King Lear

I've never had much trouble reading Shakespeare. Though the way he presents ideas is slightly jumbled behind difficult sentence structure and unfamiliar language, I've always been able to (at the very least) get the gist of what's going on. I haven't had the opportunity to read much Shakespeare since freshman year, when we read Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing, so I was a little rusty when I started on King Lear.

When I first started on the play, I kept in mind that it is labeled as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. I soon began to see why. Through King Lear's rambling tangents, I established that he's dividing his land between his daughters, and in return asks for a declaration of their love. His first two daughters, Goneril and Regan, answer willingly with how much they love him and are devoted only to him. Cordelia, his youngest (and purportedly, his favorite) daughter, cannot express her love in words, so she chooses not to respond. Her plan backfires, however; King Lear sees it as a sign that she doesn't love him, and removes her from his kingdom, dividing her dowry between her two older sisters and banishing those who disagree.

Ironic. The daughter who truly loves him is banished. His other two daughters, who use him for merely his fortune and dowry, are given all of his land.

A subplot details the elderly Gloucester, his son Edgar, and his illegitimate son Edmund. The latter, out of rage at being Gloucester's bastard son, decides to trick his father into believing that Edgar is trying to kill him. This is another instance of irony; the innocent Edgar is made out to be a traitor and a scheming murderer, while the malevolent Edmund is seen as the hero.

The play really is the tragedy of all tragedies -- six of the characters die, including all three of Lear's daughters and Lear himself.

Even 400 years after his death, Shakespeare continues to have a large impact upon our literature and the way that we write. His unique ability to create these situations -- unique webs of characters with delicately intertwining lives and misfortunes -- is what makes him the most famous playwright ever to have lived.