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Flashcards in King Lear quotes Deck (147)
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1
Q

Lear 1.1

A

“Nothing will come of nothing, speak again”

2
Q

Lear, 1.4

A

“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

3
Q

Lear, 3.2

A

“I am a man more sinn’d against than sinning”

4
Q

Edgar, 3.4

A

“Unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal, as thou art” Spoken in prose, contrasting Lear’s previous blank verse and iambic pentameter, showing he is no longer “Every inch a king”This was also the first recorded use of the phrase ‘unaccomodated man’ in english language

5
Q

Bradley

A

“He dies in agony… Not of pain but of ecstasy” (In the belief that Cordelia is alive)

6
Q

Bruce

A

“Although Lear’s actions don’t help, they are the catalyst rather than the cause”

7
Q

Harold Bloom

A

“The descent from monarch to ‘unaccommodated man’ thus conveys most potently man’s fragility, fallibility and fatality”

8
Q

Lear finally finds wisdom

A

“They told me I was everything: ‘tis a lis, I an not age-proof”

9
Q

A. W. Schlegal

A

Lear’s downfall is a “fall from the highest elevation into the deepest abyss of misery”

10
Q

Regan, 1.1

A

“He hath but slenderly known himself”

11
Q

Fintan O’Toole

A

“In losing Cordelia, Lear loses his connection to that ordered feudal world”

12
Q

A. C. Bradley

A

“Evil is overcome and replaced by order, unity and goodness”

13
Q

Hazlitt

A

“Giddy anarchy”

14
Q

Dr Samuel Johnson

A

Gloucester’s blinding scene is “one of the most painful in all English theatre”

15
Q

Jan Kott

A

“All that remains at the end of this gigantic pantomime is the earth, empty and bleeding”

16
Q

Samuel Johnson

A

“There is no scene which does not add to the aggravation or distress”

17
Q

Samuel Johnson

A

“A play in which the wicked prosper and the virtuous miscarry”

18
Q

D. J. Enright

A

“The principal characters are not those who act but those who suffer”

19
Q

George Bernard Shaw

A

“No man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear”

20
Q

Kent, 1.1 [response to Lear]

A

“See better”

21
Q

Goneril, 1.1

A

“Dearer than eyesight”

22
Q

Gloucester, 4.1

A

“I stumbled when I saw”

23
Q

Gloucester, 4.6

A

“I see it feelingly”

24
Q

Cordelia, 1.1

A

“With wash’d eyes, Cordelia leaves you”

25
Q

Foakes

A

“[Gloucester] gains true sight after he is blinded”

26
Q

Lear, 1.1 [to Kent]

A

“Out of my sight”

27
Q

Lear, 1.1

A

“Set my rest on her kind nursery”

28
Q

Lear 1.1

A

“Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s loveLong in our court”

29
Q

Lear, 2.4

A

“Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, and thou art love her twice”

30
Q

R. W. Chambers

A

“A vast poem on the victory of true love”

31
Q

Mark R. Schwehn

A

“Over time, duty and love become one and the same”

32
Q

Hazlitt

A

“The indiscreet simplicity of her love and the hollowness of her sisters’ pretensions”

33
Q

Cavall [on Edgar]

A

“He wants his father to still be a father, powerful, so that he can still remain a child”

34
Q

Kahn

A

“The reason for Lear’s failure is that he fights against his own repressed need for a mother figure”

35
Q

Lear, 1.1

A

“I lov’d her most”

36
Q

Lear, 1.1 [imperatives]

A

“Speak” “give” “attend” “mend”

37
Q

Lear, 4.7

A

“I am a very foolish, fond old man”

38
Q

Edmund, 1.2

A

Refuses to “stand in the plague of custom”

39
Q

France, 1.1

A

“That art most rich being poor”

40
Q

Mark R. Schwehn

A

“Edgar decides to become a beggar, not just any other disguise, because he feels worthless”

41
Q

Colie

A

“Lear and Gloucester’s realisation about the poor threatens the aristocratic code of the time”

