The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies
Each edition includes:
· Freshly edited text based on the best earlyprinted version of the play
· Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
· Scene-by-scene plot summaries
· A key to famous lines and phrases
· An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
· An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
· Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books
Essay by Susan Snyder
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
tragic,ironic,extreme...:
Such extremes of emotional manipulation as are encountered in King Lear would antagonize me if I encountered them in an ordinary work of fiction or a film. There is such a degree of unreasonable pettiness in King Lear's attitude; there is so much gratuitous malice in the evil designs of the older daughters and the Duke of Cornwall;such despicable treachery on the part of Edmund,etc.,etc,. Obviously the play transcends melodrama through Shakespeare's marvelous use of language. Instead of seeming... more info
FOLGER Shakespeare Library Edition of the Tragedy of King Lear BETTER THAN EXPECTED!:
I have reviewed several current editions of King Lear and other Shakespearean plays, and was somewhat disappointed in the Folger edition of King Richard III. Nevertheless, the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of King Lear appears to be both accessible and scholarly, with solid reasoning behind its balance of the First Quarto with the First Folio versions of this intense and telling tragedy which we do well to revisit now. My first love will always be Prof. Tucker Brook's redaction in the The Tragedy... more info
A tragic action without possible return!:
King Lear`s fatality cannot be invocated as a divine curse. When Lear renounces to be at charge of his kingdom wrought with the ferocity of his soldiers and irrigated with the blood of his troops, begins his own fall, because you cannot be king without a kingdom. The nature denied Lear the possibility of a male inheritor, so under the perspective of his imminent death, decides to bet in the unpredictable roulette of the emotions a test of love to find out which one of his daughters loves him more.more info
All's cheerless, dark and deadly:
Lear starts his tragedy with a lie. He has divided his kingdom into one larger and two smaller equal parts and promises to give the larger part to that of his daughters who vows the strongest love for him. Yet after Goneril speaks he immediately awards her one of the smaller parts, instead of listening to her sisters and then deciding the fate of the largest bounty. He thus negates his word and turns the auction into a formality for his pre-arranged plan of giving Cordelia the largest part and her sisters... more info
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