The Tragedy of King Lear

Synopsis:

King Lear is old and weary of the business of his kingdom. During a time of great disquiet in the heavens (a solar eclipse), he is also slowly losing his grip on reality.

He wishes only to end his days quietly near his three daughters. Two of his daughters are married to important men of his realm; the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall. The Duke of Burgundy and the King of France are both suitors for the hand of Cordelia, his youngest daughter.

Lear calls his three daughters together, and tells them that he proposes to divide his kingdom between them.

Goneril, less loving than most suppose, says she loves him more than words could say; she loves him dearer than eyesight, space or liberty, more than life, grace, health, beauty, and honor.

"I love you as much as my sister and more," professes Regan, his second daughter "since I care for nothing but my father's love."

Lear was very much pleased with Goneril and Regan's hollow praise, and turns to his youngest daughter, Cordelia. She, however, uses no flattery. She is disgusted with the way in which her sisters professed love.

Lear, who loved Cordelia best, wishes her to make more extravagant professions of love than her sisters. She refuses, and he gives her share of the kingdom to his other two daughters.

The Earl of Kent, one of Lear's favorite courtiers and most trusted captains, tries to say a word for Cordelia's sake, but Lear in his rashness and anger, will not listen. With the kingdom divided between Goneril and Regan, he will only keep a hundred knights at arms, and will live with his daughters by turns.

When the Duke of Burgundy knows that Cordelia will have no share of the kingdom, he gave up his courtship of her. But the King of France is wiser, and decides to wed her for her honesty and many virtues, rather than wealth alone.

So Cordelia becomes Queen of France, and the Earl of Kent, for having ventured to take her part, is banished by King Lear. The King now goes to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had gotten everything from her father that he had to give, and now begins to grudge even the hundred knights that he had reserved for himself. She is harsh and undutiful to him, and her servants either refuse to obey his orders or pretend that they did not hear them.

While this is going on, the sons of the Earl of Gloucester are introduced. Edgar, the legitimate heir to the Earl, is dutiful and honest, while his bastard half-brother, Edmund, schemes to inherit all by subterfuge. He plants evidence that Edgar was attempting to seize Gloucester’s assets, while feigning friendship to all. Gloucester, furious, seeks to capture Edgar, but he escapes into the wilds.

Edgar, knowing he will be killed if he is caught, adopts a disguise of his own as a madman. He goes to live far from the court out on the heath. 

Now the Earl of Kent, when he was banished, made as though he would go into another country, but instead he comes back in the disguise of a soldier-of-fortune. He takes service with the King, who now has but one other servant: His Fool, who was faithful to him. Goneril tells her father plainly that his knights only served to fill her Court with riot and feasting; and so she begs him only to keep a few old men about him such as himself.

Angry, he sets out with his followers for the castle of Regan. But she, who had formerly outdone her sister in professions of attachment to the King, now seems to outdo her in undutiful conduct, saying that fifty knights were too many to wait on him, and will allow him even less.

Lear sees that they really wanted was to drive him away, and he departs during a wild and stormy night, and wanders about the heath half mad with misery. Presently his servant, the Earl of Kent, meets him, and at last persuades him to take shelter in a small hovel. There, they meet with Edgar, posing as the madman, and he joins their pitiful retinue.

At daybreak the Earl of Kent removes his royal master to Dover, and hurries to the Court of France to tell Cordelia what has happened. Cordelia's husband gives her an army to help win back the realm and with it she lands at Dover.

Meanwhile, the venal sisters play into Edmund’s hands, as he convinces them that the Earl of Gloucester remains a friend to the old king, and is plotting with the King of France to overthrow their sovereignty. Gloucester is blinded during this plot, but escapes, while Regan’s husband the Duke of Cornwall dies from wounds. Gloucester is aided in his escape by the madman, whom he cannot recognize as his son. Edgar later convinces his father to save himself from a self-inflicted death, while they try to join up with Cordelia’s army.

Cordelia and Lear are reunited, and her love helps heal the mad old king. But now they must face the armies of Goneril and Regan, who have joined forces, with the scheming Edmund as their General. The wicked triad wins the battle, and Cordelia and Lear are captured.

Goneril, although married to the Duke of Albany, has grown jealous of the recently widowed Regan’s attraction to the charismatic Edmund. Goneril poisons Regan, in order that she may have Edmund. However, when her husband discovers this evil and the crime is revealed, she kills herself.

Edmund and Edgar soon meet in a final duel, and Edmund is defeated. However, the deaths of the other sisters and Edmund come too late to save Cordelia, who has been hanged. Lear dies of grief, with and the surviving members of the court are left to govern the land as best they can.