42
Q

Dollimore

A

“Lear loses his mind when he loses his social status”

43
Q

Kenneth Muir

A

On Edgar”The roles he plays are the means by which he matures into royalty”

44
Q

Lear, 1.1

A

“Her price is fall’n”

45
Q

Gloucester, 1.2 [on Edgar]

A

“Unnatural, detested, brutish villain”

46
Q

Lear, 2.4

A

“We are not ourselves when nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind to suffer with the body”

47
Q

Edgar, 5.2

A

“Here father, take the shadow of this tree for your good host”

48
Q

Gloucester, 1.2

A

“these late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us”

49
Q

Lear, 1.1 [to daughters, on love test]

A

“where nature doth with merit a challenge”

50
Q

Lear, 1.1

A

“A wretch whom nature is ashamed”

51
Q

What words appear 40+ times?

A

“Nature” “natural” “unnatural”

52
Q

Hooven

A

“Death is neither punishment nor reward: it is simply the nature of things”

53
Q

Bradley [on the storm on the heath]

A

“Nature herself joins with the forces of evil in man to overpower the weak”

54
Q

John F. Dannby [Historicist reading]

A

Argues that Lear dramatizes the meaning of nature, reflecting a debate about what nature was really like in Shakespeare’s time.

55
Q

Edmund, 1.2

A

“Thou, nature, art my goddess”

56
Q

Fool, 1.4

A

“May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse” Professional eccentric witty madness

57
Q

Regan, 3.7

A

“Hang him instantly” Obsessed with madness of evil

58
Q

Stage direction, 4.6

A

“Enter lear, [mad]”

59
Q

Lear, 3.3

A

“My wits begin to turn”

60
Q

Gloucester, 4.6

A

“The king is mad”

61
Q

Edgar, 4.6

A

“O matter and impertinency mixed! Reason, in madness!”

62
Q

Lear, 4.6

A

“Let copulation thrive… There is sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption”

63
Q

Muir

A

“Edgar, in acting madness, precipitates Lear’s”

64
Q

Orwell

A

“Madness is used to veil Shakespeare’s social criticism”

65
Q

Heilman

A

on wicked characters “Their cool sanity is transmuted into moral madness”

66
Q

Kiernan Ryan

A

“[Lear] displays a degree of rational thought amongst madness”

67
Q

Edgar, 2.3

A

“Edgar I nothing am”

68
Q

Human justice: Lear, 4.6

A

“Plate sin with gold,And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks”

69
Q

Justice and morality: Edgar, 5.3

A

“The dark and vicious place where thee he got Cost him his eyes”

70
Q

Divine justice: Lear, 1,1

A

Swears by Pagan deities: “Sacres radiance of the sun” “Mysteries of Hecate and the night” “Apollo” “Jupiter”

71
Q

Divine justice: Lear, 2.4 [to Goneril]

A

“If you do love old-men… Send down and take my part” begging for help from the heavens

72
Q

What word is said 31 times in the play?

A

“God”

73
Q

Divine justice: benign: Regan, 2.4

A

“Bless’d Gods”

74
Q

Divine justice: benign:Albany, 4.2

A

“You are aboveYou justicers”

75
Q

Divine justice: benign:Cordelia, 4.7

A

“O you kind Gods”

76
Q

Divine justice: benign:Edgar, 5.3

A

“The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices,Make instruments to plague us”

77
Q

Divine justice: benign:Gloucester, 4.6

A

“You ever-gentle Gods”

78
Q

Divine justice: malign: Gloucester, 4.6

A

“As flies to wanton boys are we to th’gods;They kill us for their sport”

79
Q

Divine Justice: Norman Maclean

A

“Lear believed in a universe controlled by divine authority, harmony, ordered in it’s parts”

80
Q

Human justice: Goneril, 5.3

A

“The laws are mine, not thine. Who can arraign me for’t?”

