King Lear

Fiction & Literature, Poetry, British & Irish, Nonfiction, Entertainment, Drama, Shakespeare
Cover of the book King Lear by William Shakespeare, Dover Publications
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: William Shakespeare ISBN: 9780486110240
Publisher: Dover Publications Publication: March 9, 2012
Imprint: Dover Publications Language: English
Author: William Shakespeare
ISBN: 9780486110240
Publisher: Dover Publications
Publication: March 9, 2012
Imprint: Dover Publications
Language: English

First performed about 1805, King Lear is one of the most relentlessly bleak of Shakespeare's tragedies. Probably written between Othello and Macbeth, when the playwright was at the peak of his tragic power, Lear's themes of filial ingratitude, injustice, and the meaninglessness of life in a seemingly indifferent universe are explored with unsurpassed power and depth.
The plot concerns a monarch betrayed by his daughters, robbed of his kingdom, descending into madness. Greed, treachery, and cruelty are rife and the denouement of the play is both brutal and heartbreaking. In fact, so troubling is its vision of man's life that, until the mid-19th century, the play was performed most often with a non-Shakespearean happy ending, with Lear back on his throne and Cordelia, the daughter nearest his heart, happily married to the noble Edgar. But there is a dark magnificence to Shakespeare's original vision of the Lear story, and the play is performed today essentially as he wrote it, uncompromised by later "improvements." King Lear is reprinted here from an authoritative British edition, complete with explanatory footnotes.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

First performed about 1805, King Lear is one of the most relentlessly bleak of Shakespeare's tragedies. Probably written between Othello and Macbeth, when the playwright was at the peak of his tragic power, Lear's themes of filial ingratitude, injustice, and the meaninglessness of life in a seemingly indifferent universe are explored with unsurpassed power and depth.
The plot concerns a monarch betrayed by his daughters, robbed of his kingdom, descending into madness. Greed, treachery, and cruelty are rife and the denouement of the play is both brutal and heartbreaking. In fact, so troubling is its vision of man's life that, until the mid-19th century, the play was performed most often with a non-Shakespearean happy ending, with Lear back on his throne and Cordelia, the daughter nearest his heart, happily married to the noble Edgar. But there is a dark magnificence to Shakespeare's original vision of the Lear story, and the play is performed today essentially as he wrote it, uncompromised by later "improvements." King Lear is reprinted here from an authoritative British edition, complete with explanatory footnotes.

More books from Dover Publications

Cover of the book Mathematical Foundations of Statistical Mechanics by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Violin Master Works and Their Interpretation by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Invariant Subspaces by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Quantum Mechanics of One- and Two-Electron Atoms by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Clearing Weather by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Atomic Physics: 8th Edition by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book An Introduction to Orthogonal Polynomials by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Sacajawea by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book A Treasury of Biblical Quotations by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Kokoro by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book India and Tibet by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Projective Geometry and Projective Metrics by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Generalized Functions and Partial Differential Equations by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book Molecular Collision Theory by William Shakespeare
Cover of the book The Scarlet Letter by William Shakespeare
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy