Paper Two

• Media res


  The play starts in the middle of the action, drawing the reader in
• Affected


  (Meaning preferred) Suggests an obsession of male inheritance common at the time
• Uncertain language


  Gloucester uses "seem so", "appears not" when discussing Lear, reflecting Lear's unpredictability and the time of uncertainty in society
• Gloucester does not directly answer Kent's question about Edmund
• Kent: 'I cannot wish the fault [Gloucester's affair] undone, the issue of it being so proper'
• Gloucester: 'I have a son, Sir, by order of law, […] who yet is no dearer in my account'
• Gloucester: 'was his mother fair; there was god sport at his making'
• Edmund: 'No, my Lord.'
• Lear: ''tis our fast intent/To shake all cares and business from our age,/Conferring them on younger strengths'
• Lear: 'Which of you shall we say doth love us most?'
• Lear's daughters' responses


  • Goneril loves Lear "Dearer than eye-sight, space and liberty"
  • Regan is "made of that self metal as my sister" but "find I am alone felicitate/In your dear highness' love"
  • Cordelia says "Nothing."
• Lear: 'Nothing will come of nothing'
• Cordelia: 'I love your Majesty/According to my bond; no more no less'
• Cordelia: 'You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I/Return those duties back as are right fit'
• Lear: 'For, by the sacred radiance of the sum,/The mysteries of Hecate and the night […] "Here I disclaim all my paternal care"'
• Lear: 'Peace, Kent! Come not between the Dragon and his wrath! I loved her most, and thought to set my rest/On her kind nursery'
• Lear: 'With my two daughters' dowers digest the third'
• Lear: 'Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her'
• Lear: 'Only we shall retain/The name and all th'addition to a king'
• Lear: 'Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,/This coronet part between you'
• Kent: 'Royal Lear,/Whom I have ever honoured as my King,/Loved as my father'
• Lear: 'The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft'
• Kent: 'be Kent unmannerly/When Lear is mad'
• Kent: 'What would'st thou do, old man?'
• Kent: 'this hideous rashness'
• Lear: 'Out of my sight!'
• Kent: 'See better, Lear; and let me still remain/The true blank of thine eye'
• Lear: 'now her [Cordelia's] price is fallen'
• Lear: 'Cordelia is "a wretch whom Nature is ashamed"'
• France: 'she, whom even but now was your best object'
• Cordelia: 'a still-soliciting eye'
• Cordelia: 'Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides'
• Regan: ''Tis the infirmity of his age'
• Goneril: 'The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash'
• Edmund: 'Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law/My services are bound'
• Edmund: 'should I/Stand in the plague of custom'
• Edmund: 'Why bastard? Wherefore base? [...] Why brand they us/With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, Base?'
• Edmund: 'Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land'
• Edmund: 'Now, gods, stand up for bastards!'
• Gloucester: 'Kent banished thus! And France in choler parted!'