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89-485: The Tragedy of King Lear , often shortened to King Lear , is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare . It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain . King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between his daughters Goneril and Regan , who pay homage to gain favour, feigning love. The King's third daughter, Cordelia , is offered a third of his kingdom also, but refuses to be insincere in her praise and affection. She instead offers

178-517: A basis for "the primary enactment of psychic breakdown in English literary history". The play begins with Lear's "near-fairytale narcissism". Given the absence of legitimate mothers in King Lear , Coppélia Kahn provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of the "maternal subtext" found in the play. According to Kahn, Lear's old age forces him to regress into an infantile disposition, and he now seeks

267-466: A blind Paphlagonian king and his two sons, Leonatus and Plexitrus. Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his sons, the principal innovation Shakespeare made to this story was the death of Cordelia and Lear at the end; in the account by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cordelia restores Lear to the throne, and succeeds him as ruler after his death. During the 17th century, Shakespeare's tragic ending

356-612: A clash between King and Parliament over who had the right to decide who sat in the House of Commons. The MP Thomas Wentworth , the son of another MP Peter Wentworth —often imprisoned under Elizabeth for raising the question of the succession in the Commons—was most forceful in protesting James's attempts to reduce the powers of the House of Commons, saying the King could not just declare the results of an election invalid if he disliked who had won

445-547: A conscience—he is disgusted by the sisters' treatment of Lear and Gloucester—and denounces his wife. Goneril sends Edmund back to Regan. After receiving news of Cornwall's death, she fears her newly widowed sister may steal Edmund and sends him a letter through Oswald. Now alone with Lear, Kent leads him to the French army, which is commanded by Cordelia. But Lear is half-mad and terribly embarrassed by his earlier follies. At Regan's instigation, Albany joins his forces with hers against

534-434: A courtier, that there is likely to be war between Albany and Cornwall and that Regan and Cornwall are to arrive at Gloucester's house that evening. Taking advantage of the arrival of the duke and Regan, Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Gloucester is completely taken in. He disinherits Edgar and proclaims him an outlaw. Bearing Lear's message to Regan, Kent meets Oswald again at Gloucester's home, quarrels with him again and

623-482: A duel. No one knows who he is. Edgar wounds Edmund fatally, though Edmund does not die immediately. Albany confronts Goneril with the letter which was intended to be his death warrant; she flees in shame and rage. Edgar reveals himself and reports that Gloucester died offstage from the shock and joy of learning that Edgar is alive, after Edgar revealed himself to his father. Offstage, Goneril, her plans thwarted, commits suicide. The dying Edmund decides, though he admits it

712-409: A father has been interpreted by some as a resistance to incest, but Kahn also inserts the image of a rejecting mother. The situation is now a reversal of parent-child roles, in which Lear's madness is a childlike rage due to his deprivation of filial/maternal care. Even when Lear and Cordelia are captured together, his madness persists as Lear envisions a nursery in prison, where Cordelia's sole existence

801-465: A few days of each other—the lunar eclipse of 27 September 1605 and the solar eclipse of 12 October 1605. This remarkable pair of events stirred up much discussion among astrologers. Edmund's line "A prediction I read this other day..." apparently refers to the published prognostications of the astrologers, which followed after the eclipses. This suggests that those lines in Act I were written sometime after both

890-607: A forged letter, making him think that Edgar plans to usurp the estate. The Earl of Kent returns from exile in disguise (calling himself Caius), and Lear hires him as a servant. At Albany and Goneril's house, Lear and Kent quarrel with Oswald, Goneril's steward. Lear discovers that now that Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to reduce the number of his disorderly retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool reproaches Lear with his foolishness in giving everything to Regan and Goneril and predicts that Regan will treat him no better. Edmund learns from Curan,

979-413: A high-status central character, but they end happily like Shakespearean comedies . Almost three centuries after Shakespeare's death, the scholar F. S. Boas also coined a fifth category, the " problem play ," for plays that do not fit neatly into a single classification because of their subject matter, setting, or ending. Scholars continue to disagree on how to categorize some Shakespearean plays. Below

