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King Lear quotes Flashcards

1
Q

‘Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided in three our kingdom.’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Imperative shows authority, foreshadows evil and division and established themes in the exposition of the play; the staging/prop of the map visualises division (Shakespeare’s warning against divided kingdom to ingratiate with King James, who wrote the Basilikan Doran)

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2
Q

‘Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty’ (1,1 - Goneril)

A

Deception and lies; ironic that she later denies him space and liberty in act 2; ominous motif of blindness; Doran staging Goneril addresses the audience with her back to her father

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3
Q

‘How, nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Nihilism, emptiness; Biblical reference to Book of Genesis, defiance of religion?; epanalepsis (of ‘nothing’); paradoxical; Lear desires a sycophantic speech, he is hubristic

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4
Q

‘Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Hyperbole; rash patriarch, perhaps Lear’s hamartia; plosives

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5
Q

‘Come not between the dragon and his wrath!’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Supernatural metaphor, hubristic; imagery of division; imperative

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6
Q

‘The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

War-like, violent supremacy as a result of feeling threatened; rash, irreversible decisions

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7
Q

‘Check this hideous rashness’ (1,1 - Kent)

A

Voice of reason; Lear’s hamartia of rashness

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8
Q

‘Out of my sight!’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Ironic blindness motif; poor judgement, morally blind; Kent’s loyalty in replying ‘see better, Lear’

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9
Q

‘But now her price is fallen’ (1,1 - Lear)

A

Commodifying his daughter as a material possession; feminist critics might take umbrage

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10
Q

‘I yet beseech your majesty if for I want that glib and oily art to speak and purpose not -‘ (1,1 - Cordelia)

A

Remains reverential and polite; political language shows divorce between language and action as she defends herself and accuses her sisters; the broken syntax may reflect Cordelia’s emotional state

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11
Q

‘I am richer, a still soliciting eye and such a tongue that I am glad I have not’ (1,1 - Cordelia)

A

Power and property are an illusion; metaphor of richness in spirituality and morality; sibilance emphasises honesty of language; Biblical paradox ‘blessed are the poor’, value is defined in morality

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12
Q

‘She is herself a dowry’ (1,1 - France)

A

Personifies wealth in abundance as he values Cordelia; politically scheming or genuine?

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13
Q

‘Pray you let us hit’, ‘We must do something, and i’the heat’ (1,1 - Goneril)

A

Ungrateful, machiavellian, sinister; they recognise Lear’s hamartia of being prone to anger and criticise his age (‘You see how full of changes his age is’); modal verbs of authority and certainty to plot against their father

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14
Q

‘Why brand they us with base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?’ (1,2 - Edmund)

A

Triadic structure of interrogatives show contempt; rages against the current system of gerontocracy and calls for meritocracy

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15
Q

‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.’, ‘Edmund the base shall top the legitimate.’ (1,2 - Edmund)

A

Modal verbs of desire, aim for legitimacy of joining the aristocracy; represents persecuted underclass; plotting to take over augmented by staging of holding a letter (reminder of Monteagle letter and betrayal)

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16
Q

‘Now gods, stand up for bastards!’ (1,2 - Edmund)

A

Imperative call to divine for help; empowered by the patriarchy that brands him as base

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17
Q

‘the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father.’ (1,2 - Gloucester)

A

Mouthpiece for the themes of the play; life is polarised and social contract breaks down; ironically talking about the wrong son

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18
Q

‘Unnatural, detested, brutish villain - worse than brutish!’ (1,2 - Gloucester)

A

Pejorative adjectives to describe Edgar; dramatic irony of knowing that Edmund is deceiving his father

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19
Q

‘Some villain hath done me wrong.’ (1,2 - Edgar)

A

Themes of betrayal, misjudged characters and mistakes; dramatic irony

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20
Q

‘Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.’ (1,2 - Edmund)

A

Pleading for a meritocracy

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21
Q

‘Old fools are babes again’ (1,3 - Goneril)

