Shakespeare's King Leare

ESSAY CRITICAL STUDY –

“King Lear has meant different things to different people depending on the time and place”

King Lear is widely regarded by many scholars as Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. Shakespeare took his main plot line of an aged monarch abused by his children from a folk tale that appeared first in written form in the 12th century and was based on spoken stories that originated much further into the Middle Ages.
In several written version of the story, the king does not go mad, his "good" daughter does not die, and the tale has a happy ending. This is not the case with Shakespeare's Lear, a tragedy of such consuming force that audiences and readers are left to wonder whether there is any meaning to the physical and moral carnage with which King Lear concludes.

Since Shakespeare first created The Tragedy of King Lear in 1604, the play has been reproduced countless times in many modern and contemporary productions. Because the themes of family, justice, c...