King LearRandom House Publishing Group, 2013 M06 12 - 352 pages A king foolishly divides his kingdom between his scheming two oldest daughters and estranges himself from the daughter who loves him. So begins this profoundly moving and disturbing tragedy that, perhaps more than any other work in literature, challenges the notion of a coherent and just universe. The king and others pay dearly for their shortcomings–as madness, murder, and the anguish of insight and forgiveness that arrive too late combine to make this an all-embracing tragedy of evil and suffering. Each Edition Includes: • Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English • Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography |
From inside the book
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Page viii
... play's double structure suggests another duality central to King Lear: an opposition of parable and realism, in which “divided and distinguished worlds” are bound together for instructive contrast. (These terms are Maynard Mack's, in ...
... play's double structure suggests another duality central to King Lear: an opposition of parable and realism, in which “divided and distinguished worlds” are bound together for instructive contrast. (These terms are Maynard Mack's, in ...
Page ix
... play and focuses attention on the archetypal situations with which the story is concerned: rivalry between siblings, fear of parental rejection, and, at the same time, parental fear of children's callousness. The “unrealistic" contrast ...
... play and focuses attention on the archetypal situations with which the story is concerned: rivalry between siblings, fear of parental rejection, and, at the same time, parental fear of children's callousness. The “unrealistic" contrast ...
Page x
... plays, as in Othello (in which Brabantio accuses Desdemona of deceiving and deserting him), in Pericles, Cymbeline, and The \\7inter's Tale, and in The Tempest, in which the pattern is best resolved. ln King Lear, Shakespeare explores ...
... plays, as in Othello (in which Brabantio accuses Desdemona of deceiving and deserting him), in Pericles, Cymbeline, and The \\7inter's Tale, and in The Tempest, in which the pattern is best resolved. ln King Lear, Shakespeare explores ...
Page xi
... plays, this savors of desertion. Lear is sadly deficient in self-knowledge. As Regan dryly observes, “he hath ever but ... play is that by no other ('D m m - - way could Lear have learned what human suffering and need. IN'l'RODUC'l'lON xiii.
... plays, this savors of desertion. Lear is sadly deficient in self-knowledge. As Regan dryly observes, “he hath ever but ... play is that by no other ('D m m - - way could Lear have learned what human suffering and need. IN'l'RODUC'l'lON xiii.
Page xii
... play seems to confirm the Fool's contention that kindness and love are a sure way to exile and poverty. “Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill lest it break thy neck with following; but the great one that goes upward, let ...
... play seems to confirm the Fool's contention that kindness and love are a sure way to exile and poverty. “Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill lest it break thy neck with following; but the great one that goes upward, let ...
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Common terms and phrases
Alack ALBANY bastard blind brother Burgundy Charles Dickens Child Rowland Cordelia CORNWALL D. H. Lawrence daughters dear death disguised doth Dover Duke Duke of Cornwall Edith Wharton Edmund Enter Edgar Enter Lear Exeunt Exit eyes father fear film flatter folio follow FOOL fortune France Fyodor Dostoevsky GENTLEMAN give Gloucester's gods GONERIL Goneril and Regan grace hast hath hear heart heavens honor horse i'th Jane Austen justice KENT King Lear kingdom knave Lear's Leir Leonatus letter lord madam master means MESSENGER nature never night noble nuncle Perillus pity play play's Plexirtus poor pray princes quarto RAGAN REGAN royal scene servants Shakespeare sister Skalliger speak stage stand storm Stratford-upon-Avon suffering sword Telenor tell theater thee There's thine thou art traitor trumpet unto villain wicked sisters William Shakespeare wretched