the trick :)
I've never watched any of his plays performed on stage, so, to me, they've always existed as words on a page. I really need to experience one sometime.