A

Want Lear to regress to a second childhood; gender conflict and undermining due to age

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22
Q

‘Who am I, sir?’ (1,4 - Lear)

A

Oswald replies ‘My lady’s father’, showing Lear’s falling status; Lear’s questioning his own identity and searching for ontological truths

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23
Q

‘Dost thou call me fool, boy?’ (Lear) // ‘All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.’ (1,4 - Fool)

A

Sneering delivery from fool; displays Lear’s loss of status and perhaps the beginning of his downfall (peripeteia); King James loved his fool (Archie Armstrong); fool as the idiot savant figure

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24
Q

‘If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb’ (1,4 - Fool)

A

Suggests Lear doesn’t deserve followers; dramatised with the prop of his cap

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25
Q

‘Does any here know me? (…) Where are his eyes? (…) Who is it that can tell me who I am?’ (1,4 - Lear)

A

Will only find out who he is through suffering, arguably only Cordelia’s corpse can tell him who he is; sight motif, loss of judgement; Fool replies ‘Lear’s shadow’ (link to Jung’s shadow self?)

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26
Q

‘Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend’, compares Goneril to a ‘sea-monster’ and a ‘detested kite’ (1,4 - Lear)

A

After giving them materialistic possession, Lear never gave them anything paternal; supernatural imagery used as he feels their ingratitude breaches the frame of natural references

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27
Q

‘O Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at this gate that let thy folly in and thy dear judgement out.’ (1,4 - Lear)

A

Staging with Lear striking his head; shows regret (mild anagnorisis?); vacillates between hubristic arrogance and infantile self-pity

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28
Q

‘Into her womb convey sterility, dry up in her the organs of increase’ (1,4 - Lear)

A

Utter cruelty attacking the essence of femininity; RSC version staging Goneril looked truly wounded by his words; misogynistic language despite relying on grandchildren for the bloodline; calling on the supernatural ‘Nature’ instead of God; modern feminist readers may take umbrage and side with Goneril but traditional audiences may side with Lear following Christian teaching ‘honour thy father and thy mother’

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29
Q

‘I did her wrong.’ (1,5 - Lear)

A

Mild anagnorisis; regret, early epiphany

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30
Q

‘O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!’ (1,5 - Lear)

A

Going senile; modern audiences perhaps understand better than Jacobean due to advancements in knowledge around dementia

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31
Q

‘I never got him.’ (2,1 - Gloucester)

A

Mirrors Lear’s disownment of Cordelia; gerontocracy and patriarchy control; dramatic irony of believing Edmund’s lies

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32
Q

‘Put in his legs’ (2,2 - Regan) ‘[Kent is put in the stocks]’

A

Staging as Kent is put in the stocks; punishment of one of the most loyal characters for telling the truth, Shakespeare perhaps shows Catholic sympathy by criticising Catholic persecution

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33
Q

‘I heard myself proclaimed and by the happy hollow of a tree escaped the hunt.’ (2,2 - Edgar)

A

Alliteration, semantic field of nature; abrupt staging change; irregular rhythm (not iambic pentameter); passive voice shows no agency, victimised; reminder of the manhunt following the gunpowder plot

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34
Q

‘Poor Turlygod, poor Tom, that’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.’ (2,2 - Edgar)

A

Critiquing materialism and poverty system, diacope of ‘poor’, asyndetic listing; creates a persona but seems to like being a social outcast to gain sympathy; caesura and exclamative emphasise rejection and resistance; non-standard syntax emphasise the motif of ‘nothing’

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35
Q

‘Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Lear’s speech is reduced to asyndetic listing of abstract nouns; shows rage and loss; still issues commands despite loss of official power; Lear is angry about his man being put in the stocks

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36
Q

‘Beloved Regan, thy sister’s naught. O, Regan, she hath tied sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here.’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Staging of hand on heart, often dramatised as Lear showing kindness to Regan; simile of aggression and wickedness attributed to Goneril

