| Memory Work | “No cause, no cause” |
| Themes and Images in King Lear | 1) The difficulty in telling appearance from reality2) Vengeance/Revenge3) Forgiveness4) Foolishness/Trust -It is safer to fear than to trust (can be cited as a separate theme)5) Identity6) Gods do nothing 7) Praying for Gods to actImages:1) Nothing (seriously, this also could be a theme)2) Monsters3) “Give me your arm” |
| Intro to the Characters | King Lear: King and father of Cordelia, Regan, and GonerilCordelia: Lear’s youngest daughter and wife to the King of FranceRegan: Lear’s middle daughter and wife to Duke of Cornwall. Loves Edmund Goneril: Lear’s oldest daughter and wife to Duke of Albany, also infatuated with EdmundGloucester: Gets his eyes gouged out, father of Edgar and Edmund, friend of Lear’s familyEdgar: Gloucester’s legitimate son, loses his identity and roams as Poor TomEdmund: The best villain and he is a bastard son of Gloucester. Almost becomes king, only loves himselfKent: Lear’s royal servant disguised as a guy named CaiusThe Fool: Lear’s rather wise foolOswald: Sketchy servant of GonerilAlbany: Husband of Goneril, who is plotted against by Goneril |
| Comitatus | Loyal followers, every king had a group of loyal knights known as these. |
| “Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.—Give me the map there.—Know that we have dividedIn three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intentTo shake all cares and business from our age,Conferring them on younger strengths while weUnburdened crawl toward death.—Our son of Cornwall,And you, our no less loving son of Albany,We have this hour a constant will to publishOur daughters’ several dowers, that future strifeMay be prevented now.The two great princes, France and Burgundy,Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,And here are to be answered.—Tell me, my daughters,(Since now we will divest us both of rule,Interest of territory, cares of state)Which of you shall we say doth love us mostThat we our largest bounty may extendWhere nature doth with merit challenge?—Goneril,Our eldest born, speak first.” | Speaker: LearLocationL Act 1, Scene 1, lines 38-56Plot Point: Lear plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He states it goes to whoever loves him the mostCharacter: This establishes Lear’s arrogance and his 2 kinships of life, his kingship and his fatherhood. Theme: Appearance vs Reality, Pride |
| Ourself, by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights, By you to be sustained, shall our abode make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain the name, and all th’ addition to a king. The sway, Revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm, this coronet part between you. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear has just announced that he (along with one hundred knights) will leave with each sister for one month at a time. Lear will keep the title of king, however. Character: this shows the kingship part of Lear’s identity, since he wishes to keep the title of king, even though he has no more power. The hundred knights that he brings along remind him of the time that he was kingTheme: Identity |
| Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.Our father’s love is to the bastard EdmundAs to the legitimate.—Fine word, “legitimate”!—Well, my legitimate, if this letter speedAnd my invention thrive, Edmund the baseShall top th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper.Now, gods, stand up for bastards! | Speaker: EdmundPlot: Edmund is pissed off he gets no land, so he’s deciding to plot against his brother, just because he’s a bastard. Edmund knows that he is loved just as much as his legitimate brother.Character: Shows Edmund’s true desires. One of the first instances where we see Edmund’s evil qualities revealed.Theme: Appearance vs Reality, Family hate |
| This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar— | Speaker: EdmundPlot: As Edmund has told his father a lie about Edgar, he curses humans for being stupid and blaming the sun or stars for problems they have caused. Plus he credits himself to be more powerful because he was made in a bed of lust. Character: Edmund shows his hatred towards those who believe that astronomy is to blame for our actions. Edmund says that no matter what star he was born under, he would still be the same Edmund we see in the book.Theme: Divine beings, foolishness |
| A credulous father, and a brother noble—Whose nature is so far from doing harmsThat he suspects none, on whose foolish honestyMy practices ride easy. I see the business.Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit.ON TEST | Speaker: Edmund Plot: Edmund has just fooled his brother AND father, and so states his evil plan, and calls them fools he will work with to get what he wantsCharacter: Shows how crafty and clever Edmund is. He is willing to push aside the love for his family in order to gain his father’s inheritance. Theme: Appearance vs Reality, foolishness, |
