Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

Themes/Motifs/Issues/
Preoccupation of King Lear
misogyny
justice/Injustice
familial love
natural vs unnatural
appearance vs reality
- order and disorder
- betrayal
- power
death
old age
rivalry
Animal Imagery
loyalty
duty
suffering /hope
redemption /hope
heroism
sin / transgression
self knowledge
- gender
social status - class and poverty
- legitimate and illegitimate
- madness
disguise / deceit
legitimacy
honest/deception
morality
- parents and children
sight and vision
royalty
- love
- nothing
- justice
plot and subplot

Four common themes in every Shakespeare’s play:
Gibson

-

conflict
Appearance and Reality
Order and Disorder
Change

These 4 common themes work at three different levels in each play:

- the individual level (psychological/personal)

personal conflict, metal disorder, disguising true feelings, change of personality
for example: the storm is a reflection of Lear’s mental state

- The social level (family, society, nation)

families, feuding, war, subterfuge and plotting
for example: the family plotting

- The natural level (cosmic, supernatural or nature)
storms, stars, ghosts, nature
for example: the storm itself

In Lear:
justice
nature
sight and blindness
the tortured and broken body

-

Motifs:
eyesight
nothingness
First Act:
Irrationality
Impulsiveness
Hubris - extreme pride (asking his daughter to prove their love to him)

Act 1, Scene 1:

“darker purpose” 161 Lear admitting something underhand is about to happen, connotes negativity
his darker purpose has not been communicated with his advisors previously - Kent suddenly
objects which he could have done beforehand if Lear had mentioned it to him
“unburdened crawl towards death” issue of Old Age and reason for his abdication
“that future strife may be prevented now” 161 - ironic foreshadowing
love trial might be a symptom of his madness
“dearer than eyesight, space and liberty” 162 - interesting that the first thing she mentions is
eyesight
disorder is opened in the play with the love trial - opens up ideas about honesty/lies
disorder created through people saying what they think they should say rather what they actually
want to say
structure of the lines in 162 - 163 the blank verse/iambic pentameter is very strong until Cordelia
says “nothing my Lord” which interrupts the pentameter
“so young my lord and true” 165 established the theme of honesty vs deception
King Lear keeps interrupting Kent which shows dominance
“Ourself by monthly course with reservation of an hundred knights by you to be sustained, shall
our abode make with you by due turn; only we shall retain the name, and all th’addition to a king:
the sway, revenue execution” - wants to be powerful and retain the name but does not want the
responsibility
Kent uses informal pronouns which is controversial considering Kent is his social
inferior “thou”168

Act 1 scene 2:

“Thou, Nature, art my goddess”
sexual desire is a natural thing compared to Edgar who was concieved in an official capacity
already Edmund sets himself up as a child of nature
“why brand they us with base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?” reputation and alliteration
shows him to be critical of society
“who in the lusty stealth of nature take more comparison and fierce quality than doth within a dull
stale tired bed” comparison of the way two boys were concieved
nature vs natural
“I grow, I prosper” - more natural imagery like a tree, foreshadowing later growth in character
Gloucester enters: many questions, confused
“come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles” foreshadowing of G’s loss of sight later on
Gloucester repitition of ‘villian’ - hyperbolic, shows his anger

repitition of villain - shows G is angry because it is unnatural to him - it goes
against the natural chain of being
“these late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us” solar eclipse and then 3 weeks later
was the gunpowder plot - a plan to disrupt the social order
Edmund is a modern character because he disregards his father’s superstitious nature
critical of people for not taking responsibility for their own actions and blaming it on cosmological
purposes
“disolutions of ancient amities…” image of disorder
Edmund becomes the epitome of the self- interested individualistic
Feel sympathetic towards him

Act 1 scene 4 - LEAR BECOMING A FOOL

Lear language full of imperatives (language of a ruler to command others)
a02 - language crumbles as he progresses through the play, unable to articulate himself in a clear
manner at the end of the play

