Book Review: King Lear by William Shakespeare
Slowly but surely I’m getting all my reviews done. I’m hoping to finish by September 10. Fingers crossed! Here’s another review for the classic King Lear. I promise that soon my reviews will relate more to contemporary times/YA + NA + A books, but I wanted to include all the books I’ve read this year, including academic (if it wasn’t obvious, I graduated in English, lol). Enjoy the review, let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to see on this blog! Or if you’ve read this play, feel free to interact/respond to my thoughts. ♥︎ (Also forgot to mention in my last review that my ratings are out of five stars).
CORDELIA. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond, no more nor less.
— i.
GLOUCESTER. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of Nature can reason it thus and thus; yet Nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction: there's son against father; the King falls from bias of Nature: there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves.
So this is my second time reading King Lear, and as usual with any Shakespeare play, it’s a completely different experience the second time you read it (that’s how you know if someone’s a good writer, because you should have a different experience every time you read their piece). It’s one of Shakespeare’s big four tragedies, and it revolves around the complexity of familial relationships, loyalty, love, and trust. If you want to know just my overall thoughts/ratings, skip to the bottom!
— ii.
EDGAR. When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. Who alone suffers, suffers most i'th' mind, Leaving free things and happy shows behind. But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip When grief hath mates; and bearing fellowship, How light and portable my pain seems now, When that which makes me bend, makes the King bow. He childed as I fathered.
Shakespeare’s plays are just too complex to review act by act, so I’m going to review it by overall plot, characters, writing style, etc. First off, the plot. To be honest, whenever I read a Shakespeare play, I don’t usually go, “wow! I love the plot!”. I mean, obviously his better plays have better stories, but King Lear is one of the few exceptions where the characters and relationships are just so well done, that the plot really didn’t matter to me. If I were to review the play strictly on plot, well, it wouldn’t be a very good review. So I’m going to skip over this because it’s not really worth it. There’s enough plot that keeps the story going, but to me, what makes this play so magical and wonderful, is the characters and their relationships.
— iii.
LEAR. Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves, When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind To suffer with the body. I'll forbear, And am fallen out with my more headier will, To take the indisposed and sickly fit For the sound man.
The first time I read King Lear, I hated Gonerill and Regan with an intense, fiery passion, and I just wanted Lear and Cordelia to run off into the sunset and have the father-daughter relationship they deserve and live their lives to the fullest. Now that I reread the play, I still hate Gonerill and Regan, but I actually hate Lear just as much, and if not, more. He’s such an interesting character, and so well written. He’s a five year old, a teenager, a forty year old, and a senile senior all in one shot. He’s annoying and I want to strangle him but it’s not like one of those characters you want to strangle and they’re also terrible characters. Of course you want to strangle Lear, but you also acknowledge easily how amazing his character depth is. He is as materialistic as he can get, and believes that love is equal to land and treasures. Even though he clearly shows remorse by the end of the play for acting like a dipshit to his daughters (mainly Cordelia), he’s still a really awful father and only believes his daughters love him based on words rather than actions. As for Gonerill and Regan, as I said, I still hate them greatly, but now that I hate Lear just as much, I understand that they really had to deal with the biggest senile baby on the planet as a father and king. Now I mainly hate them for allowing what happened to Gloucester happen, because Gloucester was a pure man who was just deceived the entire time and just wanted to be a good noble person. Kent and Cordelia are also really pure souls who shouldn’t have wasted their time on Lear after he kicked them out, but of course, Kent and Cordelia show how amazing their are by never giving up on him (especially Kent). Edmund was also a dipshit, but he seemed to somewhat redeem himself in the end, and all the other characters working for the bad guys are just boring and useless. Albany (Gonerill’s husband who’s loyal to Lear) is also really boring, but he has some A+ moments cursing out Gonerill in the fourth act. And the fool is just, well, a fool. However, even the boring characters have significance in this play. They play vital roles in the progression of the interesting characters. As for the characters you hate, well, you just love to hate them. And once again, I’d probably die for Cordelia, Kent, and Gloucester, and my heart broke over and over again for them throughout the play.
— iv.
KENT. It is the stars, The stars above us govern our conditions.
Ah, isn’t that quote from Kent great? Shakespeare (not surprisingly) always has a way with words that just makes it magical. And when I say magical, I don’t mean in a superior-academic kind of way, I mean like he makes even the crudest topics (which are like 95% of his writing content) sound so beautiful. Seriously, when Lear was ranting and raving to Gloucester/Edgar in the fourth act, I really felt /that/ when he said “let copulation thrive!” (i.e. let’s have more sex). His plays really aren’t as academic/superior as people make them out to be, they just invoke really deep thought while being amazing and funny and all about sex jokes 95% of the time. Of all the Shakespeare plays I’ve read, King Lear is definitely one of my favourites, and a big reason is the language he uses and his way with words.
— v.
EDGAR. 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, not live so long.
I realize this review isn’t what I had in mind, and it doesn’t really say much about the play itself. Part of it is because I find it difficult to review a Shakespeare play without invoking a three hour discussion on a super particular aspect of the play. I will say that I am a sucker for familial relationships which is probably why the first time around I wanted Lear and Cordelia to have a happy ending. Now that I realize Cordelia deserved way better (and honestly, so do Regan and Gonerill), I kind of would be interested in exploring the dynamic between the three sisters, which you really don’t see much of. Regan and Gonerill you see quite a bit, but the only time Cordelia is really around them is the beginning of the play. Now I’m wondering how their dynamic sets up the whole play and I’m about to go on a whole tangent so I’ll just end my review here saying great play, amazing characters, amazing relationships, a good plot. So go read the play, because it’s much easier to talk about with people who have read it than just talk about it in a general review.
If any of you have read the play, please let me know what you thought of it in the comments below! If you’ve read other Shakespeare plays, how do you think this one compared to them?
Rating: ★★★★ | GoodReads
