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King Lear (Folger Shakespeare Library) by…
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King Lear (Folger Shakespeare Library) (original 1608; edition 2004)

by William Shakespeare (Author), Barbara A. Mowatt (Editor), Paul Werstine (Editor)

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14,984144360 (4.06)1 / 595
I read (listened) to this after reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I enjoyed both very much. ( )
  Kristelh | Jan 12, 2022 |
English (132)  French (3)  Slovak (1)  Finnish (1)  Catalan (1)  Portuguese (1)  Dutch (1)  Swedish (1)  Russian (1)  All languages (142)
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this has the distinction of being the only work of his i would say i enjoyed. after reading a lot of these and talking to a lot of people why shakespeare is great, it seems to me he is a writer for:
- people who can read and enjoy pretty much anything ie the same people youll find reading harry potter and stuff. everyone that isn't obviously difficult or antiquated or without renown is an author for them, so this is a bit redundant
- people who are interested in art as something primarily expository and with exclusively objective standards of quality i.e. those who take the ideas of aristotle's poetics and universalize them. he is an EXTREMELY aristotelian artist
- people who would really rather read a work of philosophy than a work of literature, or at least people who think that philosophy is more IMPORTANT than art. as consequence, these are also people who really only care about whether themes are interesting and delivered intelligibly/cogently

my primary evidence for this is the fact that my enjoyment of the work comes almost entirely from the extreme affinity its thematic content has with what i think about love. here just like in every other work of shakespeare's i found the same clumsy devices and scattershot aesthetics that i feel, were i to read all his work, would characterize his entire output. maybe ill return to him a bit more to finalize this but it seems pretty definitive to me that as a writer shakespeare could not care less about beauty or aesthetics, so he isn't really for me at all and im not going to bother trying anymore

no reason to clown on people for talking about "reading" him and calling his work "literature" and talking about his faults as a "writer"; you know as well as i he has a reputation for being eminently readable outside of the theatrical context. nevertheless ive seen some of these works in play form and they didnt do anything to my opinion ( )
  windowlight | Jan 25, 2024 |
A very enjoyable edition. Unlike most of the Arden editions, Foakes comes across more as an educator than an academic-among-friends. This does mean occasionally that he'll cover ground most professional-level readers already understand, but it makes this a really well-rounded introduction to the play.

The decision here is to incorporate both Quarto and Folio texts in one, with the differences clearly delineated. It's probably the best possible option for this play, and well done. ( )
  therebelprince | Oct 24, 2023 |
Shakespeare's masterpiece
  SrMaryLea | Aug 22, 2023 |
PRATELEIRA EUNICE 1 LIVRO 121

A TRAGÉDIA DEFINITIVA SOBRE A VELHICE
Ao chegar à velhice, Lear, rei da Bretanha, se vê obrigado a dividir seu reino. A maior desgraça para um monarca atingira-o: para protegê-lo e garantir sua sucessão, nenhum filho varão, apenas três filhas mulheres, Goneril, Regana e Cordélia. As duas primeiras são casadas, respectivamente, com o Duque da Albânia e com o Duque da Cornualha, olhos cobiçosos por sobre as terras bretãs, enquanto que Cordélia recusa-se a casar, para permanecer ao lado do pai. Mas o assédio de estranhos pelo reino não é o mal maior do qual padece o rei. A progressiva dificuldade de discernir as atitudes e os discursos daqueles que o cercam, o embotamente da percepção da sinceridade e da falsidade humana e a suspeita errônea de onde viria a traição são os males fatais para o outrora grande monarca
  EuniceGomes | Apr 8, 2023 |
I liked it but I’m ngl I did watch the play while reading, it helped a lot to keep a visual on the characters ( )
  Liesl. | Mar 23, 2023 |
Mbreti Lir" është një tragjedi me pesë akte nga Uilliam Shekspir, e interpretuar në vitet 1605 - 1606 dhe e botuar në vitin 1608. Një nga tragjeditë më të mira, pjesa përshkohet nga pesimizmi dhe nihilizmi, gjë që e bën atë një vepër të preferuar të shekullit XX.
  BibliotekaFeniks | Jan 24, 2023 |
Not my favourite play, but I did read it for completeness. A king, worn down by the trammells of office, divides his domain among his children and suffers from the flaws in his parenting. He is eventually reduced to roaming the fields and assailling "Deaf heaven with his bootless cries." ( )
  DinadansFriend | Jan 21, 2023 |
Spring 2018 -

Another read through of this one happened this year for teaching it to my Seniors. I enjoyed it about as much as normal. It's not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but I can definitely recognize and respect why it is on the top 35 texts references on the AP Lit Test.

