Book Review of
King Lear
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear? For all the force of its language, King Lear is almost equally powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play.
The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom—one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies is also perhaps his most moving.
Grace's Review
I read King Lear for school and found it to be very interesting. I found it to be better than Hamlet, but I did not like it as much as Pericles, which is my favorite Shakespeare piece.
I found it to be a very dramatic piece that was almost humorous in some spots because it was so dramatic. I can see why people love Shakespeare because of the drama and tension created through the dialogue and characters.