Shakespeare's Tragedies: Prof. Giordano ENG 302: King Lear

Before you begin your research, try your hand at these quotes.

Who said it? 

1. How sharper than a serpent's tooth, it is to have a thankless child.
   Act 1, Scene 4

2. ... ever since thou madest thydaughters thy mothers: for when thou gavest them
   the rod, and put'st down thine own breeches.
   Act 1, Scene 4

3. I love your majesty/According to my bond; nor more nor less.
   Act 1, Scene 1

4.  Wherefore should I/Stand in the plague of custom, and permit/The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
   Act 1, Scene 2

5. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;/hey kill us for their sport.
   Act 4, Scene 1

Cordelia is Lear's youngest and most beloved daughter. When she declines to flatter him by declaring her love for him in a public ritual, Lear disowns her.

The Duke of Gloucester is the father of Edgar and Edmund. 

Edgar is Gloucester's legitimate son and Edmund's elder brother. Gloucester proclaims Edgar a traitor.

Edmund is Gloucester's younger son, born out of wedlock. He is courtly, proud, charming, handsome, cunning, and evil.

The Fool is Lear's jester. He is bitter because of Cordelia's banishment and he chides Lear ceaselessly for it.

Goneril, Lear's eldest daughter is a sharp-tongued, selfish woman of great appetite and bottomless cruelty.

Regan is Lear's  second daughter and, in the ways of treachery and cruelty, she is a double of her sister Goneril.

Kent is a true and loyal servant to Lear who incurs the King's wrath when he insists on opposing Lear's furious and hasty banishment of Cordelia.

King Lear." Shakespeare for Students: Critical Interpretations of Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2007. 368-408. Gale

      Virtual Reference Library. Web. 30 June 2011.

1. King Lear
2. The Fool
3. Cordelia
4. Edmund
5. Gloucester