(Also, I absolutely recommend watching Ran after reading it.) ( )
  wanderlustlover | Dec 26, 2022 |
Lear's maybe my favorite Shakespeare, competing with Hamlet and Macbeth, but it would be silly for me to review it (not that that’s stopped me elsewhere). I like the Folger Shakespeares when you want to move through the text at a performance pace and just need a little help with a word or phrase here or there. But when you really want to dig into the text, the Arden Shakespeare is the best I’ve found. There’s a great wealth of information in the introduction, footnotes and appendices, and they really reward you for the extra effort it takes to read them. ( )
  garbagedump | Dec 9, 2022 |
من مجموعه‌ی نمایشنامه‌های شکسپیر رو که علاءالدین پازارگادی ترجمه کرده، وقتی بچه بودم خریدم اما بعداً متوجه شدم ترجمه‌ی چندان خوبی نداره و یا اقلاً از بعضی نمایشنامه‌ها ترجمه‌های بهتری وجود داره... به همین دلیل سعی کردم نمایشنامه‌ها رو تا حد ممکن از بقیه ترجمه‌ها بخونم، مگر اینکه ترجمه‌ی دیگه‌ای از نمایشنامه‌ای پیدا نکرده باشم... این‌ها رو گفتم تا به این برسم که لیرشاه رو من با ترجمه‌ی جواد پیمان که انتشارات علمی فرهنگی زده خوندم و جاهاییش انقدر گیج‌کننده بود که مجبور می‌شدم با ترجمه‌ی پازارگادی تطبیق بدم و بالعکس... همین باعث سستی من شد و باعث شد به قدری خوانش این نمایشنامه طول بکشه که کم‌کم مزه‌ی نمایشنامه از بین رفت... به عقیده‌ی من نمایشنامه در بهترین حالت باید در یک نشست، و حداکثر دو نشست خونده بشه، همونطور که در یک نشست تماشا می‌شه اما لیرشاه نشد که اینطور بشه. ( )
  Mahdi.Lotfabadi | Oct 16, 2022 |
As part of a long project to read (and in many cases re-read) all of Shakespeare's plays, I revisited King Lear by way of a side-by-side reading (by scene, not by page) of the two versions included in [b:The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition: Tragedies|42047|The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition Tragedies|William Shakespeare|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1375948434s/42047.jpg|10079355]: The History of King Lear (Quarto) and The Tragedy of King Lear (Folio). The dual reading is not all that illuminating, and is only recommended for the serious Lear scholar: a Director's Cut, this is not.

The introduction in the Norton edition provides a list of sources used by Shakespeare: Holinshed, The Ballad of King Leir and His Three Daughters, Philip Sydney's Arcadia, and a canto of Spenser's The Faerie Queene. All (and more) are available at king-lear.org, and it's worth reading at least the Ballad before attempting the play.

In younger days, I was quite fond of King Lear. This was due in no small part to Kurosawa's Ran, which demonstrated how easily the material could be translated through time and across cultures.

Unlike most of Shakespeare's tragedies, though, I found that Lear does not fare well in multiple readings. The language is not as polished, nor the dialogue as memorable, as in Macbeth (sorry: "The Scottish Play") or Julius Ceasar. We've got the flies to wanton boys bit and let fall your horrible pleasure, but not a whole lot more.

The sense of frustrated justice is also lacking. The characters all seem to be punished for some fault or another. Lear is prone to flattery. Gloucester fails to back up his king. Even Cordelia suffers for the pride that made her refuse, at her father's request, to adorn her declaration of filial piety. There's also the whole siding-with-France thing, which was likely a capital crime at the time (and might still be, in parts of the UK and its former colonies.

The villains at first appear to get off fairly lightly, losing neither sight nor sanity. Two die by their own hand, though, ensuring eternal punishment; a third dies by poison, no doubt horribly.

Ultimately, of course, it's Lear: an enjoyable read, with many lessons about filial piety, preparing for retirement, and having enough sense to come in out of the freaken rain.