Fool offers his coxcomb to lear which shows the fact Lear is becoming a fool

also offers it to Kent who has tethered himself to someone who has no power yet
“when thou clovest thy corn i’the middle” - divided his kingdom in half and was left with nothing
which shows that Lear was wrong to divide the kingdom
“e’er since thou mad’st thy rod and putt’st down thine own breeches” -natural and unnatural and
order and disorder - subverting the natural order of things
“when the cart draws the horse” - unnatural
“who is it that can tell me who I am?” “Lear’s shadow”
“pranks” - emotive word which emphasises Lear as a child
Lear starts to use imperatives “saddle my horses; call my train together” shows
Lear trying to regain power
“into her womb convey sterility…that she may feel how sharper than a serpant’s tooth it is to have a
thankless child” - Become rotten through the inside after becoming infertile (visceral)
“old fond eyes, beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out”

Act 2 Scene 1:

- Edgar is a threat to Edmund as the illegitimate son
- play acting as his intention is to get rid of Edgar (line 21)
- on the one hand he hates the ideology of what is natural is used against him but celebrates what
is natural is what created him and gives allegiance to the fact that he is a trickster

- Edmund uses “my father” (line 29) trying to isolate the King away from Edgar - divisive
- command words to dictate the scene - Edmund is both actor and director of the
-

performance of Edgar
fast paced speech line 25 creating a chaotic dialogue
Lears splitting of the kingdom as disordered political institutions
“loyal and natural boy” (line 84)
Edmund now viewed as a natural because of his unnatural deeds

Act 2 scene 2: a pivotal scene that pushes Lear over the
edge

- ‘three suited hundred pound filthy’ - James 1st use to sell knighthoods for £100 so claiming that
he bought his position
‘trunk inheriting’ - poor background
self sacrificing nobody
‘barber monger’ - vain
Kent passage ‘a knave’ is real vs fake
“a tailor made thee” class system
‘tho whoreson zed’ zed = 0, irrelevant sideman
pasting him with the walls of the toilet “I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub
the walls of a jakes with him’
- “sir tis my occupation to be plain…” Old Kent speaking which he has lost because he is in
disguise
- line 106 shift from verse to prose line 106 - saying it how it is

-

-

Oswald still speaking in verse which contrasts Kent
kent goes back into verse line 125 talking about the King
old vs new order Kent being flexible to change
Regan’s three line are a shift in authority - authority subverted because she says her sister is
more important then her father
“fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel” wheel of fortune imagery which is
applicable to Edmund - good and bad luck
Edgar’s soliloquy - second person to have a soliloquy (Bedlam Beggar context!)
Lear reacts to his man being put in the stocks
seeing his fool in the stocks is detrimental to his position and authority - loss of power
use of tricolon device is significant to gain control and reassurance and for
saying that he his a low life
Fool’s response: things are getting worse “fortune that arrant whore, Ne’er turns they key to the
poor”
‘hysterica passio’ believed to have come from the mother’s womb
Lear using the language of command - repeated imperatives “follow me not”
“stay here” to regain a sense of command over the situation
“How chance the King comes with so small a number” - Kent is aware the King is losing power
“all that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among
twenty but can smell him that’s stinking” - Lear’s power is rotting and men are leaving him
use of imperatives “fetch me a better answer”
Lear’s mental disturbance shown; repeated use of questions and then responding
to his own questions
Gloucester uses a very patronising tone “Well, my good lord, I have informed
them so”
Lear still speaking in verse - shows some kind of control
but undermined by the shouting, interruptions, questions
“go tell the Duke… come forth and hear me” - imperatives
“down wantons down” p245 - Lear has left things too late
animal imagery again - “most serpent like” page 248
“Your nimble lightnings, dart your binding flames into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, you
fen-sucked fogs, drawn by the powerful sun to fall and blister!” Lear uses nature as a force of evil
the isolation of the word “thine” makes it very informal
“who put my man i’the stocks” - line 371 repeated on 388 “How come my man i’the
stocks” questioning what happened to Kent but his question goes unanswered
using class as an insult “varlet”
“are not ashamed to look upon this beard” - the idea that Lear is owed respect because he is an
older male - like later on when Gloucester has his beard hair plucked out in his own home this is
very derogatory
repetition of “return to her” in Lear’s speech page 252
Lear is dominant because he has the majority of the lines, Regan being passive
aggressive but line 420 pipes up, line 245 and line 438 “I gave you all” Lear is under attack, tag
team between Lear and Regan
“to wage against the enimity o’th’ air” - nature as an enemy, not very mother nature like
Lear is infanyalised because he is being disciplined
natural/unnatural -“our basest beggars… allow not more what nature needs” feels as if he is
treated in an unnatural manner - unnatural behaviour results in disorder
“women’s weapons, water drops” feminine thing to cry but shows he is vulnerable

Goneril and Regan are ruthlessly in control
...
  Lear has been forced to confront the truth about his
daughters and to face the folly of his decision
...
  Here are a few ideas
for you to think about:
1
...

2
...

3
...


4
...

5
...

6
...
In Shakespeare’s time all the parts were
played by men so that questions such as what is appropriate behaviour for a man and a
woman, a father and a daughter, a king and a subject become emblematic
...
) By reducing Lear’s followers,
Goneril and Regan show their father that he no longer has a role to play: while they adopt
new roles as imperious leaders in their own right
...
It dramatises the predicament of a King who finds his authority reduced rather than
endorsed in a way that contemporary audiences would have found very daring, even risky
...
It dramatises the gap between what appears to be true and what the characters’ real
intentions are
...
What seems like daughterly good advice is thinly disguised
exasperation and defiance
...
It dramatises loss
...
He
thought what he most needed to preserve his sense of himself was his retime of knights but
these have been stripped away from him
...
It breaks taboos
...

11
...

12
...


Act 3 Scene 1:

- “Who’s there, besides foul weather?” - foreshadowing the storm
- comparison of Lear’s mental state to the storm? Turbulent - “One minded like the weather”
- Knight’s speech shows the delusion of the King and highlights his old age “this night wherein the
cub-drawn bear would couch”

- Kent’s speech “Sir, do I know you” shows the political division between Cornwall and Albany
“with mutual cunning, twixt Albany and Cornwall” also a theme of deception and disguise

- “how unnatural and bemadding sorrow the king hath cause to plain” shows the delusion of the
King (affliction is driving him mad)

- “I am a gentleman of blood and breeding” a man of noble birth which shows the confusion
between reality and appearance

- Lear to Kent description foreshadows what is to come in next scene p259
- Lear battling against the elements - defiant about what he tries to do “strives in his little world of
man”

Act 3 Scene 2: STORM SCENE
to what extent is Lear redeemed - exam question

- Lear was morally ignorant/ morally blind previously but now he shows more insight and this
movement has come through suffering

- “all shaking thunder” chaos and disorder
- “Alack, bareheaded” crownless - no power
- line 68/69 redemption “my wits begin to turn
...
How dost my boy” represent a
level of redemption/rehabilitation for Lear by adopting a fatherly role - he is aware of the
suffering of others
- only see clearly when you are blind - only sees the situation when he goes mad (realisation)

- Fool’s prophecy at the end shows a romanticised view of old England - Albion
- prophecy split into two halves - first part refers to the abuses of the age, priest who speak the
right words but wrong actions, brewers watering down beer

- second half is what England could be like - Utopian image
- downfall of England “then shall the realm of Albion come to great confusion:”
- tone of chaos - subversions of what they expect to happen “bawds and whores do churches build”
morality

- James 1st gave hope - unifying Kingdoms but still a lot of dissent (Scottish not happy) even when
things are going well there is still dissent

Act 3 Scene 3

- “I like not this unnatural dealing” dramatic irony because he is speaking to the
unnatural dealer

- “they took me from the use of mine own house; charged me on pain of perpetual pleasure” they
take away his house and threaten him with torture

- “the younger rises when the old doth fall” gerontocratic (the young serve, the old rule)
- discussing the gerontocratic ideal
...
Emphasis on nakedness – stripped identity
...
Logical construction and argument
gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence
good description of the mock trial - absurd
opening scene - Gloucester is unaware that he has lost his position to Edmund, title and his land
gone to E and now he is about to lose his sight
“the God’s reward your kindness” bitter ironic tone - there are no kindly God’s taking care of
people
fool trying to work out what is a madman “he’s a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman
before him”, to Lear a madman is a king
Lear imagining devils “red burning spits come hissing in upon them”
Fool answers his own question line 17
horse’s health is unreliable
“taming of the wolf” links back to him calling Goneril a wolf
Lear brings them to mock trial “it shall be done, I will arraign them straight”, echo of lear’s
earlier language of authority, ironic inversion of the language of authority
“she-foxes” animal imagery
“sapient” wise
“And I’ll go to bed at noon” Fool’s last line
“how light and portable my pain seems now” his pain seems minor in comparison to what he
has just witnessed
“when we see our betters see bearing our woes” philosophical truth to it? if we can see our
superiors suffering does this make us feel better

Act 3 Scene 7 - Gloucester beard plucked

-

repition of the word traitor to describe Gloucester “filthy traitor”
they “bind him” restraining his liberty
“pinion him like a thief” nobility has been inverted
“plucks his beard” paticularly offensive because she is a woman and younger than him which
undermines gerontocracy
biblical echo of Samson and Delilah when she cuts his hair
justice is being served for the wrong reasons
blinding was a punishment for rape
imagery of light “all dark and comfortless”
Oswald misses the stripping of Gloucester title “my lord of Gloucester”
repeatedly calls upon the Gods to help him “by the kind gods”, “o you gods”, “kind gods”

- Shakespear presents a godless universe, cosmos as an ordered structured place - when the new
-

order ends and the old order is established by Edmund
“ingrateful fox”
“I am tied to the stake and I must stand the course” reference to bear baiting
similar to macbeth
boarish - fierce animal, wild pig
“hold your hand my lord” imperative, old order overthrown

Act 4 Scene 1

-

“I have no way and therefore want no eyes”
he acted badly when he had no eyes, example of the absurd
“made me think a man a worm” insignificant and defenceless
“as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods” ABSURDIST, the idea of existence as a greater game,
where is the point to it all - comparison of men to fly, no point to our existence other than
playthings to the higher power
- peter brook - directed king lear at the rsc 1962 and directed a film adaptation, Lear that is
influenced by absurdist play he cut out some of the scenes and lines that reflect a more
redemptive reading of the play

Act 4 scene 2

- “milk livered man” reveals Gonerils attitudes towards her husband, association
with feminine (word choice) milk with maternal instinct

- “I must change names at home”
- “proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman” Link to Eve, misogynistc line -

root of Goneril’s evil is her ambition and lack of respect for normal status quo, her acting more
masculine
“this shows you are above you justicers” Albany argues that their is still a sense of divinely
presence
albany
how far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell” (act 1 scene 4) don’t upset things
hypergany marrying up socially, going for the socially superior option (Goneril and Edmund)
rhetoric about her husband degrades her husbands masculinity

Act 4 scene 4 - Cordelia

-

the first time we see cordelia since act 1 scene 1
she is repeating back what she as heard about her father “as mad as the vexed sea”
she is an a position of command “a century send forth” she commands an army
her motive is love for her father

Act 4 Scene 5

-

sharing of military intelligence
military plot dominatinf/ ever present
Regan has a realisation about Gloucester - sentiment of the country turned against him
“where he arrives he moves all hearts against us” people pity him
they should have just killed him “ignorance to let him live”
“more convenient is he for my hand than for your lady’s” she is right because she is a widow

Act 4 Scene 6

- “If Edgar live, O bless him” dramatic irony
- “Thy life’s a miracle”

Critics:

Heinbert de Billy: ‘certain wonderul predictions 1604’ wrote of “many great eclipses” which w
ould result in the “spoil and ruin of the common society”

17th century/Restoration
•
Many plays are rewritten during the Restoration
...

•
Nahum Tate's 1681 adaptation is famous, leaving Lear and Gloucester alive, and
marrying Cordelia and Edgar
...

•
Samuel Johnson was outraged by death of Cordelia, called it 'a play in which the
wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry'
...

19th century/Romantics
•
New valorisation of suffering during Romantic period
...
Awful, sublime, therefore beautiful
...

•
The play is sad but on an awesome scale, with a terrible beauty; not sad, but big and
profound
...

•
Other Romantics used nature as an allegory for the scope of Lear; claimed that
natural forces are always key to the scale and effect of the play's power
...

20th Century
•
Lear could be seen as depicting some form of ultimately ordered universe
•
A
...

•
Pointed out that references to religion and irreligion are more frequent than in any
other Shakespeare play; it asks the question 'what rules the world'
...

•
Pointed out that it paralleled with Book of Job
...
Suffering purges Lear towards something better
...

1960s
•
Attempts to justify Lear as a parable for redemption were knocked, seen as deluded
and wilful
...
Existentialist view of tragedy, prolematic King
Lear found its moment for the first time in the 60s
...


