Shakespearean
Drama
King Lear Knowledge Notes
Chain
of
Being

The Elizabethan World Picture
Elizabethans viewed their world
order according to what is called
The Chain of Being, much of
which worked its way into the
literature of the time, including
Shakespeare's plays.
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Everything on earth and in the
universe is linked in a particular
order - everything has its place.
The most heavenly beings are
placed at the top of the chain,
seated at the foot of God.
The basest creatures are at the
bottom, furthest away from God.
The best way of envisioning this
is probably to think of a ladder
What is a
Tragedy?
 TheTragedy
protagonists
(main
characters) must be admira
but flawed characters
 =HUMAN
The audience must be able to
understand and sympathize
the characters
THEMES TO LOOK OUT FOR
IN KING LEAR

Kingship; Crown
 Inheritance; Division;
 Justice;
 Parents and Children
 Ingratitude of children
 Love: self-love and false love
 Legitimacy
 Loyalty; Hospitality
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Eyes and Sight
Madness and Insanity
Civil Disorder
Nothing;
The poor/poverty
The Elements
Nature and Nurture
Identity
Cruelty and Violence
Fortune
Warmth and Cold
LANGUAGE
1.
2.
3.
Treat language like special effects
Treat language like a voiceover in a film .
Characters overflow with words
Special
effects
· representative of the old regime: weak, elderly, inert, credulous
Good guys
Bad Guys
EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess. To thy
law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why “bastard”? Wherefore “base”?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With “base,” with “baseness,” “bastardy,” “base,”
“base”—
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed
Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate.—Fine word, “legitimate”!—
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th' legitimate. I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
TRAGIC HERO
Qualities of a Tragic Hero:
 Possesses
high importance or rank
 Exhibits extraordinary talents
 Displays a tragic flaw—an error in
judgment or defect in character—that
leads to downfall
 Faces downfall with courage and dignity
King Lear
Lear’s basic flaw at the beginning of the play is that he values appearances
above reality.
 He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesn’t want
to fulfill a king’s obligations of governing for the good of his subjects.
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In relying on the test of his daughters' love, Lear demonstrates that he
lacks common sense or the ability to detect his older daughters' falseness.
 Lear cannot recognize Cordelia's honesty amid the flattery, which he craves.
Similarly, his test of his daughters demonstrates that he values a flattering
public display of love over real love. He doesn’t ask “which of you doth love
us most,” but rather, “which of you shall we say doth love us most?”
(I.i.49).
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Hubris is a Greek term referring to excessive and destructive pride. In the
ancient Greek world, hubris often resulted in the death of the tragic, heroic
figure. This is clearly the case with Lear, who allows his excessive pride to
destroy his family.
What does it mean to see the true nature of people’s hearts?
 How do you see a liar?

Profile of Gloucester
Represents the old
 Who are his sons?
regime: weak, elderly,
inert, credulous
 Dramatic role · to
head up the minor
plot · his fate mirrors  What do you know
Lear's
about them?
 Historically ·
represents mindless
continuity, · end of an
era inertia,
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Qualities of a
Tragic Hero:
 Possesses high
importance or rank
 Displays a tragic
flaw, an error in
judgment or defect
in character—that
leads to downfall
 HE DOESN’T SEE
THE TRUE
NATURE OF HIS
DAUGHTERS
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TRAGIC HERO
Knowledge Check
 question

 What
is Lear’s
tragic flaw or
error in
judgment?
Do people know
of his plan?
 How does he go
about it?
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TRAGIC HERO
Profiles of Lear 'bad' characters:
Points- Good Guys
Category
Appearance
Edgar
not flash,
younger, not as
confident as
might be,
sensitive
Kent
Cordelia
Albany
shabby, older,
gaunt
plain, slight,
maidish, low of
voice, alert
avuncular,
poised,
to get things
right, to teach
Characteristics,
gentle, easily led, restraint, aware
temperament
of the error of
excess
Motivations
caring, loyal,
honest
loyalty, devotion,
honesty
Appraisal
misunderstands
Edmund, weak?,
untested, driven
by care and pity,
endures
hardship for his
father
unable to be
diplomatic, free
of anything
underhand,
predictable to a
fault
not boastful,
careful of
exaggeration,
few words, a
natural
goodness, not
wimpy.
love, justice,
tragic
hides her
goodness =
(expects it to be
enough?),
accepts fate,
strong devotion
to the truth as
only guide to life
calm, patient,
slow to anger,
not devious,
knowledgeable
justice, balance,
pity
respected by
Lear, strong in
himself, puzzle
what he saw in
Goneril to marry
her
Profiles of Lear 'bad' characters:
Points -Bad Guys
Category
Edmund
Goneril
Oswald
Cornwall
Appearance
lusty, young,
dark,
'wolfish
visage', late
30s
foppish,
weasel,
oleaginous
sly, like Regan
Characteristi
cs,
temperament
ambitious,
hungry, selfimportant,
cagey,
manipulative
aggressive,
manipulative,
sycophantic,
unscrupulous,
ambitious
ambitious,
untrustworth
Motivations
power-hungry,
cruel,
deceitful
gain, greed,
self-seeking,
hard, pitiless
gain,
opportunist,
opportunist
Appraisal
unscrupulous
to be feared
repugnant
conspirator
Knowledge notes
 Act 1 scene 4+5
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Q- What is the
fools role in
the play?