( )
  mkfs | Aug 13, 2022 |
This is definitely Shakespeare's most existential play of all that I have read. (I have suspicions about Timon of Athens, but I haven't tried that one yet.)[b:Timon of Athens|104805|Timon of Athens|William Shakespeare|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328033835s/104805.jpg|2083361]
Cordelia is ridiculous, but I feel she is the character that most develops. I would love to see a quality film or something on her time in France, and her relationship with the king. ( )
  et.carole | Jan 21, 2022 |
This full-cast audio recording tells the story of King Lear who unwisely divided his inheritance based on his perception of how much each daughter loved him. We see how this leads to a life of isolation and great tragedy within his own family. Some actors were more skilled in their role interpretations than others. ( )
  thornton37814 | Jan 12, 2022 |
I read (listened) to this after reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I enjoyed both very much. ( )
  Kristelh | Jan 12, 2022 |
Well i read this instead of watching it but i really don't think any acting could improve it. I was quite enjoying it for the first half though.
We're really dropped into the deep end with the opening, Lear comes across like a comedy version of a mafia boss. I was routing for his daughters most of the time. Since we get no background on Lear he just seems incredibly capricious even if you considered his daughters to be the bad guys it certainly feels like they learned their behavior from him.
The scene changes felt a bit all over the place at least on the page. The various characters meandered about a bit too much and a lot of action took place off stage. Also the love-triangle just seemed to come from nowhere and there were too many deaths by heart attack.

Finally, between the mad characters and the fool, it really felt more of a black comedy than a tragedy. I weep not for Lear :) . ( )
  wreade1872 | Nov 28, 2021 |
Hadn’t read since college decades ago... listened to audio book. A great story.

Librivox ( )
  jimgosailing | Nov 18, 2021 |
Act 4, Scene 6. King Lear: "When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools." ( )
  jaydenmccomiskie | Sep 27, 2021 |
Thought #1. Have you ever seen "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium? There's a lovely soliloquy on King Lear at the end. And King Lear lived up to it.

Thought #2. I loved Gloucester and Kent. I often feel like Kent must have felt in the scenes that Shakespeare withholds from us (those following the death of Lear)... Broken, yet needing to continue with life.
( )
  OutOfTheBestBooks | Sep 24, 2021 |
While there's a lot to love here...the actual writing is a standout...overall, this one didn't click with me as much as some of the others did.

Probably me and my personal weirdness, but I despised Goneril and Regan as soon as they opened their mouths (which was likely the point with their awful, fawning fake devotion), but I also took an instant dislike to Lear himself. How does a king manage to rule so well, yet make two stupid decisions in the span of minutes? Who asks their children to essentially fall all over themselves to prove their adoration for their own father? Who is so insecure as to demand that of their children?

And, when the first two play this terrible game, and the third one takes the more measured approach, choosing honestly over hyperbole, he punishes her?

And then, wonder of wonders, he later finds out those first two were bullshitting him, and he's shocked?

All of this kept spinning through my mind through the rest of the play. I suppose, had I been able to get past that initial plot device, I would have bought in hook, line, and sinker to this one because, as I said, there's a lot to love.

But I just couldn't get past that opening. ( )
  TobinElliott | Sep 3, 2021 |
I listened to this while in the rain. I will listen to it many more times and will probably rate it even more highly with each listen. ( )
  Neal_Anderson | Jul 31, 2021 |
Wow. Finally got to this, glad I waited, since one of the facets of the plot is the difficulty of aging with dignity. I'm impressed with the way the play got me engaged, since it opens with the old man rashly making the most foolish decisions of his long reign, as he himself quickly learns. For me the Gloucester subplot worked, too, offering a variant on the theme of inter-generational ingratitude. It ends bleakly, yet I felt ennobled through the experience; I realize I'm not the first one to feel that way. Unreservedly recommended. ( )
  HenrySt123 | Jul 19, 2021 |
This is a typical Shakespearean tragedy. There are kings, there is intrigue and there are murders. Having said that, it is still a fascinating read, as all of Shakespeare's plays are. Following the fall of the titular King Lear, the drama gives a detailed description of the royal family's downfall and as always, Shakespeare is able to create an astonishing atmosphere. It did not take me very long to read it, so if anybody is interested in Shakespeare and tragic tragedies with tragic characters, it should be a book to certainly pick up! ( )
  plitzdom | May 12, 2021 |
Edition: Arkangel Shakespeare

King Lear had been one of my favorite Shakespeare dramas ever since I read it for the first time in my early teens in Bulgarian (I read it a few years later in English as well) Back then I never realized that there is a problem with its texts - for all intents and purposes, there are two separate King Lear plays - while most of the plays suffer from this, Kind Lear has the largest differences (or one of the largest) between its Quatro1 and Folio texts (in addition to the inevitable changes and rewrites the Q has 285 lines that the F does not have and F has 115 completely new lines). And they are not just fillers - there are crucial differences between the two - including the end (oh, Lear dies - that does not change but what he believes when he dies is a different story). Each editor picks up their own way through the two texts although a conflated text had become the norm -- but that conflation can be very different between editions.

