King Lear – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Questions on
Shakespeare’s Tragedies

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Folio with additions from the Quarto. (The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840.)

ACT 1

1. In Act 1, Scene 1, Gloucester introduces his natural son (i.e. a son not born in wedlock) Edmund to Lear’s advisor Kent, and what will soon become the “Gloucester sub-plot” gets under way. In what manner does Gloucester introduce Edmund? Why does he make a point of emphasizing the circumstances of this son’s conception in the humorous way that he does? What effect might hearing such language have on Edmund? Also, what do we learn about Edmund at this early point—how close is he to the family? In how much regard is he held?

2. In Act 1, Scene 1, does Lear’s division of his kingdom remind you of a fairy tale? If so, in what way? Try writing a brief narrative beginning, “Once upon a time, there lived an old king who had three daughters ….” Describe your expectations about how the story might end based on Lear’s opening division of the kingdom in the particular manner Shakespeare has contrived.

3. In Act 1, Scene 1, what, if anything, is the problem with Lear’s decision to step aside and to divide his kingdom into thirds? Is dividing his kingdom inherently a bad idea, or is there a flaw in the particular way that he does so? Moreover, this is not simply an abdication, so what exactly is the King proposing to retain, and what is he giving up? (See lines 35-39 “’tis our fast intent …” and 127-35 “I do invest you ….”)

4. In Act 1, Scene 1, why does Lear appear to need the public display of affection from his daughters that he apparently imagines he is going to get and—at least when it comes to his eldest Goneril and his middle daughter Regan—does in fact get? What personal need might this display satisfy in the old king? Consider both Goneril and Regan as rhetoricians—what persuasive strategy do they respectively follow?

5. In Act 1, Scene 1, Cordelia exhibits that common quality of goodness—inability to explain itself, as opposed to the loquaciousness of wickedness. What reasons does Cordelia offer herself and the King for not going along with his request for a public display of affection? If she truly loves her frail old father, why doesn’t she go along with his request? Isn’t this kind of linguistic (and even ethical) fluidity a requirement for anyone involved in politics? Why is Cordelia so dead set against “playing the game”? Is she right to refuse, or not? Explain.

6. In Act 1, Scene 1, Kent speaks truth to Lear’s raging power, and promptly gets himself banished. How good (or bad) is his attempt as a piece of rhetorical persuasion? Is the plain-spoken counselor Kent in some sense repeating the laconic or tongue-tied Cordelia’s error? If you find Kent’s strategy flawed, do you think any other strategy might have worked where Kent’s failed? Why or why not?

7. In Act 1, Scene 1, how do Cordelia’s two powerful suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, receive the blow that Lear’s rage delivers to their hopes for a prosperous and advantageous marriage? Why does Burgundy reject Cordelia, and how does Cordelia reassert her dignity in response to him? Why, in turn, does France choose to make her his queen, in spite of her newly suffered poverty?

8. In Act 1, Scene 1, what comments do Regan and Goneril offer at 771, 1.1.284-96 (“You see how full of changes his age is …”) regarding their father’s past character and his present conduct? In what sense might their views be considered reasonable? Nonetheless, what do they reveal about themselves, especially in their mutual upbraiding of Cordelia right before this conversation takes place?

9. In Act 1, Scene 2, Edmund and Gloucester separately give us their respective understandings of “nature.” Examine Edmund’s soliloquy at the beginning of the scene, Gloucester’s astrology-based gloss from lines 93-106 (“These late eclipses …”), and then Edmund’s response to the now-departed Gloucester beginning at line 107 (“This is the excellent foppery of the world …”). How do the father and his “natural” son, respectively, talk about this concept? What advantage does Edmund’s view give him in comparison to his plot against Gloucester, and why?

10. In Act 1, Scene 3, we begin to realize that Lear’s plan to spend his time at the estates of his two powerful daughters is not going well. To judge from what Oswald the Steward and Goneril say, what has the King been getting up to? Does his behavior sound genuinely offensive? What is Goneril’s plan to deal with her father, and how would you describe her attitude toward him at this point?