| Does any here know me? Why, this is not Lear.Doth Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?Either his notion weakens, or his discerningsAre lethargied. Ha, sleeping or waking?Sure, ’tis not so.Who is it that can tell me who I am? | Speaker: King LearPlot: Kent has been put in the stocks, and Lear now begins to lose his identity, as Goneril is denying him from being a father. Lear thus asks himself if he is going mad and whether he is sleeping. Character: Lear as a father, and his loss of identityTheme: Identity |
| It may be so, my lord.Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intendTo make this creature fruitful.Into her womb convey sterility.Dry up in her the organs of increase,And from her derogate body never springA babe to honor her. If she must teem,Create her child of spleen, that it may liveAnd be a thwart disnatured torment to her.Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,Turn all her mother’s pains and benefitsTo laughter and contempt, that she may feel—That she may feelHow sharper than a serpent’s tooth it isTo have a thankless child.—Away, away! | Speaker: King LearPlot: Lear and the Duke of Albany are speaking about Goneril and Lear begins to curse her for her ungratefulness. He asks nature to make her infertile and to curse her and prevent her from goodness. He asks that if she is to have a child, that the child is the most rotten brat to ever exist. Character: Lear’s fatherhood threatened Theme: Praying for the Gods to act |
| ALBANY: Well, you may fear too far.GONERIL: Safer than trust too far.Let me still take away the harms I fear,Not fear still to be taken. I know his heart.What he hath uttered I have writ my sister.If she sustain him and his hundred knightsWhen I have showed th’ unfitness— | Speaker(s): Goneril and her husband AlbanyPlot: After sending Lear outside, Goneril explains to her husband how better it is to fear than trust because it takes her away from harm. She also is mad at Lear for acting inappropriately with 100 knightsCharacter: Not much about Albany, but more Goneril as a villain. Shows that Goneril didn’t love her father as much as she said she did. Theme: Trust |
| All ports I’ll bar; the villain shall not ‘scape; The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture I will send far and near, that all the kingdom may have due note of him; and of my land, loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means to make thee capable. | Speaker: Gloucester Plot: Gloucester orders all the doors to be shut so that the criminal (Edgar) doesn’t escape. He’s going to send Edgar’s picture all over the kingdom so everyone knows him. Finally, Gloucester says that he will find a way to make his “loyal” and “natural” son Edmund his true heir.Character: shows the extreme trust that Gloucester has for Edmund. Also, it shows how Edmund was able to take advantage of his gullible father to achieve his goals.Theme: Trust, Family |
| Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,And with presented nakedness outfaceThe winds and persecutions of the sky.The country gives me proof and precedentOf Bedlam beggars, who with roaring voicesStrike in their numbed and mortified bare armsPins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,And with this horrible object from low farms,Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,Enforce their charity. “Poor Turlygod!” “Poor Tom!”—That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am. | Speaker: EdgarPlot: Edgar has been framed by Edmund. Gloucester thinks Edgar betrayed him and guards are searching for Edgar. Edgar sacrifices his identity in order to become “Poor Tom” an insane beggar.Anecdote: A hospital for the insane in London in Shakespeare’s time was St. Mary’s of Bethlehem. The patients made quite the noise, hence the birth of the word Bedlam and Edgar’s reference to Bedlam beggars.Character: Edgar realizes that he is now an outlaw and that he must disguise himself as a mental patient in order to survive. He knows that no one would pay attention to an insane beggar. Theme: Loss of identity |
| O sir, you are old.Nature in you stands on the very vergeOf his confine. You should be ruled and ledBy some discretion that discerns your stateBetter than you yourself. Therefore I pray youThat to our sister you do make return.Say you have wronged her. | Speaker: ReganPlot: Lear has come to Regan after being rejected by Goneril and also brings his 100 knights. After a small argument, Regan challenges Lear’s ego. She calls him old and tells him to go back to Goneril admitting he was wrong, as well as asking him to let other people take care of him. Character: Regan as a villain who does not love her father. Shows Lear’s identity crumbling as his 100 knights (the last fragments of his kingship) are asked to leave. Lear’s mistreatment by Regan shows his fatherhood being challengedTheme: Loss of identity |
| Thou art a boil,A plague-sore or embossèd carbuncleIn my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee.Let shame come when it will. I do not call it.I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.Mend when thou canst. Be better at thy leisure.I can be patient. I can stay with Regan,I and my hundred knights. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear curses Goneril, calling her a disease in his flesh that he must call his child. However, he says that he won’t call upon the gods to punish her. He says that he would rather stay with Regan, since she’ll let him keep his hundred knights (which she won’t) Character: Lear’s identity is being threatened once more, since Goneril refuses to let him keep all his knights. Theme: Identity |