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1068-456: A hundred knights dissolved, the only companions he has left are his Fool and Kent. Wandering on the heath after the storm, Edgar, in the guise of a madman named Tom o' Bedlam , meets Lear. Edgar babbles madly while Lear denounces his daughters. Kent leads them all to shelter. Kent tells a gentleman that a French army has landed in Britain, aiming to reinstate Lear to the throne. He then sends

1157-448: A love that is traditionally satisfied by a mothering woman, but in the absence of a real mother, his daughters become the mother figures. Lear's contest of love between Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia serves as the binding agreement; his daughters will get their inheritance provided that they care for him, especially Cordelia, on whose "kind nursery" he will greatly depend. Cordelia's refusal to dedicate herself to him and love him as more than

1246-416: A retinue of 100 knights, to be supported by his daughters. After Cordelia bids farewell to them and leaves with the King of France, Goneril and Regan speak privately, revealing that their declarations of love were false and that they view Lear as a foolish old man. Gloucester's son Edmund resents his illegitimate status and plots to dispose of his legitimate older half-brother, Edgar. He tricks his father with

1335-418: A servant who objects to the torture of the Earl of Gloucester, while Albany is one of the few surviving main characters. Isaac Asimov surmised that this alteration was due to the title Duke of Albany being held in 1606 by Prince Charles , the younger son of Shakespeare's benefactor King James . However, this explanation is faulty, because James' older son, Prince Henry , held the title Duke of Cornwall at

1424-519: A single genre. In Elizabethan England there was no copyright law or protections against plagiarism , so characters, plots, and even whole phrases of poetry were considered common property. The majority of Shakespeare's tragedies are based on historical figures, with the exception of Measure for Measure and Othello , which are based on narrative fictions by Giraldi Cintio . The historical basis for Shakespeare's Roman plays comes from The Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans by Plutarch , whereas

1513-415: A thousand individual words are changed between the two texts, each text has different styles of punctuation, and about half the verse lines in the F 1 are either printed as prose or differently divided in the Q 1 . Early editors, beginning with Alexander Pope , conflated the two texts, creating the modern version that has been commonly used since. The conflated version originated with the assumptions that

1602-513: A variety of theories including Doran's idea that the Quarto may have been printed from Shakespeare's foul papers , and that the Folio may have been printed from a promptbook prepared for a production. The New Cambridge Shakespeare has published separate editions of Q and F; the most recent Pelican Shakespeare edition contains both the 1608 Quarto and the 1623 Folio text as well as a conflated version;

1691-551: A whip of God." Some see this in Cordelia and what she symbolised—that the material body are mere husks that would eventually be discarded so that the fruit can be reached. Among those who argue that Lear is redeemed in the Christian sense through suffering are A.C. Bradley and John Reibetanz, who has written: "through his sufferings, Lear has won an enlightened soul". Other critics who find no evidence of redemption and emphasise

1780-486: Is against his own character, to try to save Lear and Cordelia, but his confession comes too late. Soon after, Albany sends men to countermand Edmund's orders. Lear enters bearing Cordelia's corpse in his arms, having survived by killing the executioner. Kent appears and Lear now recognises him. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but as with Gloucester, the trials Lear has been through have finally overwhelmed him, and he dies. Albany then asks Kent and Edgar to take charge of

1869-428: Is corrupt and runs off. Oswald appears, still looking for Edmund. On Regan's orders, he tries to kill Gloucester but is killed by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds Goneril's letter, in which she encourages Edmund to kill her husband and take her as his wife. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness quickly passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight

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1958-400: Is equally likely to be seen in parents who have never adjusted to their children having grown up. Critics are divided on the question of whether King Lear represents an affirmation of a particular Christian doctrine. Those who think it does posit different arguments, which include the significance of Lear's self-divestment. For some critics, this reflects the Christian concepts of the fall of

2047-667: Is favoured where climatic conditions are typically hard and dry, particularly in summer, and soils acidic, of low fertility, and often sandy and very free-draining; a mire may occur where drainage is poor, but usually is only small in extent. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs, 20 centimetres (8 in) to 2 metres (7 feet) tall. Heath vegetation can be extremely plant-species rich, and heathlands of Australia are home to some 3,700 endemic or typical species in addition to numerous less restricted species. The fynbos heathlands of South Africa are second only to tropical rainforests in plant biodiversity with over 7,000 species. In marked contrast,

