King Lear Seminar Response

Throughout William Shakespeare’s tragic play, King Lear, the goal of gaining control over the kingdom and boasting about one’s status drove the characters to deceive each other through the use of lies and manipulation. Right from the start, King Lear demanded that his daughter profess their love for him, causing Regan and Goneril to exaggerate their love all to flatter their father and gain the most of his land. When it was Cordelia’s turn, even though she spoke from her heart about how much her father means to her, her words did not praise her father enough as he insisted she revise her confession. Act 1 Scene 1 started the destruction of the Lear family as Regan and Goneril proved successful in gaining their father’s land by spreading lies

“To be, or not to be- that is the question.” These words are easily identifiable, although not most easily understood, to anyone who has read or knows of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. However, what Hamlet is trying “to be or not to be,” who Hamlet is or perceives himself to be, has remained a mystery ever since William Shakespeare penned Hamlet in 1603. Critics such as Johann Wolfgang van Goethe from as early as the 18th century have debated Hamlet’s emotional instability, while later critics use earlier ideas such as Goethe’s to build their own assumptions of Hamlet’s situation. Critics such as T.S. Eliot, Robert Palfrey Utter, and George Anastaplo state that to understand Hamlet’s emotions, one must first eliminate their own bias before looking

Many times it is not because of age that the mind goes crazy, but the length of time a sane mind is kept in an unhealthy environment. The authors use the adjunct characters in both King Lear, by William Shakespeare, and Sunset Boulevard, by Billy Wilder, to indicate why the main characters, Lear and Norma, are so delusional. Comparing the two we can see a pattern of “loyalty to a fault” that, in the end, leads to the main characters’ downfalls. Examining King Lear, we can see that Kent is responsible for King Lear’s delusion of power. In Sunset Boulevard, Max is to blame for Norma’s false sense of pomp. Though both Kent and Max have the best intentions, they ultimately are responsible for Lear and Norma’s lost sense of reality and saneness.

Perceiving the world through a singular type of lens is foolish. Shakespeare creates a very dramatic change for King Lear throughout the course of the play. At the beginning he is a very

William Shakespeare's King Lear is depressing and has no mercy, but it also encounters many more aspects which are quite important for everyone to know, such as: trails of deaths, battles, love, hatred, treacheries and most importantly nature and culture. Shakespeare created a play where the world was cruel and there was only plotting and tragedy with no shining light at the end of the tunnel. Shakespeare makes King Lear, a natural figure to show the hypocrisy. The connection between King Lear and Cordelia is an analogy for the relationship of nature and culture. It seems that King Lear believed in culture instead of nature, he could not understand his youngest, nicest and the most loving daughter Cordelia only because she had no words to

play. Especially, when the Fool first appearance is in Act 1, scene iv, after Cordelia had moved away with the King of France and Kent has banished out kingdom even after the storm and others disguiser figures, It seems, they are appearance on the stage at the same time frequently .

His desire for power and status is very clear that there is no mistaking it for something else. Most of the other characters also have reserves of what they will and will not do, at least for the beginning of the play, but Edmund simply does not care. Father, brother, and even lovers, he will not let anyone stand in the way of what he wants most. The treachery of Edmund’s villainous ways is significant to the meaning of King Lear because of how far he is willingly to go to get what he wants and betray his family. Betrayal and madness are two of the major themes of King Lear and Edmund is the epitome of both.

ACT I Early on in the Shakespearean play, King Lear makes the decision to refuse giving Cordelia a portion of the kingdom and disowns her as she does not falsely amplify her love to her father the way her sisters had. The decision is rash and even Lear’s servant Kent tries to tell Lear that he is not thinking on this decision clearly. Lear stubbornly keeps his word even though he admitted that Cordelia was his favorite and that he planned to spend his old age with her. The question as to why Lear did not swallow his pride despite his regret and hands the kingdom over to Cordelia’s two sisters and their husbands.

