Book Description
King Lear is one of William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, written around 1605–1606. It is a profound and devastating exploration of family, power, madness, and the human condition.
The play tells the story of King Lear, an aging monarch of Britain, who decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters—Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia—based on how much they profess their love for him. Goneril and Regan flatter him with false words, while Cordelia, honest and sincere, refuses to exaggerate her affection.
Lear banishes Cordelia and soon discovers the betrayal of his two elder daughters. Stripped of power and dignity, he descends into madness and despair, wandering the heath in a storm. Meanwhile, the subplot mirrors Lear’s tragedy through Gloucester and his sons Edgar and Edmund, exploring loyalty, deception, and fate.
The play ends tragically, with Lear and Cordelia’s deaths symbolizing the collapse of order and the devastating cost of pride and blindness.
King Lear is often regarded as Shakespeare’s most powerful and tragic play. It examines the fragility of the human mind, the cruelty of fate, and the search for redemption. Its emotional depth, poetic language, and timeless themes of love, loss, and moral awakening make it one of the cornerstones of world literature.
Excerpt from King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Tragedie of King Lear
Actus Primus. Scoena Prima.Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmond.
KENT.
I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.GLOU.
It did alwayes seeme so to us: But now in the division of the Kingdome, it appeares not which of the Dukes hee values most, for qualities are so weigh’d, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moity.KENT.
Is not this your son, my Lord?GLOU.
His breeding, sir, hath bin at my charge. I have so often blush’d to acknowledge him, that now I am braz’d to’t.KENT.
I cannot conceive you.
