Essay Plans And Intro

Question 1

Intro

Answer 1

King Lear is acknowledged to be one of the greatest tragedies in literature. First performed at St Stephen’s night (1606) at Whitehall palace.

Tragic genre

With links to the historical king ‘Leir’ from pre-Christian Britain and earlier narratives from Holinshed and Monmouth

Bradley - ‘King Lear is too huge for the stage’

Question 2

Act 1

Answer 2

Flattery
Lear banished Kent and Cordelia
Goneril and Regan bitch about Lear
Edmund complains he’s base

Gloucester read letter and gets angry at Edgar who he thinks wants to kill him so he can have his land and money

G eclipses
Edmund excellent foppery
Edmund deceived Edgar bc he doesn’t know Edmund wrote the letter - tells Edgar to go out armed from G who wants to kill him

Goneril annoyed with Lear and doesn’t wanna see him
Lear hires disguised Kent
Kent trips up Oswald and gains Lear’s liking
Fool rambles about truth and eggs and how dumb Lear was splitting kingdom (big FOOL speech bit)

Goneril confronts Lear about all the chaos
Lear’s shadow and am I not Lear part
Goneril continues making her point about Lear and his knights’ rowdiness
Lear packs off to Regan’s
Lear some kind of anagnorisis about Cordelia??
Sterile Goneril bit and hyperbolic Lear claiming he will pluck his eyes out

Lear has convo with he fool; Lear says I will forget my nature quote, fool basically says Lear is old before he is wise. Lear fears madness

Question 3

Act 2

Answer 3

Rumours of beef between Cornwall and Albany which works to Edmunds advantage

Edmund tells a Edgar to run (hes pretending to be on his side)

Edmund cuts his own arm and pretends it was Edgar

Gloucester sets out search for Edgar