11. In Act 1, Scene 4, on what principle does the banished Earl of Kent return to serve King Lear as “Caius”? How does he manage to disguise himself well enough to avoid detection? What manner does he adopt that catches the King’s attention and wins his favor? What is Kent’s first material act of service, and what is his reward for it?

12. In Act 1, Scene 4, consider the Fool’s interaction with King Lear. What does the Fool do for Lear—what insight is he able to offer the King about his situation now that he has given over his kingdom to his daughters? Discuss also the modes (songs, riddles, etc.) that the Fool employs to convey his meaning. Which mode do you find most effective, and why? In addition, what effect might the presence of the Fool have on our perspective with regard to the King—does it distance us from his suffering, endear him to us, or would you describe the effect some other way? Explain.

13. In Act 1, Scene 4, after her servant has insulted the King, Goneril enters at 1.4.169 (“Not only, sir, this, your all-licensed fool …”) and makes herself odious. What does Lear find so offensive in Goneril’s manner and in the things she says to him? More particularly, attend to the startling effect this ungrateful daughter’s presence begins to have: what does Lear begin to question? What curse does he level against Goneril, and what threat does he make?

14. In Act 1, Scene 5, what insight does Lear begin to express about his daughters and perhaps his situation more broadly? How do the Fool’s questions and observations affect Lear at this point? How do they affect you, as a member of the audience? How would you characterize the King’s state of mind by the end the first act—how has his image for us changed from the beginning of the play to this point?

ACT 2

15. In Act 2, Scene 1, by what strategy does Edmund not only manage to drive Edgar out of doors but also to win himself still more credit with his gullible father Gloucester and ingratiate himself with Regan’s husband, Cornwall? Why does this strategy succeed so well and so quickly?

16. In Act 2, Scene 2, Kent, on his way to deliver the King’s message to Gloucester, encounters Oswald and insults and beats this corrupt servant of Goneril. Examine Kent’s tortured attempt afterwards to explain to Regan and Cornwall at Gloucester’s home why he has been thrashing their sister’s messenger. What limitations does Kent show as a speaker in this episode? Why is his bluntness especially unlikely to persuade the likes of Regan and Cornwall? How does Gloucester take the punishment that Regan and Cornwall inflict upon Kent? How does Kent himself react?

17. In Act 2, Scene 3, beyond the obvious motive of avoiding detection by his father Gloucester’s agents, why does Edgar choose to take on the appearance and identity of “Poor Tom”? What are the main characteristics of this fictive identity? Find out what you can about “Bedlam beggars” in Elizabethan times—who were they, and why were they so numerous? Finally, how should we interpret Edgar’s chilling admission, “Edgar I nothing am”—what might he be starting to understand about his former life and identity that he didn’t before Edmund’s plot took him down?

18. In Act 2, Scene 4, Lear is furious when he learns of Kent’s punishment in the stocks. As for the number of his knights-retainers being reduced, he initially blames Goneril but quickly learns that Regan, too, is complicit. Describe the “bidding war” that Regan and Goneril engage in regarding the number of knights as the cause of the King’s progress toward madness. What assumptions and logic do these two caretakers wield against Lear to strip him of his train? By the scene’s end, to what extreme has the resolution of Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall against Lear gone?

19. In Act 2, Scene 4, Lear responds to the above-described “bidding war” with the remarkable outburst beginning, “Oh, reason not the need!” (see lines 259-80). Why is it so important to Lear that he retain his hundred knights—not fifty or twenty-five or one, or none at all, as his daughters would prefer? What argument is Lear advancing here about something more than “perks”—what does he insist is vital to human nature itself? Why is necessity never enough, and what is lost when a person is reduced to that level? By the end of his outburst, what is Lear’s state of mind?

ACT 3

20. Act 3, Scenes 2, 4, and 6 are concerned with King Lear, the Fool, Kent, Edgar as Poor Tom, and Gloucester during a raging storm. (In Scene 2 and the first part of Scene 4, Lear remains out in the storm, but by the middle of Scene 4, he, too, is sheltering.) In what way is the storm metaphoric of Lear’s inner disturbance? But also, in what sense is it a natural phenomenon not reducible to Lear’s inner state and, therefore, perhaps even more relevant to broader issues of heavenly or natural justice in the play?

