Customer Reviews

King Lear (The New Folger Library Shakespeare)

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I have reviewed several current editions of King Lear and other Shakespearean plays, and was somewhat disappointed in the Folger edition of King Richard III. Nevertheless, the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of King Lear appears to be both accessible and scholarly, with solid reasoning behind its balance of the First Quarto with the First Folio versions of this intense and telling tragedy which we do well to revisit now.

My first love will always be Prof. Tucker Brook's redaction in the The Tragedy Of King Lear (The Yale Shakespeare) which against the academic preferences of the time chose the First Quarto over the First Folio. The reasons given by the Late Prof. are compelling, and brought about a generation of conflated editions which combined the two versions. The Quarto came first in publication, of course, and is longer; the Folio is later and does not contain several lines present in the Quarto (I believe about three hundred) yet introduces several (perhaps one hundred) of its own.

And so we have a generation of productions which sought to combine the two. For instance we have an early recording of Paul Scofield as the King using a conflated edition and a later recording from his eighties in which only the Folio is used: King Lear (Naxos AudioBooks), following as it states the The Tragedy of King Lear (The New Cambridge Shakespeare), a strictly First Folio presentation. The greatest available recording is of course the Branagh - Gielgud production King Lear (BBC Radio Presents) which must be purchased and repeatedly heard, as it is real. Be certain to get the accompanying brochure.

Be that as it may, with this brief description of the history of this tortured text, let me state this present edition from Folger presents solid reasons for its always arbitrary choices. While stating their preference for the First Folio edition, they actually publish here a conflated version, with variant readings in a variety of brackets and poiinted parentheses, with explanations. They have produced therefore something here of great value, yet at a small price and therefore accessible to any classroom, production company or reader.

As usual the Folger diverges from the usual Critical Edition format of a third of a page of text, a strip of variorum and a third of a page of notes to the text above. Folger correctly fids more readable a diptych approach. In opening the book to the play, the reader discovers on the right hand page the text and on the left hand page notes. Further specific notes are discovered in the back.

In short (if it is not too late to write that) this book may approach any other critical edition, and passes many (let us not mention the unfortunate Joe Pearce's attempt). It presents a thorough examination of Shakespeare's life and theatre, suggestions on reading "his" language, and on reading Lear, this great tragedy for our times. A critical essay by Susan Snyder is included in the back, as well as suggestions for further readings. I find this edition in brief very useful for any new scholar of Lear, and I only wish I could now afford the new King Lear: New Critical Essays (Shakespeare Criticism), or even Critical Essays on Shakespeare's King Lear (Critical Essays on British Literature), and the rest.

The Folger Shakespeare Library editions of all of Shakespeare's plays are excellent for use in the classroom. The notes are very illuminating, and there is much scholarship invested in being true to the original text. However, this printing of the play is too small. The pages are essentially 4 x 6 index cards (truly 4 x 6 1/2). The font is too tiny to encourage students to engage the text with confidence.
If you are already familiar with the play, this printing will suffice for reference. If you are new to the play, look for a larger book with larger font and margin space for notes.

Lear starts his tragedy with a lie. He has divided his kingdom into one larger and two smaller equal parts and promises to give the larger part to that of his daughters who vows the strongest love for him. Yet after Goneril speaks he immediately awards her one of the smaller parts, instead of listening to her sisters and then deciding the fate of the largest bounty. He thus negates his word and turns the auction into a formality for his pre-arranged plan of giving Cordelia the largest part and her sisters the two smaller parts. The whole scene is crass and the king is doubly crass (once for the auction, once more for the lie). He gives his word on the auction on line 52, breaks it on line 69 and forgets about his lie on line 193 where he rages at Kent for urging him to renege on his allegedly never broken word.

Lear starts his tragedy a crazy man. Cordelia's attempt at expressing that she "obeys, loves and most honors" the king only earns her being disowned half a page later. This precipitous fall from being the favorite daughter slated to receive the largest part of the kingdom to the one who "better ... hadst not been born" is incredible.

