Reading Questions for King Lear

1. The story of King Leir that came down to Shakespeare was set in approximately 800 BCE ( Before Common Era).   Use Google or some other search engine or your own knowledge to find other items that are dated from, say, 1100 to 700 BCE.

2.   Look up the term feudal in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) http://dictionary.oed.com/.   What is central to its meaning?   And when did it begin to be used? (To look up words in the OED, you will need to use a computer on campus or set up a proxy for your computer.   To set up the proxy, see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/network/proxy/#nscp.)    

3. Can you see any pointers to feudal social structure or feudal values in the play?

4. Does King Lear make a mistake by giving away his kingdom?   How can you decide what to think about this question?   How does the play seem to answer it?   Does the play have more than one answer?   Do you think historical information would help?   What would you need to know?

5. What about a father?   Do you think it would be a mistake or a good idea for parents to give property to children while the parents are still alive?

6.   The play is pre-Christian as well as pre-feudal.   Do you see any Christian ideas or patterns in the play?

7. What is “glib and oily art” (I, i, 244)?   What is its opposite?

8.   When Cordelia says, "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides" (I, i, 280), what does she imply?  

9. Look up the word bond in the OED. Can you find any definitions or examples of usage that you think help to interpret King Lear?    What does Cordelia mean when she says she loves her father according to her bond (I, i, 90)?  What does Gloucester mean (I, ii, 101)?   Edmund (II, I, 46 ff.).

10.   How does Edmund use the words nature and natural (I, ii, 1 ff); unnatural (II, i, 49)?   What about Lear (I, i, 212)?  What do you make of Lear’s suggestion that they “anatomize Regan” to “see what breeds about her heart”?   He wants to know whether there is “any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts” (III, vi, 71 ff). Track on other uses of these terms.   

11. The idea of service is of fundamental importance in the play.   Who uses the words serve and service?     What does authority have to do with service?   What sort of relationship do these words outline?   Do they belong to family or state?   both?   neither?

12. Characterize Kent’s role in Act II, scene ii.   Notice his speech at 13 ff., his claim to be “plain” (84), and his being put in the stocks (140 ff).   Why does Lear have such a strong reaction to seeing Kent (Caius) in the stocks (II, iv)?

13.   Is it possible to think of the storm   (III) as both literal and figurative?  

14 .   Filial ingratitude: Find instances of the play’s interest in filial ingratitude.   (see, for example, III, iv, 14 ff; see also an earlier use: I, iv, 271 ff).

15. What does "unaccommodated man" mean (III, iv, 100ff)?  Why is it contrasted with "sophisticated"?  

            [We’ll want to consider later whether Victor—as “natural man”—is comparable to “unaccommodated man,” and whether the concept of “man” is possible without the idea of some kinds of accommodation.]

 16.   At several points, the play seems to foretell remedies or restorations (Kent reads letter from Cordelia: II, ii, 153-161;  word comes of an army from France: III, i, 30;  the drive toward Dover: III, vi, 85 ff.;  Cordelia prays for Earth’s natural remedies: IV, iv, 15;  a gentleman calls Cordelia the “one daughter / Who redeems nature”: IV, vi, 200;   Edmund says, “Some good I mean to do, / Despite of mine own nature”: V, iii, 242-3). What is the function of these promises in the play?  What happens to them by the end of the play?

17. There are a number of powerful curses in the play (e.g.,“Here I disclaim all my paternal care” (I, i, 110 ff.) and “Into her womb convey sterility” (I, iv, 259 ff).   What is the function of these curses?

18. What can you say about the blinding of Gloucester (III, vii, 68 ff) and about his foreshadowing of it (III, vii, 58 ff)?   In the structure of the play, what is Gloucester’s relation to Lear?

19.   Do the meeting and reconciliation of Lear and Cordelia (IV, vii, ff) bring a sense of resolution to the play?

20.   Goneril’s and Regan’s ambition is degraded by the plot of the play into a competition for Edmund.   The state almost becomes a prize to attract him with. (See VI, i, 5 ff).   What happens to their stature as they become sisters quarreling over a potential lover?

21. The play ends with Edgar speaking:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

Exeunt, with a dead march

            In what way does Edgar’s speech seem to be a fitting end to the play?   In what way is it not fitting?   Could you compare it to the ending of Antigone?

22. A lot of characters die at the end of both Antigone and King Lear.   Do you think it’s worth comparing the two endings?

Lear Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean to say there can be an analogy between family and state? What happens to the word family by the comparison with the state?   What happens to the word state by comparison with the family?   Do we still use this metaphor? (Think about “founding fathers.”)

Compare the family/state analogy to other metaphors for a state, e.g., a “ship of state”; the “body politic.”   Compare with modern ideas such as the “melting pot”; and “safety net.”   Can you think of other relevant examples?

2. By the end of Act I, everything is well on its way to serious disorder.   What is the basis of this disorder?   What do you think the play seems to imply about politics (about kings and subjects? about the nature of political power?)?   What does the play imply about family?

3.   The plot (Lear-Goneril-Regan-Cordelia) is paralleled by the subplot (Gloucester-Edmund-Edgar), which, as your editor explains, was not in Shakespeare’s sources. What difference does having the subplot make to the play?   Can you imagine the play without Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar?

4. What do you make of words having to do with seeing, sight, blindness?   Could you discuss Tieresias’s blindness and Gloucester’s together or is it only a superficial similarity?

5. A number of times, Lear asks or is told who he is.  What do you make of this question in the play?

6. What do you make of the fool?   Could you compare him to the chorus in Antigone?

7. There are many women in the play, but no mothers.    What effect do you think the absence of mothers creates?   Can you imagine Lear’s wife?   Goneril’s children?   Edmund’s mother?   What difference would such characters have made to the play?

When we read Locke, think about the importance of mothers in Two Treatises of Government.