Customer Reviews

King Lear (No Fear Shakespeare)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Years ago when my husband's father, a farmer for many years, first saw large round-style hay bales, he wept with joy because, since these new bales could not be lifted by hand, he knew farmworkers would no longer need to risk the heavy, injurious previous work of stacking and transporting their hay.

I know how he felt. It nearly brought tears to my eyes to first experience reading a No Fear Shakespeare. I cannot overstate the ease this text brings to the pleasure and excitement of a Shakespeare play. If you have wanted to read Shakespeare but found the language too archaic to understand, if you have enjoyed reading Shakespeare but not the time it took to plow through the footnotes and concordances, if you have been assigned to read Shakespeare plays for a class and want to know which edition to use, if you have always meant to read Shakespeare to find out for yourself what "all the fuss" is about - this is the version to read.

As for the play King Lear itself, it is a beautiful, painful, truthful story of a human being in all his prideful flaws, who learns to understand himself and his relations with others, even though paying the ultimate tragic price. Shakespeare's genius is telling a story that we all can relate to, and part of you will be right there on the heath in the storm raging with Lear.

Masterful as always, this tragic story of the aging King Lear.

Caring for an aging parent? Wondering who is going to take care of you when you get old? Wondering how you will be treated in your old age?Thinking about Estate Planning? Read King Lear!!!

Shakespeare is still "da man," and "No Fear" is the only way to read him. Don't miss this, one of his best works...

It's better than "All My Children" on ABC!!!

I never liked Shakespeare. I never understood Shakespeare. Then along came No Fear Shakespeare and now I not only get it, but am eager to read more of the bard. King Lear has it all - arrogance, greed, love, hate, redemption - what a great story! I heartily recommend.

This book made reading and understanding Shakespeare so much easier, which allevated stress on understanding what the story/play was all about, and I could appreciate the play.

Needed this book for school and we got it really fast and it was in great condition. Will definitely choose this sender again.

I LOVE love love these books. This one on King Lear is excellent and makes this play very approachable and readable.

I hear a lot of people claim that the "No Fear" editions are the best way to read Shakespeare, but if you're reading this book, then you are not reading Shakespeare. Well, actually, I suppose you may be reading Shakespeare on one half of the pages, but on the other half you're reading, oh, sort of the vague imprint of the play, like a track in the dust.

You may think I'm just being a snob, but the truth is these "translated" versions that are all the rage these days just don't do the play justice, and the "translations" are misleading, because they take ambiguous language and pin one specific, modern definition to it, a definition which is often wrong and always too narrow. It's like eating soup out of a sieve; what you get out is simply not what you put in.

If you want to read "King Lear", then read "King Lear", but don't waste your time with this distant cousin.