He is used to show
Lear’s true feelings
and highlight Lear’s
foolishness
 The fool acts as a
commentator speking
the truth
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The FOOL
Fool Kent tries to point out
that the fool is telling the truth
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All thy other titles thou hast given
away; that
thou wast born with.
KENT
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
thou hadst little wit in thy
bald crown,
when thou gavest thy
golden one away.
Refers to his royal crown
 LEAR
DIVIDED HIS KINGDOM
BETWEEN GONERIL AND REGAN
Fool
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:
they'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt
have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am
whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any
kind o' thing than a fool: and yet I would not be
thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides,
and left nothing i' the middle:
The Fool -Act 1 Scene 5
He is critical of Lear but also kind and
humorous pointing to Lear’s foolishness
 Examples
 Daughters are as sour as crab apples
 He remarks Lear should have been ‘wise
before being old’
 Lear should be like a snail with a house to
put his bald head into
 He uses animal imagery and metaphors
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King Lear Act 2. scene 1 –
Manipulative Edmund
Edmund begins this scene with deceit and treachery
 He tricks his father into believing Edgar is hungry for power and
land and is willing to murder Glouscester
He is a consummate liar
He is manipulative
He cuts his own arm to add credence to his lies saying Edgar injured
himHis father believes him and calls him loyal and natural
 HOW HE LIES
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His language reflects the theme of Natural order.
He use pregnant imagry and refers
to the natural order
His language is duplicitous and ironic and he is a skilled
in his speeches
He is the real villain, not Edgar
King Lear Act 2 Scene 4
Overview
Kent is in the stocks
 Regan and Cornwall refuse to meets him
 Regan demands that he return to ask
forgiveness form Goneril
 Sisters greet each other as friends
 They sadistically reduce his retinue to
none
 Lear is reduced to level of animal
 Lear gave all, his daughters gave nothing
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Lears’s heroic struggle to endure
1.
Disbelief
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2.
Overwhelmed
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3.
Down thou climbing sorrow ! Thy elements below
Angry
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4.
They durst not , they could not
I gave you all
I would rather wage against the enmity of the air
Powerless + isolated
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Man’s life is as cheap as beasts
Lear’s tragic plight
Kingship/ Power
destroyed
 Seeing the error of
his ways
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 Displays
new
humanity in
character
TRAGIC HERO
Lear’s Turmoil
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KING LEAR
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,-You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall--I will do such things,-What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep
No, I'll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Humanity
Impotent rage
Madness
Knowledge Act 3 Scene 1
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Lear against the elements
Natural order is disturbed
Lear is
Contending with the fretful element:
Bids the winds blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled water 'bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.
Madness
Division between Albany and
Conwall
Close reading
Storm Scene
This political chaos is mirrored in the natural
world.
 We find Lear and his courtiers plodding across a
deserted heath with winds howling around them
and rain drenching them.
 Lear soon finds himself symbolically stripped
bare.
 He has already discovered that his cruel
daughters can victimize him; now he learns that
a king caught in a storm is as much subject to
the power of nature as any man.
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A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that
represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention.
The Storm
 As Lear wanders about a desolate heath in Act III, a terrible storm,
strongly but ambiguously symbolic, rages overhead.
 In part, the storm echoes Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting
madness: it is a physical, turbulent natural reflection of Lear’s
internal confusion.
 At the same time, the storm embodies the awesome power of
nature, which forces the powerless king to recognize his own
mortality and human frailty and to cultivate a sense of humility for
the first time.
 The storm may also symbolize some kind of divine justice, as if
nature itself is angry about the events in the play.
 Finally, the meteorological chaos also symbolizes the political
disarray that has engulfed Lear’s Britain.
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trying to face down the powers of nature, an attempt that seems to indicate both his despair
and his increasingly confused sense of reality.
Both of these strains appear in Lear’s famous speech to the storm, in which he commands,
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! / Lear’s attempt to speak to the storm suggests
that he has lost touch with the natural world and his relation to it—or, at least, that he has lost
touch with the ordinary human understanding of nature.
In a sense, though, his diatribe against the weather embodies one of the central questions posed
by King Lear: namely, whether the universe is fundamentally friendly or hostile to man.
The storm marks one of the first appearances of the apocalyptic imagery that is so important in
King Lear and that will become increasingly dominant as the play progresses. The chaos reflects
the disorder in Lear’s increasingly crazed mind, and the apocalyptic language represents the
projection of Lear’s rage and despair onto the outside world:
Along with Lear’s increasing despair and projection, we also see his understandable fixation on
his daughters: “Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: / I tax you not, you elements,
with unkindness” (III.ii.14–15). Lear tells the thunder that he does not blame it for attacking him
because it does not owe him anything. But he does blame his “two pernicious daughters” for their
betrayal (III.ii.21). Despite the apparent onset of insanity, Lear exhibits some degree of rational
thought—he is still able to locate the source of his misfortune.
