King Lear Quotes And Critics

Front 1

CORDELIA & LEAR

Back 1

Cordelia -'Nothing my Lord.' Lear - 'Nothing can come of nothing, speak again' (Act 1, Scene 1)

Front 2

EDMUND

Back 2

Edmund - 'Now gods, stand up for bastards' (Act1 Scene 2)

Front 3

LEAR

Back 3

Lear - 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child' (Act 1, Scene 4)

Front 4

FOOL

Back 4

Fool - 'Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise' (Act, 1, Scene 5)

Front 5

LEAR

Back 5

Lear - 'Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow, you cataracts and hurricanoes' (Act 3, Scene 2)

Front 6

LEAR

Back 6

Lear - 'I am a man more sinned against than sinning' (Act 3, Scene 2)

Front 7

GLOUCESTER

Back 7

Gloucester - 'As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, they kill us for their sport' (Act 4, Scene 1)

Front 8

GLOUCESTER

Back 8

Gloucester - 'So distribution should undo excess, and each manhave enough' (Act 4, Scene 1)

Front 9

LEAR

Back 9

Lear - 'They told me I was everything; 'tis alie, I am no ague-proof' - (Act 4, Scene 5)

Front 10

LEAR

Back 10

Lear - 'Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician seem to see the things thou dost not' (Act 4, Scene 5)

Front 11

LEAR

Back 11

Lear - 'When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools' (Act 4, Scene 5)

Front 12

EDGAR (AS POOR TOM)

Back 12

Edgar (as Poor Tom) - 'Men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither' (Act 5, Scene 2)

Front 13

LEAR

Back 13

Lear - 'When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness' (Act 5, Scene 3)

Front 14

LEAR

Back 14

Lear - 'Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all' (Act 5, Scene 3)

Front 15

EDGAR

Back 15

Edgar - 'We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long' (Act 5, Scene 3)

Front 16

A.C. BRADLEY

Back 16

" 'King Lear' is too huge for the stage"

Front 17

JAN KOLT

Back 17

"King Lear is a lay about the disintegration of the world"

Front 18

COPPELIA KHAN

Back 18

"...It is interesting that there is no literal mother in King Lear"

Front 19

COPPELIA KHAN

Back 19

"Lear goes mad because he is unable to accept his dependence on the feminine, his daughters."

Front 20

CHARLES GILDON

Back 20

"We rejoice at the death of the Bastard and the two Sisters, as of Monsters in Nature under whom the very Earth must groan..."

Front 21

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Back 21

"[on the gouging out of Gloucester's eyes]... an act too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition"

Front 22

CHARLES LAMB

Back 22

"... we see not Lear, but we are Lear, we are in his mind..."

Front 23

CHARLES LAMB

Back 23

"Lear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage"

Front 24

KATHLEEN MCLUSKIE

Back 24

"Women are made either to submit- Cordelia - or must be destroyed - Goneril and Regan."

Front 25

KATHLEEN MCLUSKIE

Back 25

"Cordelia's return is a restoration of patriarchy, of the old order. But this cannot be wholly reduced to male power"

Front 26

KATHLEEN MCLUSKIE

Back 26

"Family relations in this play are seen as fixed and determined, and any movement within them is portrayed as a destructive reversal of natural order."

Front 27

ROBERT WEST

Back 27

"[Edmund] has still a share in being; his most destructive actions do not entirely snuff it out"

Front 28

THORNDIKE

Back 28

"Inhuman sisters" - (Goneril and Regan)

Front 29

Hudson

Back 29

"Personifications of ingratitude" - (Goneril and Regan)

Front 30

GRANVILLE BARKER

Back 30

"The intellectual denial of humanity to Goneril and Regan is instrumental to the psychological denial that they really are Lear's daughters."

Front 31

S.L. GOLDBERG

Back 31

'There is no supernatural justice- only human natural justice'

Front 32

A.C. BRADLEY

Back 32

'Lear's words are monstrously unjust'

Front 33

HELEN NORRIS

Back 33

'The horror of Lear's story is the unnatural behavior of Goneril and Regan... not only personal sins but an upsetting of civilised values'

Front 34

CHARLES LAMB

Back 34

To see Lear acted, to see an old man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting.'

Front 35

G. WILSON KNIGHT

Back 35

'Slowly, painfully...we see a religion born of disillusionment, suffering and sympathy, a purely spontaneous, natural growth of the human spirit, developing from nature magic to God.'

Front 36

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 36

“Boisterous, demanding, arrogant. He expects absolute obediance”

Front 37

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 37

“Lear slips into madness… direct result of Lear’s refusal to face the awful truth that has exploded in his mind”

Front 38

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 38

“the coils of Evil spread and fester in the subplot of the play”

Front 39

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 39

“The paranoia of age is stalking him”

Front 40

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 40

“Lear is not a man of conscious intellect”

Front 41

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 41

“Clear that he has no attention of giving his powers to anyone”

Front 42

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 42

“He has clung steadfastly to the conviction that he is a loving father, despite all evidence of the contrary”

Front 43

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 43

“Star of his hear, refuses to play the game” (Cordelia)

Front 44

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 44

“Gloucester has been a blind fool”

Front 45

HAL HOLBROOK

Back 45

“The Fool is and intellectual… the teacher trying to make the adult student (Lear) understand what is happening, what is being done to him and what he is doing himself”