•
•

"In King Lear the stage is empty throughout: there is nothing, except the cruel earth,
where man goes on his journey from the cradle to the grave"
...


1984
•
Dollimore was anxious to keep the play in its renaissance culture, emphasised the
material aspects of the play: it is about power, property and inheritance
...

•
Extended critique of attempts to mystify and abstract the play, to blur its material
realities
...
 Tragedy is misogynistic
because the protagonists are always male; it claims to talk of a permanent,
universal, unchanging condition but this condition is never female
...
Family positions are 'fixed', any move against them is a destructive move
against the rightful order
...

•
Lear is an exploration of male anxiety, a historical account of the way feelings are
apparently feminine
...

When women behave like men] it topples the man goes on his journey from cradle to
•
grave natural order and plunges the world into chaos
•
•
Political criticism
•
Margot Heinemann, 'Demystifying the Mystery of State'
...

•

...

•

...

•
"The central focus of the play is on the horror of a society divided between extremes
of rich and poor, greed and starvation, the powerful and the powerless, robes and
rags, and the impossibility of real justice and security in such a world
...
e
...
 
•
Hazlitt - "the play is too great for the stage"
•
Wilson Knight even said that Lear is a Christ-like figure
•
Tolstoy launched a withering attack on King Lear because of his naturalistic
approach (concerned with character and judging them as real people)
...
" 
Critics debate about whether it is a Pagan or Christian play
...
G Hunter - "harshly
pagan" B
...
" 
Feminist crtic Kathleen McLucksie argues that the female characters are either
sanctified or demonised
...
Lear as
a child and narcissist
...
Nurture over Nature? (Lear has
made Goneril + Regan the way they are by neglection and their treatment of him is
ultimately his doing
...
1916 d
...
”

A RE-READING OF EDMUND IN SHAKESPEARE'S "KING LEAR"
Far from being a villain, the self-proclaimed devotee of Nature functions, amid the collapse of
social order that forms the backdrop of the play, as the emissary of Nature, whose very existence
indicts the order that rejects him
...

Germaine Greer (b
...
”

•

The opening is “hieratic, unmotivated, preposterous
...
”

•

Lear “casts out his daughter in unfatherly fashion and then laments the ingratitude of his
daughters
...
1943)
•

“Goneril’s love for Lear is indeed beyond value, since it doesn’t exist
...
”

•

“Language, like much else in the play, has a problem in pitching itself at the elusive point
between too much and too little
...
”
"Fault" in Shakespeare by John H
...
36, No
...
Kennedy

Ohio State University 




“Do You Smell a Fault?”:

Detecting and Deodorizing King Lear’s Distinctly Feminine Odor





In the very opening scene of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, the Dukes Gloucester and
Kent discuss the conception and birth of Gloucester’s younger and illegitimate son,
Edmund
...
I have so often blushed
to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it
...


Gloucester: Sir, this young fellow’s mother could, whereupon she grew roundwombed and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for
her bed
...
(1
...
7-17)




In this opening passage, the sexualized and olfactory connotations of the term “fault”
become obvious; beyond the more obvious meanings of ‘defect’ or ‘failing,’ “fault” is early
modern slang for the female genitals (Astington 1985: 330-331)
...
Even as Gloucester displaces his own “fault” in his son’s conception, he
implicates his son as shameful and asks Kent if he can still smell Edmund’s mother’s body
(her “fault”), the sexual taint on his own flesh, on his son’s flesh, or even in the air
...
[1]

The effluvia are gendered in this play as distinctly feminine, especially the noisome and
noxious odors of the polluted or polluting female body
...

Danielle Nagler in her very strong overview of the philosophies and controversies
concerning smell in early modern England notes “King Lear contains more references to
smell, its synonyms and cognates than any other of Shakespeare’s plays,” but “whilst there
has been much debate over the relative importance of sight versus hearing in
Shakespeare’s work, discussion of olfaction has been almost nonexistent” (Nagler 55, 43)
...
The smell of the early modern
body, especially the female body, is hard to denote in modern terms for many reasons:
smell is ephemeral and difficult to identify and describe, and although the sense of smell is,
of course, ubiquitous, it is dismissed at the same time, due to the problematic theories,

philosophies, and controversies concerning smell from antiquity into the early Jacobean
period (Palmer 62-63)
...
As St
...
”

Critics about Productions
• Trevor Nunn (Lear as Ian McKellen) 2008 - Lear's oncoming dotage is announced
at the beginning when he relies on note cards to help him through his speech about
dividing the kingdom
...
 
