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English lit > King Lear Quotes > Flashcards

King Lear Quotes Flashcards

1
Q

Gloucester’s opinion on Edmund in the opening scene?

A

‘I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to’t’
‘There was good sport in his making’

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2
Q

Scene 1 reference to Lear’s ill health?

A

‘While we unburdened crawl toward death’
RSC - Lear is on a higher position on his throne with an empty hollow underneath him

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3
Q

The task Lear gives to his daughters?

A

‘Which of you shall we say doth love us most’
Sets competition then is surprised when there is a loser

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4
Q

How much Goneril loves Lear?

A

‘Sir, I do love you more than word can wield the matter’
Somewhat rehearsed and hyperbolic - reference to formal title reflects lack of parental love

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5
Q

Cordelia’s aside reflecting her distain for the competition?

A

‘What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.’
The aside establishes complicity and creates a personal relationship.

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6
Q

Cordelia’s response to her father?

A

‘Nothing, my lord’

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7
Q

Lear’s response to Cordelia?

A

‘Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’

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8
Q

How does Lear view Cordelia after he response to the love test?

A

‘So young and so untender?’
‘Here I disclaim all my parental care’

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9
Q

Lear characterises himself as a dragon?

A

‘Come not between the dragon as his wrath’

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10
Q

How does Kent react to Lear in the first scene?

A

‘Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad. What woudst thou do, old man?’

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11
Q

Does Lear think that Cordelia should have been born?

A

‘Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.’

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12
Q

What does Edgar say in the fake letter?

A

‘You should enjoy half his revenue’

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13
Q

How does Gloucester react to Edgar’s supposed betrayal?

A

‘Unnatural, detested, brutish villain - worse than brutish!’ - dramatic irony

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14
Q

How does Edmund think that the world views him?

A

‘Why brand they us with base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?’

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15
Q

What does Edmund want from his brother?

A

‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.’

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16
Q

What does Edmund want the gods to do?

A

‘Now gods, stand up for bastards!’

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17
Q

What is an early parallel between Lear and Gloucester?

A

‘The King falls from bias of nature - there’s father against child’
‘the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father’

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18
Q

Edmund views Gloucester as stupid after he believes the letter?

A

‘This is the excellent foppery of the world’

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19
Q

Goneril views her father as a child after he moves in with her?

A

‘Old fools are babes again’

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20
Q

Lear wants to see his fool?

A

‘Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep’

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21
Q

Lear feels sorry for himself at Goneril’s house?

A

‘I have perceived a most faint neglect of late’

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22
Q

Why does the Fool think Lear is a fool?

A

‘All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with’

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23
Q

Freudian way that the fool sees Lear as a child?

A

‘thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers’

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24
Q

Lear is mean to Goneril?

A

‘Into her womb convey sterility’
‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child’

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25
Q

Lear does not want to cry after Goneril is mean to him?

A

‘Old fond eyes, beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out’
‘I will forget my nature: so kind a father!’

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26
Q

What is the Fool’s words of wisdom when they leave Goneril?

A

‘Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise’

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27
Q

Lear thinks he might be mad after leaving Goneril?

A

‘O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! I would not be mad.’

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28
Q

What does Gloucester say when Edgar runs away?

A

‘Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?’

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29
Q

Beginning of alliance between Edmund and Cornwall?

A

‘You have shown your father a child-like office’ - means service proper to a son
‘Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; you we first seize on’

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30
Q

What does Edgar become in his soliloquy?

A

‘To take the basest and most poorest shape’
‘Edgar I nothing am’

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31
Q

Lear talks about how horrible his children are when he goes to Regan’s house?

A

‘They durst not do’t: They could not, would not do’t - ‘tis worse than murder’

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32
Q

How does Lear talk about his madness as if it were female hysteria?

A

‘O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!’

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33
Q

Lear’s reaction when Regan does not want to speak with him?

A

‘Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!’
Syntax becomes broken

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34
Q

How does Lear describe Regan’s actions?

A

‘sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture’

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35
Q

Regan patronises her father when he comes to stay with her?

A

‘O, sir, you are old’

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36
Q

How does Lear describe Goneril’s actions to Regan?

A

‘struck me with her tongue most serpent-like’

36
Q

What question does Lear keep repeating when he sees Kent in the stocks?

A

‘How came my man i’the stocks?’

37
Q

What does Lear say when he gets angry at Regan?

A

‘thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh’

38
Q

Lear views man’s life as worthless?

A

‘man’s life is cheap as beasts’

39
Q

Lear does not want to cry after Regan is mean to him?

A

‘let not women’s weapons, water drops, stain my man’s cheeks’
‘you unnatural hags’
‘you think I’ll weep, no, I’ll not weep’

40
Q

Gloucester’s reaction to Lear’s tantrum?

A

‘The King is in high rage’

41
Q

What does Regan say after Lear leaves?

A

‘O sir, to wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters’

42
Q

How does Kent describe himself?

A

‘I am a gentleman of blood and breeding’

43
Q

What does Lear say in the storm?

A

‘Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!’
Physical thunder and lighting in the Nunn version

44
Q

Lear’s hypocritical polyptoton in the storm?

A

‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning.’

45
Q

What does Edmund think about the young and old?

A

‘The younger rises when the old doth fall.’
He moves the letter down to signify the fall

46
Q

How does Lear compare the storm to his mind?

