King Lear

King Lear

1. The Fool

   • Critics
     • "The Fool is Lear's alter ego, his externalised conscience." - GOLDSMITH
     • "Where Lear blames his daughters, the Fool blames Lear." - BENNET
     • "The Fool's jesting shows deep compassion and understanding of the human condition." - VIDEBAEK
     • "Through the long funeral of Lear's reason sounds the hornpipe of the Fool's" - STEINER
     • "To know your own nothingness is to become something as the Fool is wiser than Fools because he knows his own folly and so can see through theirs." - EAGLETON
     • "Lear would rather have flattery than the truth" - STUART
     • "His tactless jokes and snatches of song spring so evidently from genuine grief." - WELSFORD
   • Clear Sight
     • "All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him thats stinking." A2S4
     • "That Sir which serves and seeks for gain, and follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm. But I will tarry; the fool will stay, And let the wise man fly: The knave turns Fool that runs away; The Fool no knave, perky." A2S4
   • Rhetoric
   • Wisdom
   • Truthfullness
   • Relationship to Lear

2. Cordellia

   • Key Quotes
     • "Nothing... I love your Majesty according to my bond; no more nor less." A1S1
     • "With those infirmities she owes, unfriended, new adopted to our hate, Dowered with our curse and strangers with our oath, Take her or leave her." A1S1
     • "With washed eyes Cordellia leaves you: I know you what you are; and like a sister am most loth to call your faults as they are named." A1S1
   • Truthfulness
   • Rhetoric
   • Refusal to Conform
     • Like Desdemona is 'Othello' who also stands up to her father (Brabantio) for her husband
   • Loyalty

3. Edgar

   • Clear Sighted
   • Philospher
   • Truthfulness
   • Disguise
   • Virtue/ Moral Compass Goodness

4. Goneril

   • Albany
   • Key Quotes
   • Disloyal
   • Lust
   • Power
     • "Dearer than eyesight space and liberty: beyond which can be valued rich or rare... A love that makes breath poor and speech unable; Beyond all manner of so much I love you." - A1SA
   • Rhetoric

5. Regan

   • Cornwall
   • Power
     • "I find she names my very deed of love; Oly she comes too short: that I profess Myseld an enemy to all other joys which the most precious square of senses possesses." - A1S1
   • Rhetoric
   • Violence
   • Lust
   • Disloyal

6. Edmund

   • Wicked
   • Mistreated
   • Power
     • Manipulation of others
   • Lust
   • Self Interested

7. Kent

   • Loyalty
   • Disguise
   • Truthfulness
   • Servile Role

8. Gloucester

   • Flaws
     • Blind
       • Blind to Edmund - the way he treats him and his evil
         • "His breeding, Sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to't" - A1S1
   • Key Quotes
   • Loyalty
   • Nature
   • Role as a Father

9. Lear

   • Flaws
     • Blind
     • Pride
   • Key Quotes
   • Madness
   • Develops Compassion
   • Tragic Hero
   • Role as a Father and King