Introduction to King Lear

Written records suggest that Shakespeare had completed King Lear by May 1606. It is the
dynamic centerpiece of three great tragedies he wrote between the years 1604 and 1606: Othello,
King Lear, and Macbeth. Lear was first performed at court for King James I on December 26,
1606. King Lear is a wrenching, profound, and very poetic tragedy, set in the pre-Norman, quasimythical period of British history. Although the play is 400 years old, it makes us think about the
realities of life today. An elderly parent gives up his title and lands and becomes dependent on
his adult children. This parent, however, is a king, one around whom the affairs of a whole nation
revolve. As both father and king, Lear reveals his selfish desire to command and control to a
degree that is destructive, even as he relinquishes his kingdom to his two elder daughters. Rather
than prematurely abdicating his office, Lear might have chosen to serve out his days as king and
allow the laws of inheritance to take over after his death. His error in judgment brings disorder
and eventually chaos to his family and his kingdom. Shakespeare, in fact, goes beyond the
domestic and national spheres of human responsibility in King Lear to issues of cosmic
significance, raising such questions as What role do the gods play in human affairs? To tell a
story familiar to most theatergoers in his day, Shakespeare employs a cast of intense, strong
characters drawn from many varieties of human nature. These men and women are engaged in
conflict with each other from beginning to end. As in a fairy tale, the virtuous characters,
motivated by honesty and true love, are easy to distinguish from their evil antagonists, who are
driven by hate, greed, and desire. As the evil characters indulge their appetites for deceit,
treachery, and cruelty, they become like devouring beasts.
Among the timeless themes Shakespeare asks his audience to consider in King Lear are family
duty and discord; the struggle between good and evil; natural bonds of love versus unnatural
behavior; order and chaos; wisdom, folly, and madness; sight and blindness; anger; ingratitude;
despair; human suffering; and divine justice and injustice. Such themes unfold clearly through
character and incident. Shakespeare does not weave them into a parable. Instead he allows us to
consider each theme from the multiple perspectives of the characters. By the culmination of the
plot, civilization itself seems perilously close to destruction because men and women have given
free rein to their evil passions. Yet some characters remain untouched by the evil around them,
and others are transformed in a positive sense.
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Character

