Many people, well able to judge, have ranked Shake- speare"s King Lear as one of the finest dramas ever written. It tells the story of Lear, a headstrong monarch of ancient Britain, who resolves to divide his realm into three parts, and bestow it upon his three daughters in accordance with the amount of love that each professes for him.
Goneril, the eldest daughter, says she loves him more than words can tell, no less than life itself, as much as child ever loved. She receives a rich portion.
Regan, the second daughter, says she loves him even better than does Goneril, and the only joy in life she finds is to think her father loves her. She, too, receives a generous share of Lear"s dominions.
Cordelia, the youngest of the daughters and her father"s favourite ( " her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low-an excellent thing in woman ") cannot bring herself to talk like hersisters. She says she loves him neither more nor less than sheought. This offends the proud and testy old man. He casts her off penniless, and she would have been poor indeed if the King of France, who divined her true nature, had not straightwayclaimed her as his bride and queen.
Having parted with most of his possessions, Lear imagines that the two daughters on whom he has bestowed them will still show him the respect and affection that they had vauntedFrom a drawing by Sir John Gilbert, R.A
Lear casts off Cordelia
so highly. Alas!he is mistaken. They and their husbands treat him so badly that, one stormy night, he rushes out with bursting brain to a lonely heath. In the pauses of the tempest, we hear him rave about his daughters, while, now and then, the faithful fool who is with him utters pointed chatter which in its own way is not less bitter.
Old and broken, the poor king at length is reunited with Cordelia, who with French forces has come to his aid. But the French are defeated, and Lear is next seen bearing the body of Cordelia from prison, where her sisters had caused her to be put to death.
The guilty sisters perish, and their party is overthrown; but Lear dies of a broken heart- " a man more sinned against than sinning, " and " every inch a king. "Author.-William Shakespeare, the plot of whose tragedy of King Lear is here outlined, was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, and died there in 1616. He is regarded as the world"s greatest dramatist and poet. Among his early plays are Love"s Labour"s Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors; to the second period belong-A Midsummer Night"s Dream,As You Like It, etc.; to the third period the great tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra; to the last period Cymbeline, A Winter"s Tale, The Tempest, and the Sonnets.
General.-What was the character of Goneril? Of Regan? Of Cordelia? Did Lear deserve his hard fate? Did Cordelia deserve hers? Why didn"t Shakespeare give them a happier lot?