•
Peter Brook (Lear as Paul Scofield) 1971
...
There is visual contrast between the freezing blizzard outside and the
roaring fires inside the castle) 
•
Michael Elliott (Lear as Laurence Olivier) 1983 - Lear enters his court like an
exhausted Father Christmas with long white straggly hair and beard
...
However, he shows his mastery over
a natural environment, implying his divine right to rule
...
- Communist perspective Lear conveys power and his growing
madness and despair
...
 
Critics about Lear:
• Tyron questions whether: ‘Lear’s speech indicates, the madness of the world, rather than
of the individual, is the greatest evil’
• Tryon argued that sins and vices like ambition, flattery, lust, gluttony and avarice were
‘the main business and the daily imployment of many’, and accounted them ‘far greater,
and more mischievous Phrensies, than for a man to pull of his Garments, and sit naked,
and spend time in weaving of Sraws or Building with Chalk upon the Walls innumerable
Cities, whereof he fancies himself to be Emperor’ - an image that vividly recalls Lear in
his madness clinging to the remnants of his kingship

Context:

deeply superstitious era
where you were born affects your character
Cordelia and the fool never appear on stage at the same time
Bedlam Beggar: ACT 2 SCENE 2
• contemporary idea - makes it a timeless piece interesting for social structure
• Men who pretended to be mad in order to beg were called ‘Tom o’ Bedlam’ or ‘Abraham
men’ (from the Abraham ward in Bethlem Hospital or ‘Bedlam’)

• while characters dissembling madness feature, so does the idea that madmen lack
hypocrisy and speak the truth - ironic
• When Lear rants about worldly hypocrisy whereby ‘robes and furred gowns’ of men of
authority hide ‘great vices’, Edgar remarks, ‘O matter and impertinency mixed,/ Reason
in madness’
• Lear’s speech indicates, the madness of the world, rather than of the individual, is the
greatest evil - Tyron
• lot of people pretended to beg - draconic laws meant no begging - only allowed to beg if
you were ‘demonstrously unfortunate’
Theatre of the Absurd Act 4
the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose
...

the meaningless of man’s existence, men were unemployed after the war
commercialisation
the holocaust, minority groups that suffered

the actions that Lear takes leads to a meaningless and pessimistic life

Influences:

William Allen - Mayor of London who was treated very poorly by daughters after dividing wealth
among them
...


Women and Patriarchy:

Lear shows assertive, powerful and impressive female characters
...

Women's rights restricted legally, socially and economically
Husbands/ fathers had absolute authority over women

Key Quotes:
• “unburdened crawl towards death”
relinquishing the crown=undutiful, sees the crown as an unwanted burden
highlights the transgression from power to weakness
expecting that he his ageing
• “why brand they us with base”
rejecting his upbringing as bastard - trying to empty the meaning of ‘base’, fighting for his status
base= unvirtuous, undignified, rude
brand = branding of sheep, cattle, his entire life
• “who is it that can tell me who I am”
fragmented identity, loss of Cordelia=loss of himself, first hint of madness
• “Lear’s shadow”
brutal honesty - he has become a reduction of himself
Fool answering Lear’s question or Fool is Lear’s shadow
• “I did her wrong”

a moment of insight and clarity but it falls into nothingness
profound moment of insight but he is ignored
Lear’s obsession is “filial ingratitude”
• “O let me not be mad”
old and foolish - wishes for formality and order - the restoration of old self and status
what does he mean by mad? - anger? no identity? unable to control his passions? Alzeihmers
• “how come my man i’the stocks”
he is ignored
he asks the same question 3 times
• “Fortune, good night: smile once more; turn thy wheel”
Kent says this as he sat in the stocks - he is Lear’s servant
shows Lear’s loss of power
• “filial ingratitude”
Lear’s obsession with his daughters - incestuous
• “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes: I stumbled when I saw”
some form of hope and redemption of justice
• “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport”
said by Gloucester
used to believe in the old order
everything is insignificant - we are wrong to chase reason
• “Come, lets to prison; we two alone will sing like birds i’the cage”
• “The wheel is come full circle”
• “Yet Edmund was beloved”



---