King Lear (Shakespeare Made Easy): Amazon.ca: Books

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KENT I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

35 Reviews

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (35 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Of course Shakespeare was genius, but meant for theatre NOT print., Dec 30 2011

By

David Sabine (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: King Lear (Paperback)

I, like everybody else trying to sell this book at Amazon, read this because it was required for an English class at university. I'm better for having read it. But let's face it, Shakespeare's stories were meant to be experienced in a theatre. If you want to know Shakespeare's story about King Lear, find a local theatre company and request it.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Not as represented in 'Click to look inside', July 14 2009

By

Michael from Montreal (Montreal Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Lear (Paperback)

Can't complain about the price, but the cover illustration is wrong (wrong publisher), there are no 'notes' or 'further reading' etc. and the book is 120 pages, not 300 something (as according to 'Click to look...' nor 144 as stated in the product description section).

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5.0 out of 5 stars A father's folly and a daugther's devotion, Nov 18 2003

By

MrSherlockHolmes - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Lear (Mass Market Paperback)

After you begin to read a few of Shakespeare's plays in their original language you begin to develop an understanding of the structure of the language and the expressions used in that time. The trick I believe is to persevere; like any good thing, once you have mastered it, you begin to feel a sense of accomplishment. This greatly enhances your enjoyment of the plays.

King Lear is a play about honoring one's parents, a very relevant lesson for those of us in the modern world. As with many of Shakespeare's other plays, the language may be old but the lessons are still as relevant as ever. Lear, the King of England gives his blessing and lands to two of his daughters based on their outward show of affection for him, while neglecting his third; Cordelia, because she would rather show her love than make an outward display " my love's more richer than my tongue". It turns out that her two daughters deeds are contrary to their words and the rest of the play deals with Lear almost going mad at the ingratitude and lack of respect shown to him by his two daughters.

There is another subplot with the earl of Gloucester being deceived by his illegitimate son into wanting to kill his other son, Edgar. The story unfolds with two of these men, Lear and Gloucester being mistreated by their children who outwardly show love but inwardly have cold and calculating hearts. As with other tragedies, there must be deaths and disappointment, and King Lear is full of them. Unlike Othello however, King Lear does not have a very depressing ending and there is a feeling that everything will be alright, life goes on in other words.

I have tried to outline very briefly what this play is about and hopefully have shown a little of what is inside this very rich play. I would recommend King Lear to anyone wanting to read Shakespeare, I would also recommend you read it in the original language because even though it may be more difficult to comprehend, the language is richer and you will be reading Shakespeare and not some modern editor's idea of him.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Writing
Shakespeare historian A.L. Rowse, authors of the Readers Companion to World Literature, and others explain that the author of King Lear combined two already existing stories and... Read more

Published on July 27 2003 by Robert Beattie

4.0 out of 5 stars King Lear:
When rating Shakespeare, I always rate his works as compared to other Shakespearean works; otherwise, the consistently high marks wouldn't be very informative. Read more

Published on Jun 4 2003 by James Yanni