Most of all, this is a tragedy of detachment. Lear and Cornwall obviously do not have a relationship with their children and know nothing about their children's true feelings for them. Lear does not hear Cordelia and Gloucester does not try to hear Edgar out. Both have to face devastating atrocities before they see their children for who they are. "To willful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters". They both suffer when they feel unloved by their offspring, they both die before they can enjoy their children's love. The suffering of the two old men is unrelenting, and in this sense "Lear" is as heartbreaking as "Macbeth" is macabre and "Othello" is insidious.

The balance of power, 4:4 (Cordelia, Fool, Kent and Edgar against Gonereil, Reagan, Edmund and Cornwall, with Lear and Glocester in the middle and Albany largely on the fence), is tilted towards the higher ranked evil four. In a game of chess, the former four would have been pawns, knights and bishops and the latter queens and rooks. In the end, Kent and Edgar, a knight and a pawn, save the day.

And yet, the end of the play offers no redemption. The two old men are dead. All those devoted to them are either dead or despondent. The Fool, his spirit giving out as he urged Lear to go back to the two evil daughters and ask their blessing, disappears from the play without a grace. Kent is preparing to follow Lear into the world of shadows. Cordelia is murdered and Edgar predicts an uninspiring future for himself and the young that remain. There is no consolation for dead or living.

This was one of my favorite Shakespeare tragedies because despite Lear bringing the misfortune on himself, the reader truly does feel for sorry for him. When Cordelia could not declare her love to Lear like her sisters did, he takes this as a lack of love for him. Of course it wasn't, but Lear's desperate neccesity for admiration from those around eventually becomes his downfall.

While all of that action is going on, Gloucester's illegitimate son, Edmund is on the rise to power, hoping to overtake his brother. King Lear is obviously a tragedy, but there is one aspect of it at the end that is truly rewarding to the reader. Though none of Shakespeare's plays are, read this one and you definetly won't be dissapointed.

I recently re-read KING LEAR prior to attending The Denver Theatre Company's performance of this play. Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote this emotionally-moving tragedy between 1603 and 1606, and it was performed for the first time in 1606. With its insights into the nature of human suffering and kinship, and its theme of human blindness, it is regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies.

KING LEAR is based on the legend of King Leir, a king of pre-Roman Britain. It tells the story of King Lear's decision to abdicate the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. In a moment of vanity, Lear decides to divide his lands according to how much each daughter demonstrates her love for him. Because Cordelia refuses to engage such a contest of flattery with her elder sisters, Lear divides his kingdom between Goneril and Regan, banishing Cordelia. Despite her disinheritance, the King of France marries her. Soonafter abdicating his throne, Lear discovers that Goneril and Regan's feelings for him have grown cold. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan also have a falling out with one another while defending Cordelia's army from France, sent to restore Lear to his throne. Goneril poisons Regan, then stabs herself.

In a subplot, involving the Earl of Gloucester two sons, Edmund concocts false stories about his legitimate half-brother, Edgar, who is forced into exile. Edmund then aligns himself with Goneril and Regan, and his father is blinded by Regan's husband. Edgar, disguised as a lunatic, finds his blinded father out wandering in a storm, trying to find his the way to Dover.

In Dover, Lear, who has gone raving mad, is reunited with Gloucester, Edgar, and Cordelia before the battle between Britain and France. When the French lose, Edmund orders the execution of Lear and Cordelia. Edgar, still in disguise, reveals himself to Edmund before killing his evil half brother. Although Edmund stays the execution of Lear and Cordelia, unfortunately, the reprieve comes too late as Lear enters the scene carrying Cordelia's dead body in his arms. Then he dies.

As a tragedy, KING LEAR is appealing for its nihilistic conclusion that human existence is essentially meaningless, and that life is devoid of a true morality.

G. Merritt

This Shakespeare play was a more difficult story line to follow. There were a lot of seperate plots happening at once. i did enjoy it however because Shakespeare keeps it interesting with lots of humor and violence. Shakespeare's fundamental elements of hidden identities and deception run rampant in the twisting and turning story line.

The story follows the life of King Lear who makes a some what bizarre decision to split up his kingdom between his three daughters before he dies instead of after. He then banishes his youngest and favorite daughter for disagreeing with him and divides his land between his two evil daughters. Shakespeare tries to get the audience to have sympathy for Lear yet it is hard to do being that he brought all of the trouble he goes through upon himself. Overall it was a very intriguing story about regrets and decision making and i enjoyed reading the play.