2136-486: Is finally the turn of his youngest and favourite daughter, Cordelia, at first she refuses to say anything ("Nothing, my Lord") and then declares there is nothing to compare her love to, no words to express it properly; she says honestly but bluntly that she loves him according to her bond, no more and no less, and will reserve half of her love for her future husband. Infuriated, Lear disinherits Cordelia and divides her share between her elder sisters. The Earl of Gloucester and

2225-494: Is for him. It is only with Cordelia's death that his fantasy of a daughter-mother ultimately diminishes, as King Lear concludes with only male characters living. Sigmund Freud asserted that Cordelia symbolises Death. Therefore, when the play begins with Lear rejecting his daughter, it can be interpreted as him rejecting death; Lear is unwilling to face the finitude of his being. The play's poignant ending scene, wherein Lear carries

2314-426: Is free to reinvent himself every minute, yet Iago has strong passions, however negative. Edmund has no passions whatsoever; he has never loved anyone, and he never will. In that respect, he is Shakespeare's most original character." The tragedy of Lear's lack of understanding of the consequences of his demands and actions is often observed to be like that of a spoiled child, but it has also been noted that his behaviour

2403-487: Is loyal to the realm of which the king is head, not to Lear himself, and he tells Lear to behave better for the good of the realm. By contrast, Lear makes an argument similar to James that as king, he holds absolute power and could disregard the views of his subjects if they displease him whenever he liked. In the play, the characters like the Fool, Kent and Cordelia, whose loyalties are institutional, seeing their first loyalty to

2492-517: Is put in the stocks by Regan and her husband Cornwall. When Lear arrives, he objects to the mistreatment of his messenger, but Regan is as dismissive of her father as Goneril was. Lear is enraged but impotent. Goneril arrives and supports Regan's argument against him. Lear yields completely to his rage. He rushes out into a storm to rant against his ungrateful daughters, accompanied by the mocking Fool. Kent later follows to protect Lear. Gloucester protests against Lear's mistreatment. With Lear's retinue of

2581-527: Is regenerated and saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in the king's rejected daughter. Cordelia, in the allegorical scheme, is threefold: a person; an ethical principle (love); and a community. Nevertheless, Shakespeare's understanding of the New Man is so extensive as to amount almost to sympathy. Edmund is the last great expression in Shakespeare of that side of Renaissance individualism—the energy,

2670-483: Is the New Man, a member of an age of competition, suspicion, glory, in contrast with the older society which has come down from the Middle Ages, with its belief in co-operation, reasonable decency, and respect for the whole as greater than the part. King Lear is thus an allegory. The older society, that of the medieval vision, with its doting king, falls into error, and is threatened by the new Machiavellianism ; it

2759-589: Is the list of Shakespeare's plays listed as tragedies in the First Folio , along with the date range in which each play is believed to have been written. The English Renaissance , when Shakespeare was writing, was fueled by a renewed interest in Roman and Greek classics and neighboring renaissance literature written years earlier in Italy, France, and Spain. Shakespeare wrote the majority of his tragedies under

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2848-544: Is the silver-studded blue butterfly, Plebejus argus . Anthropogenic heath habitats are a cultural landscape that can be found worldwide in locations as diverse as northern and western Europe , the Americas , Australia , New Zealand , Madagascar and New Guinea . These heaths were originally made or expanded by centuries of human clearance of the natural forest and woodland vegetation, by grazing and burning. In some cases this clearance went so far that parts of

2937-518: The Riverside Shakespeare , considers the publication of Leir to have been a response to performances of Shakespeare's already-written play; noting a sonnet by William Strachey that may have verbal resemblances with Lear , Kermode concludes that "1604–05 seems the best compromise". A line in the play that regards "These late eclipses in the sun and moon" appears to refer to a phenomenon of two eclipses that occurred over London within

3026-632: The tree pipit . In Australia the heathland avian fauna is dominated by nectar-feeding birds such as honey-eaters and lorikeets , although numerous other birds from emus to eagles are also common in Australian heathlands. The birds of the South African fynbos include sunbirds , warblers and siskins. Heathlands are also an excellent habitat for insects including ants , moths, butterflies and wasps; many species are restricted entirely to it. One such example of an organism restricted to heathland

