King Lear in the Storm

King Lear

William Shakespearec. 1605
ShakespeareGruelingTragedyEnglishMedium · 105 pages
Influence95th pct
Popularity72nd pct
Where it ranks
#23of 194Overall#4of 38Shakespeare

Read this if you…

  • are reading all the greatest Shakespeares
  • like when succession leads to family infighting
  • want Shakespeare's best plot

Skip this if you…

  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated

Why It Matters

The bleakest play in the English language. A king gives away his kingdom and finds out that the world, once you have no power, is savage and indifferent and absurd. Lear out on the heath, raging at the storm, is the most iconic image of human suffering in all of theater. A lot of people call it the greatest play ever written, and it's hard to argue with them.

The Groblé Take

Maybe my favorite Shakespeare plots. The disguised good guy Kent pulling strings, the evil Edmund plotting against his own family, even more devious than lears 2 daughters, the mad ramblings of the king mixed with wisdom, Edgar as poor tom leading his blind father. Absolute banger.

Connections

Where to go next

Built Onwhat came beforeWhat It Shapedwhat it set in motionKing LearThe Complete Es…JobMoby-Dick or, T…Wuthering Heigh…

  • The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne. King Lear built on it. - The skeptical, self-interrogating mind of *King Lear* is mined from Montaigne — 100-plus words new to Shakespeare here come straight out of Florio's 1603 translation - Edmund's amoral reasoning and Lear's doubt are the *Essays* dramatized; even Edmund's "essay or taste of my virtue" is a wink at the source - Read Montaigne first and you meet the thinking behind the play — Nietzsche called Shakespeare "Montaigne's best reader"
  • Job by Unknown. King Lear built on it. - Behind the heath stands *Job* — the great man broken, demanding an answer the universe won't give - Shakespeare reworks Job's theodicy into theater: the innocent's suffering (Cordelia for Job), the formidable figure reduced to rags and questions - Read *Job* first and Lear's storm-speeches sound like a man asking what the whirlwind never quite answered
  • Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville. King Lear shaped it. - Ahab is a Shakespearean tragic hero by design — built on the *Lear*/Macbeth model of the great man undone by his own will - Melville bought a seven-volume Shakespeare set in early 1849, his "edition in glorious great type," and marked *Lear* more heavily than almost any other play - Scholars credit *Lear* with the deepest creative impact on him — its storm, its rage against the heavens, its ruined king all surface again on the *Pequod*
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. King Lear shaped it. - The one secular book Emily Brontë names inside *Wuthering Heights* — Lockwood says his threats "smacked of King Lear" - Brontë had the run of her father's Shakespeare and is reported to have been reading *Lear* as she wrote; its storm-lashed madness and inheritance-poisoned revenge are stamped all over Heathcliff - *Lear* gave her the template for a tragedy of houses torn apart from within — bloodline, betrayal, and a man raging on the moor
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Lear rages bareheaded on the heath at the height of the tempest, supported by Edgar as Poor Tom, Kent, and the Fool as Gloucester arrives with a torch.

Benjamin West, 1788

Cordelia kneels at the foot of a curtained bed where the awakened Lear sits up, taking her hand in dawning recognition.

John Rogers Herbert

An aged white-bearded Lear cradles the limp body of the hanged Cordelia on a stone slab, ringed by mourning figures and a megalithic ruin.

James Barry, 1788

Lear thrusts an outstretched, accusing arm toward Cordelia in the opening throne-room scene; Goneril and Regan recoil and Kent intervenes.

Henry Fuseli

Cordelia in white embraces her two sisters in stiff farewell while Lear watches from the throne behind, the courtiers ranged across the dais.

Edwin Austin Abbey, 1898

Cordelia, slender in pale silk, stands isolated at the foot of Lear's throne while Goneril and Regan recline in jewelled gowns to one side.

Sir John Gilbert, 1873

Lear sits cross-legged on a windswept rocky bluff, raving up at the lightning, while the Fool huddles at his knee with head in hands.

William Dyce, 1851

Another small West variant of the heath scene with Lear at the centre and his band of companions in stormy chiaroscuro.

Benjamin West

Storm-scene tableau of Lear, Edgar, Kent, the Fool and Gloucester on the heath; a smaller variant of the Boydell composition.

Benjamin West

Lear stands defiant on a wave-battered shore facing into the gale, the Fool and a loyal attendant clinging to him, a ship foundering in the distance.

John Runciman, 1767

Lear collapses over the lifeless body of Cordelia in her white shroud; Kent and Edgar look on in the dim aftermath of the battle.

Anonymous

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$6.99$6.51

Folger Shakespeare Library

2004

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise Google, without breaking the scene to do it.

Buy on Bookshop
#2

SparkNotes (No Fear Shakespeare)

2003

$7.99$7.45Buy
#3

Arden Shakespeare

2015

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

Notable Quotes

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”

— Gloucester, King Lear

“Nothing will come of nothing.”

— Lear, King Lear

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