King Lear (The New Folger Library Shakespeare)
 

King Lear (Folger Shakespeare Library)

by William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library
The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies
Each edition includes:
• Freshly edited text based on the best early
printed version of the play
• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
• Scene-by-scene plot summaries
• A key to famous lines and phrases
• An... (read more)

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Tinky
  • Rated 5 stars

“Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry….
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.”

"King Lear" is the most profound play ever written. Whenever I come back to it, I discover it’s about something else. In the most obvious sense, it’s a family melodrama, a generational conflict. But that’s just the framework for Shakespeare to explore and illuminate the eternal questions: Are we basically good or evil? Are...

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Community:
  • Rated 3.839098 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4.5 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • Al K

    al k said:

    If you have a daughter, and you know she loves you, you can realate to the wonderfully sad confirmation of doom that comes from the law of unintended consequences. Intending to use his daughers' love to mete out his kingdom in his dotage, Lear's true daugher Cordelia refuses to compete. The wonderfully horrible scene when Lear bemoans her death by asking why a dog, a horse, a rat have life breaks the heart so elegantly, so terribly eloquent.

    posted Wednesday, January 16 2008
  • Ian W

    ian w said:

    this is definitely my most loved shakespeare tragedy, i ve seen a few stagings where king lear is blinded, very worth seeing as a play and beautiful to read i think.

    posted Friday, January 11 2008
  • faiza h

    faiza h said:

    this iz one of the best tragedies of shakespeare which tells us a lot about the follies of old age

    posted Tuesday, January 8 2008
  • Verónica

    verónica said:

    I aproved the written work I had to do about Lear and William Willson... even though I found it a bit stupid to write it.
    Hamlet is still my favourite Shakespeare´s play (I don´t know exactly why to tell you...) . But I really liked some situations and Lear´s lines ...
    . the anger of a king because his daughter can´t/ doesn´t want to put in enough words the love she had for him... !

    Cordelia

    Infeliz como soy, no consigo elevar
    mi corazón hasta mis labios. Conforme a vuestro vínculo
    os amo, Majestad, no más, no menos.

    . the solid and at the same time evanescent Cordelia
    . King Lear talking about necesity (sorry, the transcriptions are in spanish... a translation to english made by me based in a previous translation to spanish it probably result a weird thing..)

    Lear

    ¡Oh! No razonéis la necesidad; los más bajos mendigos
    tienen en lo más pobre algo superfluo.
    No permitáis a la naturaleza más que lo que la naturaleza necesita
    y la vida del hombre será tan insignificante como lo es la de las bestias.
    (...)

    Lear

    Es extraño el arte de la necesidad
    que hace precioso lo que es vil...

    posted Sunday, December 9 2007
  • Mahdi M

    mahdi m said:

    It's not at all talked about Lear's background

    posted Sunday, November 25 2007
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