3115-434: The "pseudo-Aristotelian" concept of the tragic flaw does not apply to Shakespeare's tragic figures. ) Revenge tragedy was another increasingly popular genre in this age; Shakespeare's Hamlet is one example of this. Plays of this age were also decidedly secular, in contrast to the religious morality plays which, by this time, were outlawed by Elizabeth I . One marked difference between English renaissance tragedies and

3204-806: The 1604 elections to the House of Commons, Sir John Fortescue , the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was defeated by a member of the Buckinghamshire gentry, Sir Francis Goodwin . Displeased with the result, James declared the result of the Buckinghhamshire election invalid, and swore in Fortescue as the MP for Buckinghamshire while the House of Commons insisted on swearing in Goodwin, leading to

3293-582: The Duke of Burgundy withdraws his suit, but the King of France is impressed by her honesty and marries her nonetheless. The King of France is shocked by Lear's decision because up until this time Lear has only praised and favoured Cordelia ("... she whom even but now was your best object, / The argument of your praise, balm of your age, ..."). Meanwhile, Gloucester has introduced his illegitimate son Edmund to Kent. Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands. He reserves to himself

3382-465: The Duke of Cornwall (Henninus), and the Gallic/French leader (Aganippus). Shakespeare refers to these characters by their titles only, and also changes the nature of Albany from a villain to a hero, by reassigning Albany's wicked deeds to Cornwall. Maglanus and Henninus are killed in the final battle, but are survived by their sons Margan and Cunedag. In Shakespeare's version, Cornwall is killed by

3471-495: The Earl of Kent observe that, by dividing his realm between Goneril and Regan, Lear has awarded his realm in equal shares to the peerages of the Duke of Albany (Goneril's husband) and the Duke of Cornwall (Regan's husband). Kent objects to Lear's unfair treatment of Cordelia. Enraged by Kent's protests, Lear banishes him from the country. Lear then summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, who have both proposed marriage to Cordelia. Learning that Cordelia has been disinherited,

3560-477: The Edmund party is one with which a modern audience more readily identifies. But the Edmund party carries bold rationalism to such extremes that it becomes madness: a madness-in-reason, the ironic counterpart of Lear's "reason in madness" (IV.6.190) and the Fool's wisdom-in-folly. This betrayal of reason lies behind the play's later emphasis on feeling . The two Natures and the two Reasons imply two societies. Edmund

3649-511: The French invaders but not harm Lear or Cordelia. The two sisters lust for Edmund, who has made promises to both. He considers the dilemma and plots the deaths of Albany, Lear, and Cordelia. Edgar gives Goneril's letter to Albany. The armies meet in battle, the Britons defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Edmund sends Lear and Cordelia off with secret joint orders from him (representing Regan and her forces) and Goneril (representing

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3738-406: The French. Goneril's suspicions about Regan's motives are confirmed and returned, as Regan rightly guesses the meaning of her letter and declares to Oswald that she is a more appropriate match for Edmund. Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to a cliff, then changes his voice and tells Gloucester he has miraculously survived a great fall. Lear appears, by now, completely mad. He rants that the whole world

3827-470: The King's "dethronement" might have led him to seek control that he lost after he divided his land. In his study of the character-portrayal of Edmund, Harold Bloom refers to him as "Shakespeare's most original character". "As Hazlitt pointed out", writes Bloom, "Edmund does not share in the hypocrisy of Goneril and Regan: his Machiavellianism is absolutely pure, and lacks an Oedipal motive. Freud's vision of family romances simply does not apply to Edmund. Iago

3916-510: The New Arden edition edited by R. A. Foakes offers a conflated text that indicates those passages that are found only in Q or F. Both Anthony Nuttall of Oxford University and Harold Bloom of Yale University have endorsed the view of Shakespeare having revised the tragedy at least once during his lifetime. As Bloom indicates: "At the close of Shakespeare's revised King Lear , a reluctant Edgar becomes King of Britain, accepting his destiny but in