| O, reason not the need! Our basest beggarsAre in the poorest thing superfluous.Allow not nature more than nature needs,Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.If only to go warm were gorgeous,Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need—You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,As full of grief as age, wretched in both.If it be you that stir these daughters’ heartsAgainst their father, fool me not so muchTo bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger.And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,I will have such revenges on you bothThat all the world shall—I will do such things—What they are yet I know not, but they shall beThe terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep?No, I’ll not weep.ALWAYS ON THE TEST | Speaker: King LearPlot: Lear is cursing both Regan and Goneril for their ungratefulness. He says “reason not the need”, because he;s king, not an animal. He says only animals have just the necessities (food, water, shelter, air) and even beggars have something more than that. He says that if we have just the necessities, then our lives are no better than that of animals. He also swears revenge on his daughters but refuses to cry.Character: Once again, Lear’s identity of king and father is being threatened. By questioning why he needs even one knight, Lear becomes enraged since other than his knights, he was receiving only the necessities. His knights make him feel like he is still king, and that his life is better than an animal’s. Theme: Need for vengeance, identity |
| Pathetic Fallacy | Technique an author uses in which what happens in nature reflects what happens in a character.Short Answer |
| Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.I never gave you kingdom, called you children.You owe me no subscription. Why then, let fallYour horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave—A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.But yet I call you servile ministers,That will with two pernicious daughters joinedYour high engendered battles ‘gainst a headSo old and white as this. Oh, ho! ‘Tis foul. | Speaker: LearPlot: Outside in the rain, Lear is with the Fool. He doesn’t accuse nature of being mean to him since he never divided up his kingdom with the weather, or raised it as a child. Character: After the horrible things that Goneril and Regan said to him, Lear decides that he would rather sleep outside than stay with one of them. His identity loss is making him go mad.Theme: Identity |
| My wits begin to turn.—(TO FOOL)Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?I am cold myself.(to KENT) Where is this straw, my fellow?The art of our necessities is strangeThat can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heartThat’s sorry yet for thee. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear, Kent, and the Fool are stuck outside and cold. The fool finds a hovel and begs the king to come inside. Lear says that it’s odd how when you’re desperate, even shoddy things like the hovel can seem precious. Character: Lear begins to show compassion to others for the first time. Ironically, he does this as he loses his identity. Compassion makes us human.Theme: Identity |
| Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend youFrom seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’enToo little care of this! Take physic, pomp.Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,That thou mayst shake the superflux to themAnd show the heavens more just. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear apologizes to the poor and homeless, and worries that they will not survive a stormy night like this without a roof over their heads. Lear admits that he didn’t care enough for the poor when he was king.Character: Lear’s compassion for the poor starts to show here, since he’s now living exactly like them. He says that the powerful must feel what the impoverished feel in order to make a more just world.Theme: forgiveness, since Lear is asking for forgiveness from the poor for not caring enough about them. |
| Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.—Is man no more than this? Consider him well.—Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here’s three on ‘s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself.Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.—Off, off, you lendings! Come. Unbutton here | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear sees Poor Tom in the hovel, and says that he owes nothing to animals since he doesn’t wear silk, hid, or wool. Lear says that compared to Tom, the three of them are sophisticated.Character: Lear sees Tom, a man who lives with just the bare minimum Theme: Identity |
| As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods.They kill us for their sport.PROBABLY ON TEST | Speaker: GloucesterPlot: Gloucester’s eyes have just been plucked out by Cornwall and he is in the heath with a loyal old man. He blames the Gods for doing this to him. Gloucester encounters Edgar (Poor Tom) and feels sorry for him.Character: Gloucester is wrong! The gods do nothing, only humans can choose to harm other humans.Theme: Human responsibility, Gods do nothing |
