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Old King Lear decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to how much they say they love him. Goneril and Regan flatter him extravagantly; the youngest, Cordelia, will say only that she loves him as a daughter should, and he disinherits her in a rage and banishes the loyal Earl of Kent, who stays by him in disguise. Stripped of his followers by the elder daughters, Lear goes out into a terrible storm on the heath with his Fool and goes mad, while in a parallel story the Earl of Gloucester, deceived by his illegitimate son Edmund, turns against his faithful son Edgar and pays a cruel price.
Context and significance
Shakespeare wrote the play around 1606, using an older play and the chronicles of ancient Britain. Its ending was found so unbearable that for about 150 years theatres performed a version in which Cordelia lives. This edition follows the text of the First Folio, which differs in places from the earlier quarto. Read it beside Hamlet, the other great tragedy of fathers and children.
About the author
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), born in Stratford-upon-Avon, actor, playwright and shareholder of a London company, wrote about thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets.