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King Lear
Lear, in Shakespeare's play King Lear, gradually discovers that he has been mistaken about his daughters. The first stage occurs after Lear has divided his kingdom between his two daughters, when...
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King Lear
The significance of old age and death in King Lear represent inevitable lessons that must be learned. While King Lear is foolish in many regards, he speaks words in the opening of the drama that...
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King Lear
In William Shakespeare's play King Lear, both Cordelia and Edgar are offspring who are undervalued by their parents. In both cases, this undervaluing is caused by two factors. The first is the...
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King Lear
I think that the hypothesis about King Lear representing a "manual on how not to parent" is a valid one. King Lear represents some of the worst examples in parenting. While Shakespeare has...
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Hamlet
Perhaps the first question to ask here relates to the original states of the two characters at the opening of their respective tragedies. It is clear in King Lear that the monarch has at least...
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King Lear
William Shakespeare was so prolific, so knowledgeable, so insightful, and so in command of the English language that virtually any element or facet of the human condition is addressed somewhere in...
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King Lear
King Lear is one of the most tragic of Shakespeare's characters. Kent is one of his most trusted adviser's at first. There are a couple of similarities between the two men. King Lear valued loyalty...
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King Lear
As the drama opens, Kent is not very similar to Lear. He serves Lear, but does so with an honesty and openness that Lear has shown unable to acknowledge. For example in the opening scene, Kent...
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King Lear
Kent and The Fool actually share quite a bit in common. Both are loyal to King Lear and both are also loyal to Cordelia, albeit for different reasons. Kent logically sees the superficiality of...
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King Lear
The Fool is essential to the narrative of the drama. One of the most important reasons is because he is the only individual who can openly criticize King Lear. Since he is licensed, the Fool is...
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King Lear
This is an extremely interesting question to ponder. It is worth noting that in fact the play was re-written by Nahum Tate in 1681 to include a happy ending, where Lear is restored to his throne...
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King Lear
Nature plays a prominent role in William Shakespeare’s King Lear, both metaphorically and as a plot element propelling action. The metaphorical use of nature is strongly implied throughout King...
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King Lear
There are some obvious parallels between the main plot of the play featuring Lear and the subplot featuring the Duke of Gloucester. Both begin in a high station, but fall into ignominy and despair,...
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Richard II
[Please understand that the question was revised because Enotes editors do not compose essays; we are happy to advise students, however.] With Richard II, the question of the divine right of kings...
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King Lear
Creating a thesis regarding the concepts of family and blindness for William Shakespeare's King Lear requires one to understand both the literal and metaphorical meanings behind the numerous...
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King Lear
William Shakespere's King Lear contains numerous quotes which speak to both blindness and family. While some of the quotes' meanings are rather straightforward, others necessitate deeper scrutiny....
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King Lear
Even though these two plays are very different, with King Lear obviously being a tragedy and A Midsummer Night's Dream clearly falling into the category of a comedy, the two characters of Lear and...
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King Lear
King Lear is not unlike most men when they grow old. They start thinking about death and yearning for a peaceful retirement, while is like a prelude to death. They would like to have a few years of...
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King Lear
Like so much with King Lear, this is far from an easy answer. Much of it is going to depend on your own personal view of what is presented. The idea of evil destroying itself is representative of...
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King Lear
Shakespeare must have understood that the only way to make a character seem like a real human being was to give him (or her) contrasting traits. Even his Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is...
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King Lear
In the last scene of the play, Goneril confesses to poisoning her sister Regan and then commits suicide herself. The crux of the conflict begins in Act IV, when a "love" affair emerges between...
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King Lear
In the first act of the play, Lear plainly sees himself as a good king reigning over a country that is prosperous and at peace with its neighbors and using the marriage of his daughter Cordelia to...
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King Lear
From the standpoint of his role as the father of three daughters, Lear's division of his kingdom into three equal parts seems fair. Yet, as noted in Q&A #1, this division is actually a recipe...
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King Lear
Shakesperean tragedies are timeless and popular classics because their themes are universal - they speak to us all about themes that afffect everyone right down through the ages because they deal...
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King Lear
One reason as to why King Lear could be seen as the best tragedy is because its ending is unclear in terms of its tragic implications. On one hand, the ending could be seen as profoundly moral...