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37
Q

‘[Kneels.] Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; Age is unnecessary’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Submission, inversion of order through staging and proxemics; dranatused as tone of mockery in Doran’s staging; gender conflict

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38
Q

‘No! Rather I abjure all roofs and choose to wage against the enmity o’th’ air’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Dogmatic, alludes to the storm that reflects his mind

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39
Q

‘Thou art a boil, a plague sore, or embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Grabbing, choking Goneril in RSC Doran’s staging; curses his daughters but also curses himself through his blood

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40
Q

‘Man’s life is cheap as beast’s’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Hysteria, motif of nature and upset Great Chain of Being; comparative hyperbole shows nihilism

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41
Q

‘Let not women’s weapons, water-drops, stain my man’s cheeks’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Feminine alliteration of ‘w’ sound shows weakness through softened phonology; violent metaphor shows he sees women as manipulative

42
Q

‘You think I’ll weep, no I’ll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a thousand flaws.’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Epistrophe of ‘weep’ shows emotion; staging with ‘Storm and tempest’ almost as if the universe is weeping, pathetic fallacy; hyperbolic metaphor of his heart shows he is truly lost.

43
Q

‘O fool, I shall go mad.’ (2,2 - Lear)

A

Modal verb of certainty, first time he is certain; foreshadowing.

44
Q

‘Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!’ (3,2 - Lear)

A

Onomatopoeic exclamatives; imperatives and semantic field of nature represent Lear as a necromancer/conjurer; calling on nature like a God in a pre-Christian society; semantic field of destruction represents Lear as sadomasochistic

45
Q

‘Strike flat the thick rotundity o’the world, crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once’ (3,2 - Lear)

A

Nihilism of not wanting the world to reproduce, perhaps his peripeteia as he calls for things to go wrong; allusion to sperm, natural imagery of reproduction and fertility

46
Q

‘Here I stand your slave, a poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.’ (3,2 - Lear)

A

Pejorative adjectives, accusing the Gods; self-deprecating; anagnorisis?

47
Q

‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning.’ (3,2 - Lear)

A

Develops a preoccupation with justice but doesn’t apply it to himself; polyptoton, self-pitying and victimised; still refuses to admit his own sins and recognise that he is being punished

48
Q

‘The younger rises when the old doth fall’ (3,3 - Edmund)

A

Rhyming couplet is ominous; staging with emphasised hand gestures to emphasise antithesis of young and old in RSC version; intergenerational rivalry, attempt to bring down the gerontocracy

49
Q

‘Pour on, I will endure’ (3,4 - Lear)

A

Imperative to the storm, hubris of commanding nature, machismo and wrongful stoicism; alternatively sadomasochism; play about endurance and learning through suffering (links to book of Job)

50
Q

‘O, I have ta’en too little care of this (…) Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.’ (3,4 - Lear)

A

Cathartic, marxist critics may infer that Lear has been privileged/materialistic and now learns through his suffering, the tragedy of learning too late; moment of epiphany as Pagan King grasps Christian concepts of justice and charity; a once omnipotent Lear questions whether he should have been kinder to the poor

51
Q

‘Is man no more than this? Consider him well’ (3,4 - Lear)

A

Staging Poor Tom as near naked; most performed play since WW2 given that it depicts the tragedy of savage humanity; ontological probing interrogative; Christianity contends that man is more angel than animal; Catholic vs Protestant as Shakespeare suggests man is more animalistic; staging as Lear tears off his clothes, symbolising naked as truth, marxist perspective gaining equality as Lear feels guilty with privilege; Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has shelter as its most basic (link to modern housing crisis)

52
Q

‘I am almost mad myself.’ (3,4 - Gloucester)

A

Gloucester is also driven mad by his children; a play about the cruelty of the younger generations and neglected fathers?