Lear King of Britain

Goneril Lear's eldest daughter

Regan Lear's second daughter

Cordelia Lear's youngest daughter

Duke of Albany Goneril's husband

Duke of Cornwall Regan's husband

Earl of Gloucester

Earl of Kent later disguised as Caius

Edgar Gloucester's son

Edmund Gloucester's illegitimate son

Oswald Goneril's steward

Fool Lear's fool

King of France suitor and later husband to Cordelia

Duke of Burgundy suitor to Cordelia

Curan courtier

Old man tenant of Gloucester

Officer - employed by Edmund

Gentleman attends Cordelia

Servants to Cornwall

Knights of Lear's Train

Officers, Messengers, Soldiers, and Attendants

Religion in King Lear

King Lear is set in the pre-Roman period of English history, a quasi-mythical era suited to a story
of strongly distinguished good and evil characters not unlike those in fairy tales. Medieval and
Renaissance historians regarded Lear as a real king who reigned in Britain from c. 850 to 800
B.C. Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing a detailed account of Lear in the 12th century, identifies
him as the tenth British king following Brut. He characterizes him as a person with an angry
temperament who had to learn the error of his ways the hard way. Although Lear died some 50
years before the founding of Rome, Shakespeares characters allude to the Roman deities Jupiter,
Jove, and Juno. Such anachronisms were common in the 17th century, even in historical writing.
In King Lear Shakespeare includes 40 allusions to pagan gods and forces of nature. These
passages are crucial in Shakespeares creating a non-Christian world to be inhabited by preChristian characters. This world reflects the composite character of religion in ancient Britain.
Four of these characters articulate four different views of the universe. Gloucester sees it as
immoral, its gods as malevolent forces who bear ill will toward human beings. The villain
Edmund regards the universe as amoral, devoid of any spiritual significance. Kent ascribes to
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determinismthe belief that every persons lot in life is predetermined regardless of his actions
and the influence of the stars. It is Edgar, Gloucesters loyal son, whom Shakespeare has voice
the view of a moral universe and a personal, benevolent deity. His view ultimately supplants the
other three views. By the end of the play Gloucester has embraced Edgars view. He petitions the
evergentle gods to take away his breath rather than allowing him to give in to the temptation to
die before they so will. King Lear seems to invite us to think about the role the gods play in
human lives, especially in human suffering. After the cruel blinding of Gloucester, it is two
servants who raise the question of justice in the universe. They observe that if Cornwall comes to
good, everyone will have license for wickedness; that if Goneril lives to a ripe old age, Women
will all turn monsters. In a later scene Albany remarks that unless heaven sends down some
powers to tame the vile creatures Goneril and Regan, humanity will devour itself. The playwright
sheds light on the issue of whether the universe is just by bringing about the untimely deaths of
Cornwall, Goneril, Regan, and Edmund. The heavens, in effect, do avenge their wrongdoing.
Gloucester and Lear also pay for their sin even though they both develop positively in the course
of the drama and die ripe. It is, of course, more difficult to regard the universe as just in the
death of Cordelia. She has been a victim, first, of her fathers folly and last, of Edmunds
villainy. But the play seems to suggest that she dies fulfilled, ministering to her father; that death
is a fact of life in a fallen world where villainy thrives; and that Cordelia is ready for death.
Shakespeare wrote for an audience that thought in terms of the Christian religion and, in the
words of George Walton Williams, brought that attitude with them to the Globe. Williams
further argues that every prayer addressed directly to the gods in King Lear is answeredand in
a way that audience members who thought in Christian terms would consider Providential, or
in keeping with Gods will for His people. Thus the picture Shakespeare gives us of the gods is
not one of arbitrary or malign powers but of supernatural beings who consistently answer prayer
positively.
King Lear As Tragedy
In King Lear Shakespeare dramatizes the destructive consequences of a single choice and action
by the main character. The rash, impetuous Lear creates his own destiny when he gives away his
land, his title, and his loving youngest daughter. By the end of the first scene Lears abdication
and division of the kingdom have already begun to have disastrous consequences. As the drama
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unfolds, Lears family and his realm are ruined as a result of his irresponsible course of action.
The action of Act I, scene i begins with an old European plot device called the love-test, in which
Lear displays a vain, selfish form of parental love when he attempts to coerce his three daughters
into making elaborate, ceremonial professions of their love for him. He motivates them to be
lavish, saying that their words will determine the amount of real estate he gives them
individually. Although Lear is old, he is not wise to associate genuine love with enforced social
rituals or to encourage his children to compare their love for him. He also fails to recognize that
professions of love can disguise evil intent. Although Goneril and Regan comply and compete to
Lears gratification, Cordelia is unable to heave [her] heart into [her] mouth. She states that her
love for her father and king is natural and honorable, but for the purpose of gaining a larger share
of his kingdom than her sisters, she can say Nothing. Lear responds, in effect, If you say
nothing, you will get nothing. Then using angry, violent language, he completely casts off the
virtuous Cordelia. Further, he confers his crown on the husbands of Goneril and ReganAlbany
and Cornwalland banishes the loyal Kent, who says in defense of Cordelia, To plainness
honors bound, / When majesty falls to folly. In taking Lears penniless daughter for his wife,
the King of France introduces the theme of selfless love. It will recur throughout the play, finally
becoming the force that transforms Lear and sets things right in his kingdom. Before the first act
ends, the consequences of Lears initial action begin to come down on his head when Goneril
turns him out of her house. Immediately a sense of isolation and loss of identity set in on the old
king, who asks his Fool, Who is it that can tell me who I am? The Fool predicts that Regan,
like Goneril, will prove an ingrate who betrays her father-benefactor. He sums up the cause of
Lears growing dilemma with, Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
Before Act III begins, Goneril and Regan have stripped Lear of all his power. They have no
natural love for their father, nor do they show him any gratitude or courtesy. Turned out of house
by both, Lear finds himself on a stormy heath. This natural setting, subject to the disruption of
natures elements, symbolizes the personal and political disorder Lears love-test and abdication
have caused. Lear becomes a self-exile on the heath, where he sheds all the robes and rituals of
society that have concealed from him the truth about life. In this condition he temporarily loses
his mind. But he ultimately finds patience, sympathy, and regard for those less fortunate
creatures of whose existence he had heretofore been unaware. In a mock trial of Goneril and
Regan, staged with the Fool and Edgar-as-Tom, Lear demonstrates that he has developed insight
5

