King Lear

Texts:

• Full text of the tragedy, with variations, annotations and commentary.

Quotations:

• Nothing will come of nothing. (Lear I.1.90)

• Thou, Nature, art my goddess. (Edmund I.2.1)

• Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend... (Lear I.4.257)

• How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child! (Lear I.4.287-8)

• I am a man / More sinned against than sinning. (Lear III.2.59-60)

• Is man no more than this? (Lear III.4.101)

• As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport. (Gloucester IV, 1.36-7)

• Humanity must perforce prey on itself, / Like monsters of the deep. (Albany IV.2.50-1)

• When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools. (Lear IV.6.182-3)

• The wheel is come full circle. (Edmund V.3.177)

Contexts:

• It's probably best to start looking around here, a Shakespeare vortal

• KL on SparkNotes

• Arnie Sanders' take on KL

• Cummings' KL study guide
  

• How to enjoy King Lear

• A nice introduction to King Lear

• A Joyce Carol Oates essay on KL

• An essay on the role of foreshadowings in the play

• The lunar calendar and temporal references in KL

• A Christian perspective

• Read about the British Theatre at the time of Shakespeare

• A .pdf text by Wheeler on tragedy, with quotes and explanations of basic terms

• A .pdf text by Wheeler comparing tragedy and comedy

• Shakespearean pronouns by Cummings
  

Terms:

tragedy, English Renaissance theatre, Elizabethan tragedy, Jacobean tragedy, tragic curve, peripeteia, tragic hero, fatal flaw, hubris, anagnorisis, catharsis, soliloquy.