Commentary

• Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth

  - A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth (London: Macmillan, 1904)
  Excerpt: “In these lectures I propose to consider the four principal tragedies of Shakespeare from a single point of view. Nothing will be said of Shakespeare’s place in the history of either English literature or of the drama in general. No… More

• Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear

  - John F. Danby, Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear (London: Faber & Faber, 1948)
  Excerpt: We go to great writers for the truth. Or for whatever reason we go to them in the first place it is for the truth we return to them, again and again. What this truth is, both fort he poetry which we call universal and for the criticism which tries to… More

• This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear

  - Robert Heilman, This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1948)

• Shakespeare’s Politics By Allan Bloom

  - Bloom, Allan. Shakespeare’s Politics. With an essay by Harry V. Jaffa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
  From the publisher: Taking the classical view that the political shapes man’s consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare’s ideas and beliefs and to make his work… More

• The Limits of Politics: King Lear, Act I, Scene i

  - Harry V. Jaffa, “The Limits of Politics: King Lear, Act I, Scene i,” in Shakespeare’s Politics, 113–45
  Excerpt: According to that profound student of Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, the most difficult task of statesmanship is that of providing, not for the foundation, but for the perpetuation, of political institutions. If the political institutions are the… More

• Nature and Convention in King Lear

  - Paul A. Cantor, “Nature and Convention in King Lear,” in Poets, Princes, and Private Citizens: Literary Alternatives to Postmodern Politics, eds. Joseph M. Knippenberg and Peter Augustine Lawler (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 213–33
  Excerpt: At the center of King Lear, the mad king has an extraordinary vision. Staring at the near-naked beggar, Tom o’ Bedlam, in the midst of a raging storm, Lear sees all of humanity reduced to this bare level: Is man no more than this? Consider him… More

• King Lear: The Tragic Disjunction of Wisdom and Power

  - Paul A. Cantor, “King Lear: The Tragic Disjunction of Wisdom and Power,” in Shakespeare’s Political Pageant, eds. Alulis and Sullivan, 189–209
  Excerpt: Many critics regard King Lear as the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays and also as his most tragic. Indeed, many would claim that it is the most tragic play ever written. And yet, curiously, in most critical accounts of the play, it is difficult… More

• The Cause of Thunder: Nature and Justice in King Lear

  - Paul A. Cantor, “The Cause of Thunder: Nature and Justice in King Lear,” in King Lear: New Critical Essays, ed. Jeffrey Kahan (London: Routledge, 2008), 230–52
  Excerpt: As many critics have recognized, the central themes of King Lear are nature and justice, and in exploring their relation, the play investigates the nature of justice and the justice of nature. At the very center of the play, Act 3, scene 4, the king… More