4005-665: The accents of despair. Nuttall speculates that Edgar, like Shakespeare himself, usurps the power of manipulating the audience by deceiving poor Gloucester." What we know of Shakespeare's wide reading and powers of assimilation seems to show that he made use of all kinds of material, absorbing contradictory viewpoints, positive and negative, religious and secular, as if to ensure that King Lear would offer no single controlling perspective, but be open to, indeed demand, multiple interpretations. R. A. Foakes John F. Danby, in his Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature – A Study of King Lear (1949), argues that Lear dramatizes, among other things,

4094-556: The anonymous play King Leir (published in 1605); The Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by John Higgins; The Malcontent (1604), by John Marston ; The London Prodigal (1605); Montaigne 's Essays , which were translated into English by John Florio in 1603; A Description of Elizabethan England (1577), by William Harrison ; Remains Concerning Britain (1606), by William Camden ; Albion's England (1589), by William Warner ; and A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures (1603), by Samuel Harsnett , which provided some of

4183-633: The arras in the Queen's chamber. The story of Lear appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regium Britanniae c.  1135 , and then in John Higgins ' poem The Mirror for Magistrates in 1574, as well as appearing in Holinshed's Chronicles in 1587. Some events that happen in Shakespeare's King Lear were inspired by various episodes of Philip Sidney 's Arcadia from 1590, while

4272-419: The body of his beloved Cordelia, was of great importance to Freud. In this scene, Cordelia forces the realization of his finitude, or as Freud put it, she causes him to "make friends with the necessity of dying". Alternatively, an analysis based on Adlerian theory suggests that the King's contest among his daughters in Act I has more to do with his control over the unmarried Cordelia. This theory indicates that

4361-498: The classics that inspired them was the use and popularity of violence and murder on stage. Select exemplary (non-Shakespearean) Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies: Heath Heaths are widespread worldwide but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for

4450-433: The current meanings of "Nature". The words "nature", "natural", and "unnatural" occur over forty times in the play, reflecting a debate in Shakespeare's time about what nature really was like; this debate pervades the play and finds symbolic expression in Lear's changing attitude to Thunder. There are two strongly contrasting views of human nature in the play: that of the Lear party (Lear, Gloucester, Albany, Kent), exemplifying

4539-569: The dating of the play is the relationship of King Lear to the play titled The True Chronicle History of the Life and Death of King Leir and his Three Daughters , which was published for the first time after its entry in the Stationers' Register of 8 May 1605. This play had a significant effect on Shakespeare, and his close study of it suggests that he was using a printed copy, which suggests a composition date of 1605–06. Conversely, Frank Kermode, in

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4628-411: The death of Cordelia. Harold Bloom argues that King Lear transcends a morality system entirely, and thus is one of the major triumphs of the play. Bloom writes that in the play there is, "... no theology, no metaphysics, no ethics". King Lear has been performed by esteemed actors since the 17th century, when men played all the roles. From the 20th century, a number of women have played male roles in

4717-482: The differences in the versions do not indicate any re-writing by the author; that Shakespeare wrote only one original manuscript, which is now lost; and that the Quarto and Folio versions contain various distortions of that lost original. In 2021, Duncan Salkeld endorsed this view, suggesting that Q1 was typeset by a reader dictating to the compositor, leading to many slips caused by mishearing. Other editors, such as Nuttall and Bloom, have suggested Shakespeare himself maybe

4806-428: The discontinuation of traditional management techniques, such as grazing and burning, that mediated the landscapes. Some are also threatened by urban sprawl . Anthropogenic heathlands are maintained artificially by a combination of grazing and periodic burning (known as swailing), or (rarely) mowing; if not so maintained, they are rapidly recolonised by forest or woodland. The recolonising tree species will depend on what

4895-445: The division of Britain by Lear was an inversion of the unification of Britain by James, who believed his policies would result in a well governed and prosperous unified realm being passed on to his heir. Hadfield argued that the play was meant as a warning to James as in the play a monarch loses everything by giving in to his sycophantic courtiers who only seek to use him while neglecting those who truly loved him. Hadfield also argued that