It was in mint condition and shipped very well. The book was very intact and all the pages were there.

The reason I always choose Folger Library Shakespeare scripts is that it is set up for the actor to better understand the vocabulary of Shakespeare. The page on the left hand side is dedicated to the description of the dialogue and/or the scene plot and the right side page carries the script.
There is an excellent description of the play at the beginning of the book, with resources for further reading.

The price is also reasonable.

"King Lear" is Shakespeare's most profound utterance. It is a play concerned with love and justice, social and divine. King Lear gives love uncontrollably and expects to be loved in the same fashion. He loved the little one, Cordelia, best (I.i.137, 245, & 336) and we must thus assume the most violent resentment on the part of the two elder daughters, who have learned to say not what they feel but what they ought to say. Cordelia's honest proclamation that her future husband will have to share in her love with Lear is understood by the latter as a complete rejection, worthy of banishment.

The "subplot" concerning Gloucester's two sons continues the theme of the centrality of love in the formation of character. We should understand Gloucester's love for both of his children as a more recent phenomena having required the gradual overcoming of his embarrassment at his younger son, Edmund's, illegitimacy (I.i. 10). That Edmund has overheard his father's opening comments to Kent is confirmed by his paraphrasing of them in the second scene (I.ii. 18) and that this shaming has been a part of Edmund's experience since childhood appears probable in light of his final, transformative reaction to the unexpected feelings of love and pity experienced by him at the end of the play. Before then Edmund has been away for nine years and has been fully formed in relation to his memory of his father's earlier behavior.

The motif of "nothing," "nothingness" is hammered throughout the play even before it becomes imbued by any symbolic significance. Having given away his love and receiving none from his daughters Lear becomes 'nothing,' ontologically empty ("Lear's shadow"). Edgar, likewise experiences his rejection by his father - on faulty and conspiratorial premises - as an annihilation of his being ("Edgar I nothing am"). "He childed like I fathered," says Edgar of his godfather Lear. The comparison is that between two egos who know only love and have been annihilated by the rejection of their loved ones. Edgar's transformation into Tom of Bedlam is not only a practical disguise but an acting out of the loss of identity (consider that he continues to use mad Tom's vocal mannerisms even in soliliquy [III.vii.126]) and his refusal to reveal himself to his father perhaps until he is ready to undertake an act which will justify his being loved again (III.vii. 121-124).

Those who love give away all; those who feel no love take everything in order to make up for the emptiness. Edmund, Regan, Goneril and Cornwall seem always conscious of their desire to conquer even more power. Those who suffer hardship react in two ways - 1) they experience *ever increasing degrees of empathy,* by which they commit themselves to the relief of others through acts of and belief in social justice, and 2) they *imagine a system of divine justice,* by which they attempt to reconcile themselves to what's been lost.

Edgar testifies that he has witnessed madmen, buffeted by nature, threatening others to do them enforced "charity" by piercing their own numbed arms in terrifying display. We have just seen such a thing occur with Edmund in Act II, scene i. We also know that he has called upon Nature as his goddess. Thus what we have here (like 'the Turk' in "Othello") is a rare Shakespearean metaphor: Edmund is Nature. King Lear's own pronouncement to the howling storm on the heath - "Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters... I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children/ You owe me no subscription: then, let fall/ Your horrible pleasure" further illustrates the point. Nature is the lack of love. It is loveless and existential. It is godless; god being an ego defense. It is "nothing."

These themes all come together in the final and most powerful scene of the play.

King Lear is one of the bloodiest plays in Shakespeare's body of work. And it is a harrowing play. Not just death, but cruelty and brutality reign. Lear, as father, makes an ill-conceived choice in rewarding his three daughters--Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.

This sets in motion Lear's downward spiral and begets conspiracies, betrayals, and murder. By the play's end, several leading characters have died. And, by that time, Lear has come to understand the folly of his choices regarding his daughters. By then, too late. . . .

A powerful and dark tragedy. . . .