21. In Act 3, Scene 2, what does the storm apparently mean to Lear himself? How does he address it—to what extent does he connect its operation with what his daughters Regan and Goneril have done to him? As for his statement, “I am a man / More sinned against than sinning” (lines 59-60), why might it be considered central to the play’s tragic perspective? Is Lear right in saying this about his culpability? If so, how is what has thus far been done to him worse than anything he has done?

22. In Act 3, Scene 2, what service do the Fool’s songs and other utterances provide the King as both men suffer in the storm? How do you understand the Fool’s “prophecy” beginning “When priests are more in word than matter …” (lines 81-94)? What might he be suggesting in this oddly anachronistic “Merlinesque” prophecy that in any way relates to the King’s plight?

23. In Act 3, Scene 4, what significance does King Lear find in “Poor Tom’s” sufferings and in his crazed utterances? What connections does the King make between himself and this supposed beggar? What does he learn from him? Deep into his conversation with Poor Tom, Lear declares, “Thou art the thing / itself …” (lines 96-97). No doubt Lear believes this about the man he’s addressing, but why is the statement nonetheless ironic? How is Poor Tom not an example of what Lear says he is, and why does this matter in terms of the play’s broad concerns with identity, nature, and suffering?

24. In Act 3, Scene 6, King Lear stages a mock trial for Regan and Goneril, with Edgar (as Poor Tom) and the Fool as judges. What reproaches does Lear level against Goneril and Regan, and what key question does he ask about the latter? What might Lear be trying to accomplish by putting them on trial in absentia—what kind of justice is the King looking for? Moreover, how does Edgar begin to return to himself over the course of this scene?

25. How do Act 3, Scenes 3 and 5 set the stage for Scene 7 (one of the most distressing scenes in Shakespeare), wherein Gloucester, having been taken prisoner in his own home, is blinded by Regan’s cruel husband, Cornwall? How does the horribly specific mode of punishment meted out to Gloucester take shape in the minds of Regan, Goneril and Cornwall as this scene progresses to its end? Shakespeare doesn’t always show the extreme violence that his plays sometimes refer to. Why do you suppose he was so determined to show Cornwall’s outrageous cruelty in Scene 7?

ACT 4

26. In Act 4, Scenes 1 and 6, the wretched Gloucester conceives of and then tries to make his final exit, but as it turns out, he is—or rather isn’t—in for a letdown. What does Edgar, still disguised first as Poor Tom and then as a peasant, accomplish with his misleading but creative treatment of Gloucester? In other words, how does he change his wounded father’s perspective? Moreover, to what extent does Edgar’s interaction with his father parallel or differ from his interaction as Poor Tom with the mad King Lear in Act 3, Scene 4?

27. In Act 4, Scene 2, Goneril plots with Edmund to have him replace her husband Albany, and then in Scene 5, Regan (now a widow) attempts to gain Oswald’s help as a courier in winning Edmund’s affections. How does this sexual competition symbolize the new dispensation or state of affairs to which Lear’s mistakes have partly led his kingdom? In Act 4, Scene 2, what is Albany’s assessment of Goneril (and Regan), and how does his assessment help us to understand the kingdom-wide degeneration that has overtaken Lear’s Britain?

28. In Act 4, Scene 3, what picture do Kent (still disguised as “Caius”) and a Gentleman piece together about the impending reconciliation between Cordelia (now the Queen of France) and King Lear? What is Lear’s state of mind at present—why, according to Kent, won’t the King consent to allow Cordelia to visit him? In what way does Scene, followed by Scene 4, demonstrate for us the purity of Cordelia’s spirit and of her intentions toward her ailing father?

29. In Act 4, Scene 6 (823, 4.6.85ff) King Lear walks in just as Edgar has finished letting his father Gloucester “fall” from Dover’s cliffs, and proceeds to ramble madly about the nature of kingship and authority, womankind, and justice. What obsessions grip him, and what insights does he offer, regarding these subjects? What does Gloucester’s brief interaction with Lear add to this scene? In sum, what has the ruined king learned from the harsh experiences into which his own errors, in part, have thrust him?