But let's talk about the play itself: Shakespeare takes a existing story from various sources (including Holinshed's Chronicles) and gives it a new life - and a new ending.

The king of Britain is getting old and has no sons so he decides to split the kingdom between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia - nothing unusual in this and for anyone in 1606 that would have sounded absolutely correct - primogeniture had been the law of the land and when there is no son, the daughters are equal heiresses under the law. Except that Lear decides to test his daughters and asks them how much they love him - and as his youngest, Cordelia, refuses to pay lip service to him, she is disinherited and leaves with her new husband for France. Except that as usual, lip service and real attachment are different things and as soon as they get the power, the two older daughters try to take away everything else from Lear - who is not very happy about that and flees.

But the play is not just the story of one family - it is the story of two of them - Gloucester and his sons (the legitimate Edgar and the illegitimate Edmund) and the dynamic between them is parallel to the dissolving of Lear's family. The two sons of Gloucester and the 3 daughters of Lear exist in parallel but scarily similar lines. Evil and choices become important for the downfalls of both men - the betrayals always having their own blood. But so do the redeemers.

And that's where the story of the two men diverge - Gloucester gets his son back early on (even if he does not know it), Lear needs to wait a lot longer. Both learn about their mistakes before they die and both try to make up for them but at the end just one of the children will be still standing.

I used to think of King Lear as the play where everyone dies. Not that this does not happen in other Shakespeare dramas but here the number of the survivors at the end is extremely low, even for Shakespeare and a lot lower than it is in the sources of this play.

The double end I was talking about earlier comes almost at the end - when Lear dies. In one version he is the cause for Cordelia's death, he knows and he knows that he had not managed to save her; in the other he dies before the final confirmation that she is dead, just when he thinks he sees her moving. One of the ends hints at redemption (Lear is the one who saves her even if he is also the reason for her being killed to start it), the other one is eternal damnation. While this may mean like not much of a difference now, the 17th century drama goer would have considered that a huge difference. The rest of the differences between the versions of the play are less impactful (even though some well known scenes such as the fake trial of the daughters is nowhere to be seen in the later versions). And then there is of course the Victorian version of the play that decided that the play is too dark so gave it a happy end...

The two older sisters and Edmund are evil personified - and in the case of the sisters, it has no explanation. The sources do - so one wonders if Shakespeare had relied on people knowing the story so decided not to add the scenes needed to explain it. And at the same time some of the positive characters (Kent, Edgar and even the Fool (who is the moral compass of the story for the first part of it... and then disappears altogether)) are almost one-tone as well - too good to be true. But then... it is a play, what more can you do in such a short time. The play works -- especially because being good or bad does not spell your end - you are as likely to have a "he dies" queue regardless of where you are on the good/bad scale...

Almost 3 centuries later, a novel will begin with a now well known sentence: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". King Lear makes me think about that exact sentiment.

The Arkangel Shakespeare version of the play uses the Pelican text of the play (the one from the now older edition - they are reissuing again and I am not sure how much the current text is changed compared to the old one). It is a conflated text so most of the missing scenes are added and the end is the one with hope - Lear thinks that Cordelia may be alive. It is a masterful performance led by Trevor Peacock and with a host of other known actors including David Tennant as Edgar, Samantha Bond as Regan and Clive Merrison as Gloucester. If you had never listened to the play before, this is a good version although if you do not know the play, it can get a bit confusing - too many characters with somewhat intersecting goals can lead to confusion.

And if you are going to listen and read along, picking up the correct version of the printed play is crucial, especially in this play - or you may get a bit lost. ( )
  AnnieMod | Jan 25, 2021 |
Posiblemente deberia ser 5 estrellas pero lo he leido en el ingles de Shakespeare y me he perdido gran parte de lo que estaba ocurriendo.
Creo que lo releere en algun momento de mi vida y le dare 5 estrellas entonces. ( )
  trusmis | Nov 28, 2020 |
My least favorite of the tragedies I've read for my Shakespeare class so far, because I don't buy the way the characters escalate to extremes against each other, and I wanted to read more about Cordelia than I got. Still excellent though, of course, because it's Shakespeare. ( )
  askannakarenina | Sep 16, 2020 |
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Penguin Australia

2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0140714766, 0141012293

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