into his own family tragedy as well. His progress in growth from folly toward wisdom is clear at
this point. In the final two acts Lear and Cordelia are reunited, and Lears mind is restored.
Cordelias first address to him begins, O my dear father! and her second, How does my royal
lord? How fares your Majesty? The resolution to the plot thus picks up momentum. It will
finally encompass the healing of Lear and Cordelia as a family unit and look forward to the
political healing and restoration of order in England. Lear acknowledges to Cordelia his errors
and seeks her forgiveness. She humbly agrees to forget and forgive. In the plays last act she
ministers to her fathers needs, motivated by selfless love. At the end the wicked characters
destroy each other, Lears position as king is restored to him, and enough good characters
survive to verify Edgars closing statement that the grisly events of Lears last days will not
come around again to haunt the young who have survived them.
Synopsis
The Earl of Gloucester and the Earl of Kent observe that King Lear has awarded equal shares of
his realm to the Duke of Cornwall and the Duke of Albany. Gloucester then introduces his
illegitimate son Edmund to the Earl of Kent. King Lear, who is elderly and wants to retire from
power, decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and declares he'll 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's 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 is finally the turn of his
youngest daughter, Cordelia, at first she refuses to say anything ("Nothing, my Lord") and then
declares there is nothing to compare her love to, nor words to properly express it; she speaks
honestly but bluntly, which infuriates him. In his anger he disinherits Cordelia and divides her
share between Regan and Goneril. Kent objects to this unfair treatment. Enraged by Kent's
protests, Lear banishes him from the country. Lear summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King
of France, who have both proposed marriage to Cordelia. Learning that Cordelia has been
disinherited, the Duke of Burgundywithdraws his suit, but the King of France is impressed by
her honesty and marries her anyway.

Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands, the Dukes of
Albany and Cornwall respectively. He reserves to himself a retinue of one hundred knights, to be
supported by his daughters. Goneril and Regan speak privately, revealing that their declarations
of love were fake, and they view Lear as an old and foolish man.
Edmund resents his illegitimate status, and plots to dispose of his legitimate older brother Edgar.
He tricks their father Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the
estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise under the name of Caius, and Lear hires him as a
servant. Lear and Caius quarrel with Oswald, Goneril's steward. Lear discovers that now that
Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to behave better and reduces his
retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune.
Edmund learns from Curan, 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, Caius meets Oswald again at Gloucester's home, quarrels with
him again, and 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 him. Gloucester
protests against Lear's mistreatment. With Lear's retinue of a hundred knights dissolved, the only
companions he has left are his Fool and Caius. Wandering on the heathafter the storm, Lear
meets Edgar, in the guise of a madman named Tom o' Bedlam. Edgar babbles madly while Lear
denounces his daughters. Kent leads them all to shelter.
Edmund betrays Gloucester to Cornwall, Regan and Goneril. He reveals evidence that his father
knows of an impending French invasion designed to reinstate Lear to the throne; and in fact a
French army has landed in Britain. Once Edmund leaves with Goneril to warn Albany about the
invasion, Gloucester is arrested, and Regan and Cornwall gouge out Gloucester's eyes. As he is
7

doing so, a servant is overcome with rage by what he is witnessing and attacks Cornwall,
mortally wounding him. Regan kills the servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him;
then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise, meets his blinded
father on the heath. Gloucester, not recognising him, begs Tom 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 a conscience he is disgusted by the sisters'
treatment of Lear, and the mutilation of Gloucester, and denounces his wife. Goneril sends
Edmund back to Regan; receiving news of Cornwall's death, she fears her newly widowed sister
may steal Edmund and sends him a letter through Oswald. By 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 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 is corrupt and runs off.

Sources
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/Llr, though in
actuality the names are not etymologically related. Shakespeare's most important source is
probably 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, that 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.
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Other possible sources are 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); Arcadia (15801590), by Sir Philip Sidney, from which Shakespeare took the
main outline of the Gloucester subplot; Montaigne's Essays, which were translated into English
by John Florio in 1603; An Historical Description of Iland of Britaine, byWilliam
Harrison; Remaines Concerning Britaine, by William Camden (1606); Albion's England,
by William Warner, (1589); and A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, by Samuel
Harsnett (1603), which provided some of the language used by Edgar while he feigns
madness. King Lear is also a literary variant of a common fairy tale, Love Like Salt, AarneThompson 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, with a blindPaphlagonian king and his
two sons, Leonatus and Plexitrus.
Changes from Source Material
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 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.
Date and text
Although an exact date of composition cannot be given, many academic editors of the play
date King Lear between 1603 and 1606. The latest it could have been written is 1606, as
the Stationers' Register notes a performance 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). In his Arden edition, R.A. Foakes argues for a date of
16056, because one of Shakespeare's sources, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, was not
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published until 1605; close correspondences between that play and Shakespeare's suggest that he
may