4984-476: The duties of the monarchy, decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and declares he will offer the largest share to the one who loves him most. The eldest, Goneril, speaks first, declaring her love for her father in fulsome terms. Moved by her flattery, Lear proceeds to grant to Goneril her share as soon as she has finished her declaration, before Regan and Cordelia have a chance to speak. He then awards to Regan her share as soon as she has spoken. When it

5073-568: The eclipses and the published comments. The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, one published in 1608 (Q 1 ) and the other in 1619 (Q 2 ), and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F 1 ). Q1 has "many errors and muddles". Q2 was based on Q1. It introduced corrections and new errors. Q2 also informed the Folio text. Quarto and Folio texts differ significantly. Q 1 contains 285 lines not in F 1 ; F 1 contains around 100 lines not in Q 1 . Also, at least

5162-495: The emancipation, the courage—which has made a positive contribution to the heritage of the West. "He embodies something vital which a final synthesis must reaffirm. But he makes an absolute claim which Shakespeare will not support. It is right for man to feel, as Edmund does, that society exists for man, not man for society. It is not right to assert the kind of man Edmund would erect to this supremacy." The play offers an alternative to

5251-517: The feudal-Machiavellian polarity, an alternative foreshadowed in France's speech (I.1.245–256), in Lear and Gloucester's prayers (III.4. 28–36; IV.1.61–66), and in the figure of Cordelia. Until the decent society is achieved, we are meant to take as role-model (though qualified by Shakespearean ironies) Edgar, "the machiavel of goodness", endurance, courage and "ripeness". The play also contains references to disputes between King James I and Parliament. In

5340-477: The forces of her estranged husband, Albany) for the execution of Cordelia. The victorious British leaders meet, and the recently widowed Regan now declares she will marry Edmund. But Albany exposes the intrigues of Edmund and Goneril and proclaims Edmund a traitor. Regan falls ill, having been poisoned by Goneril, and is escorted offstage, where she dies. Edmund defies Albany, who calls for a trial by combat . Edgar appears masked and in armour and challenges Edmund to

5429-491: The gentleman to give Cordelia a message while he looks for King Lear on the heath. Meanwhile, Edmund learns that Gloucester is aware of France's impending invasion and betrays his father to Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril. Once Edmund leaves with Goneril to warn Albany about the invasion, Gloucester is arrested, and Regan and Cornwall gouge out Gloucester's eyes . As they do this, a servant is overcome with horror and comes to Gloucester's defence, mortally wounding Cornwall. Regan kills

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5518-765: The heathland have given way to open spots of pure sand and sand dunes , with a local climate that, even in Europe, can rise to temperatures of 50 °C (122 °F) in summer, drying the sand spot bordering the heathland and further raising its vulnerability for wildfires. Referring to heathland in England, Oliver Rackham says, "Heaths are clearly the product of human activities and need to be managed as heathland; if neglected they turn into woodland". The conservation value of these human-made heaths has become much more appreciated due to their historical cultural value as habitats; consequently, most heathlands are protected. However they are also threatened by tree incursion because of

5607-488: The horrors of the final act include John Holloway and Marvin Rosenberg. William R. Elton stresses the pre-Christian setting of the play, writing that, "Lear fulfills the criteria for pagan behavior in life," falling "into total blasphemy at the moment of his irredeemable loss". This is related to the way some sources cite that at the end of the narrative, King Lear raged against heaven before eventually dying in despair with

5696-415: The kingdoms of the island of Britain into one, and a major issue of his reign was the attempt to forge a common British identity. James had given his sons Henry and Charles the titles of Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Albany, the same titles borne by the men married to Regan and Goneril. The play begins with Lear ruling all of Britain and ends with him destroying his realm; the critic Andrew Hadfield argued that

5785-476: The language used by Edgar while he feigns madness. King Lear is also a literary variant of a common folk tale , " Love Like Salt ", Aarne–Thompson type 923, in which a father rejects his youngest daughter for a statement of her love that does not please him. The source of the subplot involving Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund is a tale in Philip Sidney 's Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580–90), with

5874-619: The maintenance of the heathlands. Even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa . Extensive heath communities can also be found in the Texas chaparral , New Caledonia , central Chile , and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea . In addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica . Heathland