53
Q

‘Fie, foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.’ (3,5 - Edgar)

A

Pro-Jacobean reframing of intertextual reference to folk myth of Jack the Giant Slayer, amended as a nod to James, King of Britain (Shakespeare had royal patronage); nonsense rhyme foreshadows defeat of Edmund

54
Q

‘Thou shalt find a dear father in my love.’ (3,5 - Cornwall)

A

Seedy father figure, desire for children; promise of aristocracy to Edmund; predatory and similar to Lear’s relationship with Cordelia

55
Q

‘I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence’ (3,6 - Lear)

A

Mock trial, perhaps suggests he is trying his daughters for witchcraft (suitable for Jacobean era) but in the imaginary trial, they escape signifying the reality that Lear has no power to bring justice; also juxtaposes following scene of Gloucester’s enucleation as there is no trial for him

56
Q

‘Because I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister in his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs’ (3,7 - Gloucester)

A

Loyally defending Lear, adjective ‘anointed’ honours Divine Right of Kings; zoomorphic adjective ‘boarish’; irony of implied torture is he will experience enucleation himself

57
Q

‘I shall see the winged vengeance overtake such children’ (3,7 - Gloucester)

A

Ironic verb of sight; as a patriarch desires to see divine intervention punish the younger generation

58
Q

‘O, I am slain. My lord, you have one ye left to see some mischief on him.’ (3,7 - Servant 1)

A

Christian concept of empathy, charity and justice; marxist perspective that the show of strength of the working class as they drive towards social equality; servant stays loyal to Gloucester

59
Q

‘Out, vile jelly’ (3,7 - Cornwall)

A

Imperative, aggressive action; staging in Richard Ayre version (film) Cornwall and Regan enucleate Gloucester together in a disturbingly sadomasochistic way; in RSC staging, at the end of the scene Cornwall is left in the glass box and descends into the stage while Regan walks away, making the torture a spectacle (like the Gunpowder plot) and perhaps mirrors hell

60
Q

‘Kind gods, forgive me that and prosper him.’ (3,7 - Gloucester)

A

Moment of epiphany, ironically sees that he has been deceived only when physically blinded

61
Q

‘Now heaven help him!’ (3,7 - Servant 3)

A

Very Christian expression from servant, subverted hierarchy; marxist perspective of the poor helping the aristocracy with clearer moral judgement; emphasises corruption in those who rule

62
Q

‘I have no way, and therefore want no eyes: I stumbled when I saw.’ (4,1 - Gloucester)

A

Acknowledges his blindness (poor judgement); nihilistic; tragic loss of purpose; in the scene where he is lead by disguised Edgar (link to Arcadia)

63
Q

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport’ (4,1 - Gloucester)

A

Simile shows cruelty of life, merciless fate, no justice; Gloucester is cynical; link to Book of Job, Gloucester is near his nadir before redemption

64
Q

‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind’ (4,1 - Gloucester)

A

Mess of Jacobean society (link to Harsnett’s declaration); themes of madness and blindness

65
Q

‘Distribution should undo excess and each man have enough’ (4,1 - Gloucester)

A

Gloucester parallels Lear’s realisation of charity and wealth division also through suffering, making it a universal human issue

66
Q

‘This kiss, if it durst speak, would stretch thy spirits up into the air. Conceive’ (4,2 - Goneril)

A

Staging by intimately placing a token of her pledge (chain/badge etc.) around Edmund’s neck; overtly sexual to Christian perspective is immoral/immodest, while feminist critics may view this as reductive behaviour and post-feminists may view it as empowering to seduce men in patriarchal society; verb ‘conceive’ imagines future dynasty of legitimate children

67
Q

‘Milk-livered man, that bear’st a cheek for blows’ (4,2 - Goneril)

A

Thinks Albany is foolish and weak, Biblical reference to ‘turn the other cheek’; destruction of their relationship

68
Q

‘She shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes’ (4,3 - Gentleman)

A

Association with Catholic custom; juxtaposition of hope against nihilism; hegemonically feminine action of crying juxtaposed by leading an army (link to Joan of Arc figure, or Suzanna Shakespeare’s recusant lifestyle)

69
Q

‘Gave her dear rights to his dog-hearted daughters’ (4,3 - Kent)

A

Zoomorphic metaphor shows callousness of the daughters; plosives emphasise contempt

70
Q

‘All you unpublished virtues of the earth, spring with my tears’ (4,4 - Cordelia)

A

Christian imagery of rainfall bringing out crops that were concealed; foregrounded key verb gives vitalising energy

71
Q

‘O dear father, it is thy business that I go about’ (4,4 - Cordelia)

A

Biblical reference, identified by Shakespeare as Christian not Pagan, echoing Christ’s words; deeply ironic as the most direct Christian reference in the play as Cordelia wants to restore Lear’s right but Christ wanted to leave his parents to attend to God

72
Q

‘Why would she write to Edmund?’ (4,5 - Regan)

A

Interrogative shows jealousy; reminder of infamous Monteagle letter of deception and betrayal; Doran’s RSC version staging with Oswald withholding letter prop from her

73
Q

‘My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked, and more convenient is he for my hand’ (4,5 - Regan)

A

Competitive, lascivious comparative adjective with immoral justification; callous; feminist perspective of female competition

74
Q

‘Away and let me die’ (4,6 - Gloucester)

A

Imperatives, desire for suicide (a sin in Christianity); contrasts Edgar’s long speeches; staged slightly comically in RSC version

75
Q

‘Thy life’s a miracle’ (4,6 - Edgar)

A

Contrasts Edmund, virtuous deceit for morally good ends; preciousness of life, goodness and justice prevails against evil and malice

75
Q

‘Ay, every inch a king’ (4,6 - Lear)

A

Delusional; contrasted in his outfit, staged in the RSC version as a crown of weeds

76
Q

‘There;s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption!’ (4,6 - Lear)

A

Yonic image of ‘sulphurous pit’ links vagina to hell, misogyny, blaming his daughters on female seuxuality; asyndetic list as syntax breaks down along with Lear’s mental state

77
Q

‘Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality’ (4,6 - Lear)

A

When Gloucester asks to kiss his hand; Kings are divine-God-like and Lear is reclaiming this; doppelgangers as Gloucester is abused physically and Lear is abused mentally; olfactory imagery

78
Q

‘Reason in madness’ (4,6 - Edgar)

A

Profound things in madness, like the fool who is a idiot savant figure

79
Q

‘O, wind up of this child-changed father’ (4,7 - Cordelia)

A

Music imagery of restoring harmony by retuning; alliteration emphasises Lear’s suffering and inversion of the parent-child relationship

80
Q

‘O my dear father, restoration hang thy medicine on my lips’ (4,7 - Cordelia)

A

Staging in RSC as Lear is carried on wearing white due to infirmity and age with music to signify harmony being restored; fairytale trope inversion as typically male figure gives magical kiss; family love is a life force

81
Q

‘I am bound upon a wheel of fire that mine own tears do scald like molten lead.’ (4,7 - Lear)

A

Biblical allusion to Cordelia in heaven and Lear damned; Lear has an imagined death like Gloucester

82
Q

‘No, sir, you must not kneel.’ (4,7 - Cordelia)

A

Kinesics symbolic of humility as Lear tried to kneel (in RSC staging he succeeds); Cordelia is kneeling and restores his dignity in age and as King; Cordelia is Christ-like

83
Q

‘Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and foolish’ (4,7 - Lear)

A

Self-aware, self-deprecating imperative and pejorative adjectives; anagnorisis; perhaps a general appeal to everyone

84
Q

‘Let’s then determine with the ancient of war on our proceeding.’ (5,1 - Albany)

A

Staging in RSC wearing gold breastplate in contrast to Edmund in grey, visually making him the ‘good guy’; logical and authoritative respecting the gerontocracy to highlight Edmund as his foil, a selfish, reckless agent