30. In Act 4, Scene 6 (at 826, 4.6.228ff), Edgar catches Oswald in the act of attempting to kill Gloucester and dispatches him, reading afterwards Goneril’s treasonous letter to Edmund. Why does Edgar confront Oswald in rustic dialect? What role in the unfolding tragedy has Oswald played up to his ignominious end? Even though Edgar is no longer playing the role of Poor Tom, how is this lethal encounter an important milestone for him?

31. In Act 4, Scene 7, King Lear, now a patient in the French camp, is at last brought together with Cordelia. When Cordelia last encountered the King, she was unable or unwilling to find words to satisfy a perplexing “command performance.” How has that changed now, at the moment of reconciliation? In what sense does Cordelia exceed even the virtue that Lear, and we, should already have expected from her? How, finally, does King Lear react to his youngest daughter’s kind treatment?

ACT 5

32. In Act 5, Scene 1, the two British armies’ respective principals (Edmund and Regan, Goneril and Albany) spar verbally. What non-military accusation does Regan level at Edmund, and what seems foremost on Goneril and Albany’s minds, respectively? How does this conference help us appreciate the level of depravity to which Lear’s kingdom has descended? Alone, how does Edmund weigh his current situation and prospects with respect to Goneril and Regan, both of whom are enamored of him?

33. In Act 5, Scene 2, Edgar takes his leave of Gloucester and then, after the battle between the British and French forces, returns to tell his father that Lear and Cordelia’s French army has lost. In Scene 3, Lear, on his way to a holding cell with Cordelia, lays out his vision of their future. What predictions does he make? To what extent do the King’s lyrical words here amount to tragic insight—what has he learned from his downfall? How does Edmund react to the presence (and probably the words) of Lear and Cordelia—what does he plan to do to them, and why?

34. In Act 5, Scene 1, Edgar (disguised as a knight) arrived after the military conference and gave Albany the treasonous letter written by Goneril to Edmund that he had found on Oswald’s body. In Scene 3, Edgar challenges Edmund in person over the Gloucester conspiracy. Why is it poetic justice that a duel with “legitimate Edgar” should be Edmund’s undoing? Consider the force that Edmund swore allegiance to near the play’s beginning—what value system does Edmund actually die in service of? How much difference does it make that when he is mortally wounded, Edmund tells the truth and tries to make amends?

35. In Act 5, Scene 3, King Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia in his arms, bursts onto the dismal scene where Edmund has just been mortally wounded. In his brief conversation mainly with Kent, to what extent, if at all, does the King seem to be in his right mind? How much does he understand of what is said to him, and what is his main concern or preoccupation during his last few minutes of life?

36. In Act 5, Scene 3, although for a moment it looks as if Albany will be able to turn over power to a restored Lear, the King dies, leaving everyone in dismay. It seems that someone has to accept the unlovely responsibility of governing. What attitudes do Albany, Kent, and Edgar adopt toward this responsibility? Do Edgar’s last four lines, which conclude the play, adequately sum things up—do they plausibly deliver the tragic perspective we generally hope for in a play of this genre? Why or why not?

37. In Act 5, Scene 3, the 1608 First Quarto attributes the play’s concluding four lines to Albany, not to Edgar as in our text, which combines the First Quarto with the First Folio edition of 1623. As the Norton footnote points out, that is a consequential difference. Why, then, does it matter who speaks the lines? How would it change the meaning of the play’s conclusion if we were to attribute the final two rhyming couplets not to Edgar but to Albany? What is implied if we attribute them to Edgar, as the current text does?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

38. How many different meanings for the term “nature” are developed in this play? Who articulates the various meanings? Are these significations kept distinct? Do they remain stable throughout, or are certain characters disabused of what they had formerly thought? Discuss your findings.

39. The various characters try to assert control over the play’s events by using a number of different linguistic strategies: plain honesty or bluntness, rash invective, Machiavellian analysis, flowery evasion (Oswald), the language of madness and foolery, astrological discourse, and visionary or prophetic language, to name several. Discuss a few of them by way of response.

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93860-9.