5963-412: The mighty and the inevitable loss of worldly possessions. By 1569, sermons delivered at court such as those at Windsor declared how "rich men are rich dust, wise men wise dust... From him that weareth purple, and beareth the crown down to him that is clad with meanest apparel, there is nothing but garboil, and ruffle, and hoisting, and lingering wrath, and fear of death and death itself, and hunger, and many

6052-472: The nonsensical musings of Edgar's "poor Tom" heavily reference Samuel Harsnett's 1603 book, A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures . Tragedies from these eras traced their philosophical essence back to the Senecan tragedy , grounded in nobles who have a tragic flaw or commit a grave error ( hamartia ) which leads to their reversal of fortune ( peripeteia ). (However, some critics have argued that

6141-464: The philosophy of Bacon and Hooker , and that of the Edmund party (Edmund, Cornwall, Goneril, Regan), akin to the views later formulated by Hobbes , though the latter had not yet begun his philosophy career when Lear was first performed. Along with the two views of Nature, the play contains two views of Reason, brought out in Gloucester and Edmund's speeches on astrology (1.2). The rationality of

6230-443: The play with a riotous, debauched court of sycophantic courtiers. Kent criticises Oswald as a man unworthy of office who has only been promoted because of his sycophancy, telling Lear that he should be loyal to those who are willing to tell him the truth, a statement that many in England wished that James would heed. Furthermore, James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England upon the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, thereby uniting

6319-461: The play; most commonly the Fool, who has been played (among others) by Judy Davis , Emma Thompson and Robyn Nevin . Lear himself has been played by Marianne Hoppe in 1990, by Janet Wright in 1995, by Kathryn Hunter in 1996–97, and by Glenda Jackson in 2016 and 2019. Shakespearean tragedy Shakespearean tragedy is the designation given to most tragedies written by playwright William Shakespeare . Many of his history plays share

6408-624: The qualifiers of a Shakespearean tragedy, but because they are based on real figures throughout the history of England , they were classified as "histories" in the First Folio . The Roman tragedies— Julius Caesar , Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus —are also based on historical figures , but because their sources were foreign and ancient, they are almost always classified as tragedies rather than histories. Shakespeare's romances ( tragicomic plays ) were written late in his career and published originally as either tragedy or comedy . They share some elements of tragedy , insofar as they feature

6497-421: The realm, are portrayed more favorably than those like Regan and Goneril, who insist they are only loyal to the king, seeing their loyalties as personal. Likewise, James was notorious for his riotous, debauched lifestyle and his preference for sycophantic courtiers who were forever singing his praises out of the hope for advancement, aspects of his court that closely resemble the court of King Lear, who starts out in

6586-672: The respect of a daughter and is disowned by Lear who seeks flattery. Regan and Goneril subsequently break promises to host Lear and his entourage, so he opts to become homeless and destitute, and goes insane. The French King married to Cordelia then invades Britain to restore order and Lear's rule. In a subplot, Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester, betrays his brother and father. Tragically, Lear, Cordelia and several other main characters die. The plot and subplot overlap and intertwine with political power plays, personal ambition, and assumed supernatural interventions and pagan beliefs. The first known performance of any version of Shakespeare's play

6675-557: The rule of James I , and their darker contents may reflect the general mood of the country following the death of Elizabeth I , as well as James's theatrical preferences. Shakespeare, as was customary for other playwrights in his day, used history, other plays, and non-dramatic literature as sources for his plays. Additionally, tragedy was a new and exciting theatrical phenomenon in the late 16th century, rather than an established and self-evident dramatic form; because of this, Shakespeare and his contemporaries' plays did not necessary fit into

6764-486: The same time. There is no direct evidence to indicate when King Lear was written or first performed. It is thought to have been composed sometime between 1603 and 1606. A Stationers' Register entry notes a performance before James I on 26 December 1606. The 1603 date originates from words in Edgar's speeches which may derive from Samuel Harsnett 's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603). A significant issue in

6853-432: The seat as he was insisting that he could. The character of Kent resembles Peter Wentworth in the way which is tactless and blunt in advising Lear, but his point is valid that Lear should be more careful with his friends and advisers. Just as the House of Commons had argued to James that their loyalty was to the constitution of England, not to the King personally, Kent insists his loyalty is institutional, not personal, as he