have

been

working

from

text

(rather

than

from

recollections

of

performance). Conversely, Frank Kermode, in 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 "1604-5 seems the best compromise". Dr. Naseeb Shaheen dates the
play c1605-6 per line 1.2.103 "These late eclipses in the sun and moon" which relates to the
lunar eclipse of September 27, 1605 and the solar eclipse of October 2, 1605.
The modern text of King Lear derives from three sources: two quartos, published in 1608 (Q 1)
and 1619 (Q2) respectively, and the version in the First Folio of 1623 (F 1). The differences
between these versions are significant. Q1 contains 285 lines not in F1; F1 contains around 100
lines not in Q1. Also, at least a thousand individual words are changed between the two texts,
each text has a completely different style of punctuation, and about half the verse lines in the
F1 are either printed as prose or differently divided in the Q1. The early editors, beginning
with Alexander Pope, simply conflated the two texts, creating the modern version that has
remained nearly universal for centuries. The conflated version is born from the presumption that
Shakespeare wrote only one original manuscript, now unfortunately lost, and that the Quarto and
Folio versions are distortions of that original.
As early as 1931, Madeleine Doran suggested that the two texts had basically different
provenances, 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 andGary Taylor. Their thesis, while controversial, has gained significant
acceptance. It posits, essentially, that the Quarto derives from something close to
Shakespeare's foul papers, and the Folio is drawn in some way from a promptbook, prepared for
production by Shakespeare's company or someone else. In short, Q 1 is "authorial"; F1 is
"theatrical". In criticism, the rise of "revision criticism" has been part of the pronounced trend
away from mid-century formalism.
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
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conflated version; the New Arden edition edited by R.A. Foakes is the only recent edition to
offer the traditional conflated text. 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 the accents of
despair. Nuttall speculates that Edgar, like Shakespeare himself, usurps the power of
manipulating the audience by deceiving poor Gloucester.

Analysis and Criticism

Historicist interpretations
John F. Danby, in his Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature A Study of King Lear (1949), argues
that Lear dramatizes, among other things, 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
the philosophy of Bacon and Hooker, and that of the Edmund party (Edmund, Cornwall, Goneril,
Regan), akin to the views later formulated by Hobbes. Along with the two views of
Nature, Learcontains two views of Reason, brought out in Gloucester and Edmund's speeches on
astrology (1.2). The rationality of 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 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 is regenerated and saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in the
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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, 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
Psychoanalytic interpretations
Since

there

are

no

literal

mothers

in King

Lear,

Copplia

Kahn provides

a psychoanalytic interpretation of the "maternal subtext" found in the play. According to Kahn,
Lear in his old age regresses to an infantile disposition, and now seeks for a love that is normally
satisfied by a mothering woman. Her characterisation of Lear is that of a child being mothered,
but without real mothers, his children become the daughter-mother figures. Lear's contest of love
serves as the binding agreement; his daughters will get their inheritance provided they care for
him, especially Cordelia, on whose "kind nursery" he will greatly depend. Her refusal to love
him as more than a father is often interpreted as a resistance from 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 essentially a childlike rage from being deprived of maternal care. Even when
Lear and Cordelia are captured together, this madness persists as Lear envisions a nursery in
prison, where Cordelia's sole existence is for him. However, it is Cordelia's death that ultimately
ends his fantasy of a daughter-mother, as the play ends with only male characters left.
Christianity
A 1793 painting of King Lear and Cordelia by Benjamin West.
Critics are divided on the question of whether or not King Lear represents an affirmation of
Christian doctrine. 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
12

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

Bibilography
Harbage, Alfred. King Lear: an Introduction. Shakespeare Tragedies 113-122.
Hawkes, Terence. William Shakespeare King Lear. Plymouth, England: Northcote House,1995.
Heilman, Robert B. Magic in the Web. Lexington, KE: University of Kentucky Press, 1966.
Holahan,

Michael.

Look,

her

Lips:

Softness

of

Voice,

Characterin KingLear. Shakespeare Quarterly 48.4 (Winter 1997): 406-431.

13

Construction

of

Holahan compares Lear to Cordelia in the last scene and suggests that he takes on some of her
characteristics, notably her softness of voice.
Hughes, John. The Politics of Forgiveness: A Theological Exploration of King Lear. Modern
Theology 17.3 (July 2001): 261-287.
Kennedy, Joy. Shakespeares King Lear. The Explicator 60.2 (Winter 2002): 60-65.
Knight, G. Wilson. King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque. Shakespeare Tragedies 123128.
Kott, Jan. King Lear or Endgame. Modern. 360-384.
Knowles, Richard. Cordelias Return. Shakespeare Quarterly 50.1 (Spring 1999): 33-50.

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