Another idea that’s incorporated by both Shakespeare and Fears’ is the key concept of manipulation. Manipulation is very important in both texts as it is seen throughout both texts how damaging manipulation is. Shakespeare uses manipulative characters that manipulate those who are blind to achieve what they want. Manipulation is at the center of King Lear where in one the opening scenes, Lear asks his daughters, “Which of you shall we doth love us most?”, Lear’s two eldest, Goneril and Regan reply to King Lear saying “more than word can wield the matter” manipulating Lear and his egotistical nature. Additionally Regan and Goneril’s manipulation of Lear lead to Cordelia being stripped of her rightful Kingdom and the downfall of Lear, who without

It is a lack of clarity that creates chaos. The chaos in Shakespeare 's King Lear is due in part to Lear 's inability to see the true nature of situations going on around him. The onset of his blindness is illustrated through his obliviousness to his daughters deception, which results in his decision to divide his kingdom among only two of his three daughters. Past tense and passive. Blindness is the catalyst that causes much disaster in the play. It is a prominent theme that negatively affects a number of characters. For characters like King Lear, Gloucester and Albany, being blind to the truth is a tragic flaw that causes much suffering, yet in this suffering they gain clarity.

The audience sympathise with King Lear’s redemption. Throughout the play, he gets a chance at redemption to make up for his mistake of having “thy truth being the dower:” for his daughter. He realises the folly of his actions and redeems himself stating “I am a very foolish fond old man”. This demonstrates King Lear's change in character as he learns that he is not as powerful as thinks he was and starts to become more humble. There is a lure of sympathy for King Lear because a story of redemption inspires people and catches their imagination, that anything is possible. Shakespeare changes King Lear to make him sympathetic because he undergoes a huge struggle and is emotionally varied. This makes him seem more human and not just a character.

In the interesting quote, "I am a man more sinned against than sinning" (Hamlet, act 3:2.58-59), Lear states the unjust treatment he received from his daughters, while acknowledging that he has not been a saint himself. Through this quote shows his belief that although he has mistreated people and not acted right, his behaviour has yet not been worse than how others have treated him. Lear’s character is highly flawed and has undoubtedly acted unjust while having a shallow view on relationships and how they should be. Lear can be viewed as a stubborn old man whose mind cannot be changed easily.

Witnessing the powerful forces of the natural world, Lear comes to understand that he, like the rest of humanity, is irrelevant in the world. This realization proves much more important than the realization of his loss of political control, as it enforces him to set up his values and become gentle and caring. With this newfound understanding of himself, Lear hopes to be able to accost the chaos in the political realm as well. King Lear is a symbol of a strong man, who has a Reason that counts, a powerful King who gives everything and gets nothing. King Lear, we may say that he lost his authority to his daughters, as a father, once he gave them

Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes the audience on a journey of a prince who is caught between two spheres of a society in which he attempts to discard the expected norms of a prince to converge to his new ideas on the type of man he wants to live as. The Renaissance was a period in the 16th century that challenged ideals that were limited and outdated. Hamlet is a humanist figure who lives according to the humanist ideals and this leads him to questioning the society and his role as a prince in the 16th century. During the play we see how Hamlet is in constant conflict with the morality of exacting revenge and his new learning and education. It is against this backdrop that I will discuss the argument of Arnold Kettle’s “From Hamlet to Lear” in relation the extracts I have analysed. The points I will look at are Hamlet’s encounter with his father’s ghost and how it brings him back to his educational reform, how hamlet is not accepting of anything but questions the customs of society and how hamlet reflects on the nobility of man and contemplates what it means to him as an individual. I will also discuss how the analysis of the extracts agrees with Kettle’s argument.

Practice can make things perfect, but it is the passion that persuades them. In King Lear, Lear’s first phase of development is about his wild enthusiasm (passion). First and foremost of the play, Lear enters his castle and begins to discuss the division of Britain between his daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Lear says that he will handover his throne, but whoever expresses greater amount of their affection shall get the largest bounty; “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?” (1.1.52).