6942-443: The second edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed , published in 1587. Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth , which was written in the 12th century. Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , published 1590, also contains a character named Cordelia, who also dies from hanging, as in King Lear . Other possible sources are

7031-549: The servant and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him. Then, as she did to her father in Act II, she sends Gloucester out to wander the heath. Edgar, in his madman's disguise, meets his blinded father on the heath. Gloucester, sightless and failing to recognise Edgar's voice, begs him to lead him to a cliff at Dover so that he may jump to his death. Goneril discovers that she finds Edmund more attractive than her honest husband Albany, whom she regards as cowardly. Albany has developed

7120-499: The source of Shakespeare's Britain-based plays and Hamlet (based on the Danish Prince Amleth) derive from Holinshed's Chronicles . Furthermore, the French author Belleforest published The Hystorie of Hamblet, Prince of Denmarke in 1582, which includes specifics from how the prince pretended madness, to how the prince stabbed and killed the King's counsellor who was eavesdropping on Hamlet and his mother behind

7209-423: The steward, the confidant of Goneril, was created as a similar expository device. Shakespeare's Lear and other characters make oaths to Jupiter , Juno , and Apollo . While the presence of Roman religion in Britain is technically an anachronism, nothing was known about any religion that existed in Britain at the time of Lear's alleged life. Holinshed identifies the personal names of the Duke of Albany (Maglanus),

7298-427: The story is set when Joash was King of Judah ( c.  800 BC ), while Shakespeare avoids dating the setting, only suggesting that it is sometime in the pre-Christian era (with numerous anachronisms, such as Anglo-Saxon names and titles like Duke and Earl). The characters of Earl "Caius" of Kent and The Fool were created wholly by Shakespeare in order to engage in character-driven conversations with Lear. Oswald

7387-457: The throne. Kent declines, explaining that his master is calling him on a journey and he must follow. Shakespeare's play is based on various accounts of the semi-legendary Brythonic figure Leir of Britain , whose name has been linked by some scholars to the Brythonic god Lir / Llŷr , though in actuality the names are not etymologically related. Shakespeare's most important source is probably

7476-414: The tiny pockets of heathland in Europe are extremely depauperate with a flora consisting primarily of heather ( Calluna vulgaris ), heath ( Erica species) and gorse ( Ulex species). The bird fauna of heathlands are usually cosmopolitan species of the region. In the depauperate heathlands of Europe, bird species tend to be more characteristic of the community, and include Montagu's harrier and

7565-437: The title role and the supporting roles have been coveted by accomplished actors, and the play has been widely adapted. In his A Defence of Poetry (1821), Percy Bysshe Shelley called King Lear "the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world", and the play is regularly cited as one of the greatest works of literature ever written. Notable casts King Lear of Britain, elderly and wanting to retire from

7654-447: The world of Lear's court is "childish" with Lear presenting himself as the father of the nation and requiring all of his subjects, not just his children, to address him in paternal terms, which infantises most of the people around him, which pointedly references James's statement in his 1598 book The Trew Law of Free Monarchies that the king is the "father of the nation", for whom all of his subjects are his children. King Lear provides

7743-434: Was involved in reworking passages in the play to accommodate performances and other textual requirements of the play. As early as 1931, Madeleine Doran suggested that the two texts had independent histories, and that these differences between them were critically interesting. This argument, however, was not widely discussed until the late 1970s, when it was revived, principally by Michael Warren and Gary Taylor , who discuss

7832-401: Was much criticised and alternative versions were written by Nahum Tate , in which the leading characters survived and Edgar and Cordelia were married (despite the fact that Cordelia was previously betrothed to the King of France). As Harold Bloom states: "Tate's version held the stage for almost 150 years, until Edmund Kean reinstated the play's tragic ending in 1823." Holinshed states that

7921-572: Was on Saint Stephen's Day in 1606. Modern editors derive their texts from three extant publications: the 1608 quarto (Q1), the 1619 quarto (Q2, unofficial and based on Q1), and the 1623 First Folio . The quarto versions differ significantly from the folio version. The play was often revised after the English Restoration for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original play has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. Both

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