85
Q

‘Each jealous of the other as the stung are of the adder’ (5,1 - Edmund)

A

Serpentine imagery of temptation, are now the victims but are also described as snakes themselves by morally good Albany (‘This gilded serpent’ (5,3)) (link to snake on the gunpowder plot coin); no longer united female characters

86
Q

‘Which of them shall I take? Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoyed if both remain alive’ (5,1 - Edmund)

A

Major power and choice in misogynistic game making him appear callous and distant; misogynistic, selfish verb ‘enjoyed’; pattern of interrogatives and hypophora

87
Q

‘Men must endure their going hence as their coming hither. Ripeness is all.’ (5,2 - Edgar)

A

Links birth and death in an attempt to cheer his father; verb suggests necessity of suffering; readiness for death

88
Q

‘[Alarum and retreat within]’ (5,2 - stage direction)

A

Noise of military, foregrounds and maintains focus of play on family relationship and the blind figure of Gloucester left on stage; staged in RSC with a single tree destroyed in the storm which is black against the white black drop to create manichean imagery; dramatic effect of drums and screaming off stage leaves emphasis on blinded Gloucester

89
Q

‘Come, let’s away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage’ (5,3 - Lear)

A

Calmness learnt from suffering, acceptance; from a feminist perspective perhaps oppressive and incarcerating imagery as Cordelia does not consent to this

90
Q

‘Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor: False to thy gods, thy brother and thy father’ (5,3 - Edgar)

A

Restoration of justice; triadic structure emphasises Edmund’s evils and he is punished by death; Edgar is the heroic avenger of his father’s enucleation

91
Q

‘Let’s exchange charity’ (5,3 - Edgar)

A

Christian quality of charity; Edgar’s desire to be fair and highlighted as a morally good character

92
Q

‘The wheel is come full circle, I am here.’ (5,3 - Edmund)

A

Rise and fall, cyclical imagery; link to context of wheel of fortune; inevitability of his downfall

93
Q

‘Howl, howl howl, howl (…) She’s dead as earth.’ (5,3 - Lear)

A

Staging in RSC version arrives in white holding Cordelia’s body and both are wheeled in, mirroring the imagery of the pieta (Christian iconography of Mary holding Christ); emotive repetition from Lear and simile of acceptance of cruelty of fate

94
Q

‘That from your first of difference and decay have followed your sad steps’ (5,3 - Kent)

A

Kent finally reveals his character and is forgiven by Lear, justice is reached; Kent is emphasised as the true loyal servant figure; Marxist critics may infer that servants are the bedrock of Jacobean society

95
Q

‘Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life and thou no breath at all?’ (5,3 - Lear)

A

Triadic structure shows cruelty and injustice of suffering

96
Q

‘Never, never, never, never, never’ (5,3 - Lear)

A

Inverts iambic pentameter, using trochaic pentameter and repetition of adverb to show grief; staged in RSC version as shaking Cordelia’s body

97
Q

‘Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips, look there, look there!’ [He dies]’ (5,3 - Lear)

A

Hopeful in death, reuniting with his most tender daughter; alliteration creates desperation

98
Q

‘Rule in this realm and the gored state sustain’ (5,3 - Albany)

A

Albany, staged in RSC as wearing gold, is the morally good character and next rightful leader; restoring justice by allowing Edgar and Kent to rule; personifies the country as deeply wounded, represents symbiotic relationship between the King and the kingdom as the rightful King (Divine Right of Kings) has just died

99
Q

‘The oldest hath borne most; we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long’ (5,3 - Albany)

A

Rhyming couplet, final lines; in RSC Albany is left alone on stage with Lear and Cordelia’s corpses left behind him in white; motif of sight is continued and Albany recalls the necessity to suffer in order to see properly (sight signifying morality, judgement, etc.)

Flashcards (7 decks)

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