| O, the difference of man and man!To thee a woman’s services are due:My fool usurps my body. | Speaker: GonerilPlot: Goneril praises Edmund, saying that he’s not even comparable to her current husband. She says that she deserves to be his woman. The “fool” that usurps her body is Albany.Character: Goneril shows how in love she is with Edmund in this scene. She reveals that she would much rather have Edmund as her husband than Albany.Theme: Appearance vs. Reality |
| O dear father,It is thy business that I go about.Therefore great FranceMy mourning and importuned tears hath pitied.No blown ambition doth our arms incite,But love—dear love!—and our aged father’s right.Soon may I hear and see him. | Speaker: CordeliaPlot: Cordelia reveals that France is not invading England out of ambition or greed, but out of love for her father. She had to cry to the king to convince him. Character: Cordelia as a Christ figure. Reference to the infancy narratives, “did you not know that I go about my father’s business”Theme: Family, Foolishness |
| I took it for a man | Speaker: GloucesterIt was foolish of Edgar to help Gloucester; that’s what makes him a manTheme: Foolishness |
| Ay, every inch a king. When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause? Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No. The wren goes to ‘t, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive, for Gloucester’s bastard son Was kinder to his father than my daughters got ‘tween the lawful sheets. To ‘t, luxury, pell-mell—for I lack soldiers. Behold yond simpering dame, whose face between her forks presages snow, that minces virtue and does shake the head to hear of pleasure’s name. The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to ‘t with a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit; beneath is all the fiends’. There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the sulfurous pit— burning, scalding, stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie, pah, pah!—Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. There’s money for thee. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear says that Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father than his daughters were to him. Lear says that women are sex machines from the waist down, but they’re celibate from up above. Above the waist they belong to God, but everything below to the devil. Character: No one is showing love to Lear, which makes him go mad. He ponders if humans are even able to love at all (“as far as Lear is concerned, can humans love? ESSAY QUESTION). Lear sees himself as an animal because of this.Theme: Identity |
| To both these sisters have I sworn my love,Each jealous of the other as the stungAre of the adder. Which of them shall I take?Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoyedIf both remain alive. To take the widowExasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril,And hardly shall I carry out my side,Her husband being alive. Now, then, we’ll useHis countenance for the battle, which being done,Let her who would be rid of him deviseHis speedy taking off. As for the mercyWhich he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,The battle done and they within our power,Shall never see his pardon, for my stateStands on me to defend, not to debate. | Speaker: EdmundPlot: Edmund contemplates which sister he should choose to marry. He cannot “enjoy” either one while the other is still alive. He plans to use Albany now to help him win the battle, but after it is over, one of the sisters will kill him. Edmund decides to go against Albany’s wishes and have Lear and Cordelia slain.Character: Edmund proves that he loves only himself. Edmund realizes that France will get pissed if Lear and Cordelia die. That’s what makes him a villain.Theme: |
| No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison.We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel downAnd ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out—And take upon ‘s the mystery of thingsAs if we were God’s spies. And we’ll wear outIn a walled prison packs and sects of great onesThat ebb and flow by the moon. | Speaker: LearPlot: All Lear wants now is to spend the rest of his time in prison with his beloved daughter, Cordelia. Lear says all the things that they’ll do while they are in prisonCharacter: Lear’s identity has been somewhat restored, now that one of his daughters actually loves him. Theme: Identity |
| Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou’lt come no more,Never, never, never, never, never.—Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips.Look there, look there. | Speaker: LearPlot: Lear rushes into the scene holding Cordelia’s dead body. Lear asks why animals are allowed to live, but not his daughter. She will never return to him. Character: Lear finally recovers his identity, only to have it taken away from him again after Cordelia is killed. Theme: Identity, Foolishness. |
King Lear Big Boy Test
July 16, 2019