Ao5 King Lear

George Orwell Edgar is a superfluous character
Leo Tolstoy A tedious nuisance
Nahum Tate The ending was too misfortunate and cruel
Gillian Woods His unexplained absence is appropriate since he exists outside the proper order of things
Leo Tolstoy Lear’s madness had no relationship to the play’s major themes
Jonathan Bate Of all Shakespeare’s plays it is the closest to Ancient Greek tragedy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Goneril and Regan are the only picture of the unnatural in ‘King Lear’
Arnold Kettler Lear’s madness is not so much a breakdown as a breakthrough
Carol Rutter The play is overwhelmingly about fathers and their paternity
George Orwell Certainly not Christian
AC Bradley Edgar is the most religious
Charles Lamb To see Lear tottering about on a rainy night, turned out of doors by his daughters has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting
Southward Although it eventually destroys him, Lear achieves true majesty through the course of his struggle
G. Wilson Knight Lear is redeemed through suffering
Rebecca Warrens The alacrity of Edmund’s rise and the fact that the faithless, worldly bastard is responsible for Cordelia’s death suggests man is as powerful and cruel as any force above
Wilson Knight The tragedy is most poignant in that it is purposeless, unreasonable
W. Empson The ways that the gods delegate justice is by inventing instruments of torture
Hal Hoolbrook Despite all evidence of the contrary, Lear has stuck steadfastly to the conviction that he is a loving father
Katherine Mcluskie Family relations in the play are seen as fixed and determined
Leonard Tennenhouse ‘King Lear’ shows us the dangers of not following the old ways of the patriarchal order