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English Drama > King Lear - Key quotes > Flashcards

King Lear - Key quotes Flashcards

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Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

Duty and obligation of the old feudal system

A
  • “I love your majesty according to my bond”

- “you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master.”

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2
Q

Lear crying (emasculation)

A
  • “thou hast power to shake my manhood thus”

- “let not women’s weapons, water drops, stain my man’s cheeks.”

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3
Q

Symbol of blindness

A
  • “see better, Lear”

- “how far your eyes pierce I cannot tell”

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4
Q

Presentation of mortality and decay of the old feudal system

A
  • “while we Unburdened crawl toward death”
  • “so be my grave my peace”
  • “that we may wake the king? He hath slept long”
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5
Q

Emptiness of value presented through hyperbolic love

A
  • “I love you more than world can wield the matter… beyond what can be valued”
  • “she names my very deed of love. Only she comes to short”
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6
Q

Appearance of wealth through the poverty of the state, the empty worth of status

A
  • “honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king”
  • “Fairest Cordelia, that are most rich being poor”
  • “they are not men o’their words. They told me I was everything.”
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7
Q

Manipulation of languages, expressions of equivocation

A
  • “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child”
  • “I want that glib and oily art, to speak and purpose not”
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8
Q

Incapacity of language

A

-“I cannot heave my heart into my mouth”

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9
Q

Destruction and breakdown of the paternal relationship

A
  • “the bond is cracked ‘twixt son and father”

- “fed the cuckoo so long, that it’s had it head bit off by it young”

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10
Q

Foolishness, idiocy of the hierarchy

A
  • “the excellent foppery of the world”

- “when majesty falls to folly”

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11
Q

Comparison between wisdom and age

A
  • “Sir, I am too old to learn”

- “thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise”

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12
Q

Physical paring, emptiness of the head (loss of wisdom)

A
  • “the two crowns of the egg”

- “thou hast pared thy wit o’both sides and left nothing i’th’middle”

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13
Q

Foolishness of Lear, physical search for identity

A
  • “O fool, I shall go mad”

- “who is it that can tell me who I am? / Lear’s shadow”

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14
Q

Rejection of the truth, falsity

A
  • “wisdom bids fear”

- “truth’s a dog must to kennel. He must (be) whipped out”

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15
Q

Offering to the legitimate child, the transgression of power, support of old feudal system

A
  • “I gave you all / And in good time you gave it”

- “Fathers that wear rags do make their children blind, but fathers that bear bags shall see their children kind”

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16
Q

Subversion of nature and status

A

-“Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land”
-“I would unstate myself”
“only we shall retain the name and all th’ addition to a king”

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17
Q

Expressions of absence

A
  • “nothing can be made out of nothing”

- “nothing will come of nothing, speak again”

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18
Q

The anger of the patriarch against the disloyal child

A
  • “come not between the dragon and his wrath”

- “abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain”

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19
Q

Rejection of the old feudal system to find identity of self

A
  • “I will forget my nature”

- “Edgar I nothing am”

20
Q

Appearance of fate, constant cycle of good and bad fortune

A
  • “striving to better, oft we mar what’s well”

- “when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following”

21
Q

Blood as a symbol of obligation and duty (sin)

A
  • “my corrupted blood”

- “thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh”

22
Q

Suffering of the self, unknowing

A
  • “tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself”
  • “we are not ourselves when nature, being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body.”
23
Q

Destruction of the physical chain of being has set the world into turmoil, the loss of the head

A
  • “the realm of Albion/ Come to great confusion.”

- “where’s the king.”

24
Q

Lear and Edgar are enslaved to the natural powers and fortune

A
  • “here I stand your slave, a poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.”
  • “what are you?// A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows”
25
Q

Outward expressions of grief and pain

A
  • “grief hath crazed my wits”

- “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks”

26
Q

Breakdown of natural world, shift

A
  • “Crack nature’s moulds”
  • “o ruined piece of nature”
  • “cure this great breach in his abused nature”
27
Q

The storm as a representation of the daughters

A

-“Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters… I never gave you kingdom, called you children.”

28
Q

Greed of the world portrayed in the storm

A

-“thou all-shaking thunder, strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world”

29
Q

Encroaching madness of the night, devolved into foolishness

A
  • “O that way madness lies”
  • “the cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen”
  • “Here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools”
30
Q

Physical blindness

A
  • “vile jelly”
  • “all dark and comfortless”
  • “his bleeding rings, their precious stones new-lost”
31
Q

Presentation of sin and the incapacity of the justice system

A

-“unwhipped of justice”
-“I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”
“the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks”

32
Q

Restoration of sympathy and sub-hamartia of Lear

A
  • “my wits begin to turn”

- “I have one part in my heart that’s sorry yet for thee”

33
Q

Marxist reversion of the state, the young against the old

A
  • “the younger rises when the old doth fall”

- “our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, that it doth hate what gets it”

34
Q

Appearance of the ‘pelican daughters’ and the transubstantiation of the father

A
  • “filial ingratitude. Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand for lifting food to’t?”
  • “your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all-“
  • “child-changed father”
35
Q

Nakedness, the stripping bare of one’s soul

A
  • “poor naked wretches”
  • “off, off, you lendings!”
  • “unaccomadated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal”
36
Q

Loss of familial loyalty and bonds

A
  • “his daughters seek his death”
  • “thou shalt find a dearer father in my love”
  • “I shalt see the winged vengeance overtake such children”
37
Q

Apparent innocence of the female

A

-“the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding”

38
Q

The disillusionment that follows power and symbols of power

A
  • “the art of our necessities is strange, and can make vile things precious”
  • “robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold.”
39
Q

Images of smell, olfactory, and allusion to sin

A
  • “there I smelt them out”
  • “let him smell his way to Dover”
  • “let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality”
40
Q

Presentation of the monstrosity of femininity

A
  • “women will all turn monsters” (Quarto)

- “see thyself, devil: proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman”

41
Q

Cordelia’s death

A
  • “I know when one is dead and when one lives. She’s as dead as earth”
  • “Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little”
42
Q

Lear is subjected to the machinations of fate

A
  • “he hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer”
  • “I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald like molten lead”
43
Q

Futility of life, overwhelming insignificance

A
  • “as flies to wanton boys are we to th’gods; they kill us for their sport”
  • “all’s cheerless, dark, and deadly”
  • “when we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
44
Q

metaphorical blindness of Gloucester, and the possibility of sight in companionship with the foolish

A
  • “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes: I stumbled when I saw”
  • “tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind”
45
Q

Cruelty of youth

A
  • “gilded serpents”

- “I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes”

46
Q

Search for forgiveness and redemption

A
  • “forget and forgive. I am old and foolish”

- “I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, despite of mine own nature.”

47
Q

Final message, the implication of human error

A

-“speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”

English Drama (5 decks)

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