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King Lear
The second scene of Art 1 of King Lear opens with a soliloquy by Edmund in which he is telling himself that he is an excellent specimen of mankind. The most pertinent lines are the following: Why...
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King Lear
Female agency is highly significant in the drama. Essentially, the opening scene that sets the stage for what will happen consists of a man who is impotent in action, waiting, and paralyzed in...
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King Lear
Shakespeare, speaking through King Lear, is using poetic license here. It is common knowledge that every baby cries as soon as it emerges from its mother's womb. If it doesn't cry of its own...
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King Lear
One symbolic importance of the setting/location in The Taming of the Shrew is that the residences of nobility--Kate's father's castle and Petruchio's castle--give opening for the theme of...
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King Lear
The two views of nature are of nature as good, and nature as evil. Edmund views nature in a good light. Edmund opens in a soliloquy praising nature as a "Goddess" and seeking fortune for...
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The Catcher in the Rye
One point of similarity between these two texts, which works on the level of plot and theme, is a walk through a proverbial wilderness wherein the protagonist suffers, discovers truths about...
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King Lear
This play has been called the bleakest of all Shakespeare's tragedies, and it is certain that the play presents one of the most uncompromising and unequivocal of messages about the human condition....
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King Lear
As I am unable to find text that matches your line numeration, my best supposition is that you mean the last two speeches of the excerpts I've posted above; the others put the last two in context....
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King Lear
In Shakespeare's time, women didn't have the same legal rights to inheritance as men. Usually, after a father died, a daughter's husband would receive the inheritance and not the daughter. King...
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King Lear
There are two principle themes in Lear's angry raging in this scene, and that is the injustice of the gods and Lear's own anger at his daughters and what they have done to him. What is key to...
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King Lear
In these soliloquies, which occur early on in the play, Shakespeare gives the audience their first insight into the shadowy character of Edmund. He also begins to explore several significant...
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King Lear
When Lear first speaks, he seems like a logical and generous king. He wants to divide his kingdom three ways and give the portions to each of his daughters. He realizes he is getting old and feels...
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King Lear
One of the most famous quotes from this play directly concerns the theme of reversals, and the way that there is apparently no rhyme nor reason to the way in which some characters achieve greatness...
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King Lear
A tragic hero is a protagonist that has a fatal (tragic) flaw; usually, the audience finds sympathy with the hero. At the beginning of the play, Lear seems like a fine ruler and in his generosity,...
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King Lear
I think that King Lear's relationship with Goneril initially begins with the same emptiness and hollowness that their bond comes to represent as the drama unfolds. Goneril shares with Regan that...
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King Lear
Edgar in Act IV scene 1 has suffered a tremendous reversal in fortune. He has gone from being the favoured son of a member of the English aristocracy to finding himself expelled and exiled, and...
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King Lear
Cosmic irony when attached to this play is a term that refers to the way that the gods or the higher powers seem at best indifferent and at worst profoundly antagonistic to what goes on in the...
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King Lear
The original question had to be edited down. I think that Lear realizes the true nature of his daughters too late. This is what creates the tragic element to his characterization. In the drama,...
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Oedipus Rex
The original question had to be edited down. I would say that the moments of reversal in both dramas would be at the points where there is a complete change in both characters. Aristotle defines...
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King Lear
The climax of this play definitely comes in Act V scene 3, which is when Lear and Cordelia have been captured by Edmund and they are brought on stage. What makes this scene the climax is that the...
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King Lear
To a great extent, Cordelia understood her father's condition as the natural consequence of the first scene in the first act. I think that Cordelia understands clearly that she recognized how her...
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King Lear
King Lear essentially dies of a broken heart. In the final scene of the drama, King Lear is peering over his daughter's dead body. He brings it in and stares at Cordelia's face. He wishes some...
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King Lear
It is necessary to analyze the text of this very complex section in order to answer this question. We have Lear, cast out, blinded and wandering like Oedipus Rex, with Kent (disguised as Caius) and...
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King Lear
This quote comes from Act III scene 4, when Lear, Kent, the Fool and Edgar are on the Heath and Edgar is discovered in the hovel where they hope to take shelter. What is important to realise is...
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King Lear
Having disowned his youngest daughter Cordelia, Lear divides his entire kingdom between the other daughters, Goneril and Regan, with the specification that he can live with them alternately along...