Finally, we see strange shifts beginning to occur inside Lear’s mind. He starts to realize that he is
going mad, a terrifying realization for anyone. Nevertheless, Lear suddenly notices his Fool and
asks him, “How dost my boy? Art cold?” (III.ii.66). He adds, “I have one part in my heart / That’s
sorry yet for thee” (III.ii.70–71). Here, Lear takes real and compassionate notice of another
human being for the first time in the play. This concern for others reflects the growth of Lear’s
humility, which eventually redeems him
Lear is
King Lear Revision Guide 2
Act and Scene summary
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Act 1 (937 lines)
1. Lear divides his kingdom
2. Gloucester believes Edmund about Edgar
3. Goneril shows her hatred of Lear
4. Lear curses Goneril
5. Lear rejects Goneril and fears madness
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Act 3 (615 lines)
1. Kent looks for Lear
2. Lear wanders in the storm
3. Gloucester confides in Edmund
4. Lear confronts the disguised Edgar
5. Edmund betrays Gloucester
6. Lear tries his daughters
7. Gloucester is blinded
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Act 4
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1.
2.
3.
4.
Act 2 (634 lines)
1. Edgar flees. Gloucester’s heart cracks
2. Kent abuses Oswald and is put in the
stocks
3. Edgar becomes Tom
4. Regan rejects Lear. Lear goes mad
Act 3 Scene 3 - Subplot
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Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this
unnatural dealing.
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Most savage and
unnatural!
Edmund
Clothing
The play’s interest in clothing and the imagery associated with
it is central to its exploration of
identity.
LEAR
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Lear describes his abdication of the throne, using the play’s first clothing image, as
‘divest[ing]
us…of rule’ (I.i.49). By the start of the first storm scene (III.ii), Lear is ‘bareheaded’.
On first meeting Poor Tom, he attempts to strip off his remaining clothes, which he
calls mere ‘lendings’
(III.iv.106), to reveal the real man (‘the thing itself’) beneath. (There is clear irony
here )
Edgar, who is pretending, ‘a poor, bare, forked animal’ (105-106), is seen by Lear as
the most accurate picture of the human condition on stage. Is this a reflection of
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Lear’s muddle as he descends into madness, or a reflection of the play’s deeper
truth?)
Even when Poor Tom is naked, Lear continues to be obsessed by the idea of his
clothing (III.vi.76-78).
In effacing his identity as Edgar, Edgar removes all his clothes – anticipating Lear’s
progressive stripping away of layers,
1.
2.
3.
first metaphorically (his titles),
then metonymically (his knights) and
finally literally (his clothing), at the end of which he arrives at a fuller
sense of self.
Clothes are
 seen as a generally bad thing at this point
in the play – Lear recognises that the
hypocritical
 Regan’s clothes do not keep her warm
(II.ii.458-459) and Poor Tom twice draws
attention to the
 extravagance of dress he used to enjoy
before his fall (III.iv.84-94, 131-132).
 When Lear reappears, after a break of
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Act 3 scene 4
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Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
Power and Evil
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Power is the ability to manipulate and control whatever
one desires; to do what one pleases to do without
answering to authority.
The power that corrupts the characters plays an
extensive role throughout Shakespeare’s play, King Lear.
Goneril and Regan are corrupted by the power that Lear
offers them. Edmund’s corruption comes from the trust
of his father.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely with the characters,
because once have full control, they are so cold that
they will do anything to keep the power – or to gain
more.
The quest for power corrupts, but when absolute power
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Evil
This play deals with evil inherent in humankind and also with supernatural evil. We
see the hell-on-earth, which ensues when humankind surrenders to the seductive
power of evil in this play. Evil is portrayed in the action particularly in the murder of
Duncan and Macduff’s family. We also see the profound and absolute evil in the
witches. The witches are intended to represent the metaphysical world of evil spirits.
Their meetings take place in conditions suggestive of cosmic disorder. Their function
on a symbolic level is to mirror the spirit of evil roaming around Scotland. All their
actions are a perversion of the natural order. It is Banquo who recognizes the satanic
quality of the witches in his question,’ can the devil speak thus?’ He also recognizes
their manner of working ‘ the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with
honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.’
Evil works in the play through deception. The witches as instruments of evil operate
in terms of false appearance. As agents of the devil they seek to reverse the normal
order of things and by so doing obscure reality. The essence of their intention is
embodied in the line,’ air is foul and foul is fair.’ However, the crime to which they
incite Macbeth is committed by him and the responsibility for succumbing to the
temptation is Macbeth’s alone. Macbeth is his own betrayer. The witches are merely
catalysts who bring to the surface the latent evil, which lies buried in his
subconscious mind.