A

‘the tempest in my mind doth from my senses take all feeling else’
‘filial ingratitude’

47
Q

What does Lear say about the poorer areas of his kingdom?

A

‘O, I have ta’en too little care of this’

48
Q

What does Edgar say in disguise as Poor Tom?

A

‘Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame’
He is wearing a loin cloth

49
Q

How does Lear see himself in Poor Tom?

A

‘Nothing could have subdued nature to such lowness but his unkind daughters’

50
Q

What does the Fool think the effects of the storm will be?

A

‘This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen’

51
Q

What does Gloucester think about his and Lear’s children?

A

‘Our flesh and blood, my lord is grown so vile’

52
Q

What does Lear think of Poor Tom?

A

‘First let me talk with this philosopher’

53
Q

What does Lear think about the hearts of his daughters?

A

‘Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?’ - rhetorical question

54
Q

What does Edgar think about suffering and lonliness?

A

‘Who alone suffers, suffers most i’the mind’

55
Q

What does Cornwall say as he plucks out Gloucester’s eyes?

A

‘Out, vile jelly’

56
Q

How does Regan make fun of Gloucester after his eyes have been plucked out?

A

‘Let him smell his way to Dover’

57
Q

What does Gloucester think about gods?

A

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport’

58
Q

Edgar decides to help his father?

A

‘Give me thy arm, Poor Tom shall lead thee.’

59
Q

Goneril falls in love with Edmund?

A

‘She places a chain around his neck’
‘This kiss, if it durst speak, would stretch thy spirits up into the air.’

60
Q

Goneril insults Albany?

A

‘Milk-livered man’
‘A moral fool’

61
Q

Albany insults Goneril?

A

‘You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face’
‘See thyself, devil’

62
Q

Cordelia’s reaction to her father’s treatment?

A

‘There she shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes’

63
Q

Regan falls in love with Edmund?

A

‘Noble Edmund’ - ironic epithet
‘more convenient is he for my hand than for your lady’s’

64
Q

How Edgar justifies what he does to his father?

A

In an aside
‘Why I do trifle thus with his despair is done to cure it’

65
Q

Gloucester becomes depressed?

A

‘Away and let me die’

66
Q

Lear battles with his mortality?

A

‘I am not ague-proof’
In response to Gloucester trying to kiss his hand - ‘Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality’

Richard Eyre film - Lear is dressed as a homeless man

67
Q

How Lear describes his daughters when talking to Edgar and Gloucester?

A

‘Down from the waist they are centaurs, though woman all above’

68
Q

Lear’s idea about birth?

A

‘When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools’

69
Q

Lear imagines himself leading an army in a revenge battle with a battle cry?

A

Six exclamatory imperatives - ‘Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Richard Eyre film - he stabs a bin bag with a horse shoe

70
Q

Lear quote relating to the wheel of fortune?

A

‘I am even the natural fool of fortune.’

71
Q

Cordelia criticises her father?

A

‘Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss repair those violent harms that my two sisters have in thy reverence made.’

72
Q

We start to feel sorry for Lear when he recognises Cordelia?

A

‘Methinks I should know you and know this man, yet I am doubtful’
‘I think this lady to be my child Cordelia’
‘If you have poison for me, I will drink it.’

73
Q

Edmund’s view of Goneril and Regan?

A

‘Each jealous of the other as the stung are of the adder’ jealous = suspicious
‘Neither can be enjoyed if both remain alive’

74
Q

How does Edgar reveal what happened in the battle?

A

‘King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en.’
RSC version - there is only a tree on stage. We hear audio of the battle and shadows

75
Q

Edgar talks about life and death?

A

‘Men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither.’ - links to a Christian endurance
Eyre film - Gloucester feels Edgar’s face

76
Q

Cordelia’s reaction to being captured?

A

‘Myself could else outfrown false fortune’s frown’

77
Q

Lear’s reaction to being captured?

A

‘No, no, no, no.’
‘We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage’
‘Laugh at gilded butterflies’
Eyre film - they rub noses

78
Q

Albany insults Goneril again?

A

‘This gilded serpent’

79
Q

Edgar reveals to everyone that he is Edgar?

A

‘My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.’
RSC - he is wearing a helmet
Eyre - Edgar snaps Edmund’s spine

80
Q

Edmund’s reaction to his death?

A

‘The wheel is come full circle, I am here’
Allusion to the wheel of fortune

81
Q

Edmund’s reaction to the death of Goneril and Regan?

A

‘I was contracted to them both; all three now marry in an instant’

82
Q

Albany’s reaction to the death of his wife?

A

‘Produce the bodies, be they alive or dead.’

83
Q

Lear’s reaction to Cordelia’s death?

A

‘Howl, howl, howl, howl!’
RSC - she is pushed in on a wooden platform

84
Q

Kent’s summation of the play’s ending?

A

‘All’s cheerless, dark and deadly’

85
Q

What happened to the Fool?

A

‘And my poor fool is hanged’

86
Q

Lear believes Cordelia is breathing?

A

‘Look on her: look, her lips, look there, look there!’

87
Q

Kent decides to kill himself?

A

‘My master calls me, I must not say no.’

88
Q

The final line of the play from Edgar?

A

‘The oldest hath borne most; we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long.’

English lit (18 decks)

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