81
Q

Edgar, 1.3

A

“Some villain hath done me wrong”

82
Q

Edgar, 2.3

A

“Edgar I nothing am”

83
Q

Edgar, 5.3

A

“We should speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”

84
Q

Edgar 5.3 [to Edmund]

A

“I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund”

85
Q

Edgar, 2.3

A

“I will preserve myself to take the basest and most poorest shape”

86
Q

Gloucester, 4.1

A

“O dear son Edgar… Might I but live to see thee in my touchI’d say I had eyes again”

87
Q

Edgar, 4.6

A

“Reason, in madness!”

88
Q

Lear, 3.4 [on Edgar]

A

“Philosopher”

89
Q

Edgar, 3.4 [on Lear]

A

“Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art”

90
Q

Cavell

A

“He wants his father still to be a father, powerful, so that he can still remain a child”

91
Q

Leo Kirschbaum

A

“His various roles do not tell hs more abour Edgar”

92
Q

Fool, 1.4

A

“I am a fool, thou art nothing”

93
Q

Fool, 2.4

A

“Fathers that wear ragsDo make their children blind”

94
Q

Fool, 1.5

A

“She that’s a maid now”

95
Q

Lear, 5.3

A

“And my poor fool is hanged”

96
Q

G. Wilson Knight

A

“the Fool is used as a chorus”

97
Q

Goneril, 1.4

A

“All-licens’d”

98
Q

France, 1.1

A

“Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor”

99
Q

Lear, 4.7

A

“You are a spirit I know” Cordelia has transcended physical level

100
Q

Cordelia, 1.1

A

“The jewels of our father, with wash’d eyes Cordelia leaves you”

101
Q

Brandes

A

“The living emblem of womanly dignity”

102
Q

Cordelia, 1.1 [to G+R]

A

“I know you what you are”

103
Q

Goneril, 1.1 [to Regan]

A

“You see how full of change his age is”

104
Q

Goneril, 1.3

A

“Old fools are babes again”

105
Q

Goneril, 2.4 [to Lear]

A

“What need you five-and-twenty? Ten? Or five?”

106
Q

Goneril, 1.5 [to Albany]

A

“this milky gentleness and course of yours” Macbeth: “Milk of human kindness”

107
Q

Goneril, 3.7

A

“Pluck out his eyes”

108
Q

Goneril, 4.2 [to Albany]

A

“Milk-liver’d man! That bear’st a cheek for blows”

109
Q

Goneril, 5.1

A

“I had rather lose the battle than that sister Should loosen him and me”

110
Q

Goneril, 5.3 [aside]

A

“If not I’ll ne’er trust medicine”

111
Q

J. Stampfer

A

“[Goneril] is, from the point of view of conscience, an animal or beast of prey”

112
Q

Hazlitt

A

“Their deliberate hypocrisy adds the lasting finishing to the odiousness of their characters”

113
Q

Goneril, 1.1 [to Lear]

A

“I love you more than words can wield the matter”

114
Q

Regan, 2.2 [sadistic]

A

“Till night, my Lord, and all night too”

115
Q

Regan, 3.7 [sadistic]

A

“One side will mock the other”

116
Q

Regan, 2.4

A

“O, sir, you are old”

117
Q

Regan, 3.7

A

“Hang him instantly”

118
Q

Wharton

A

Goneril and Regan’s behaviour is “Too diabolical to be creditable”

119
Q

Regan, 1.1

A

“I am made of that selfsame metal that my sister is, And prize me at her worth.”

120
Q

Edmund, 1.2

A

“Now, gods, stand up for bastards”

121
Q

Gloucester, 2.1

A

“Loyal and natural boy”

122
Q

Edmund, 3.3

A

“The younger rises when the old doth fall”

123
Q

Edmund, 5.1 [on Goneril and Regan]

A

“To both these sisters I have sworn my love”

124
Q

Edmund, 5.3

A

“Some good I mean to do Despite of mine own nature”

125
Q

G. Wilson Knight

A

“Edmund’s fate is nobly tragic”

126
Q

Hazlitt

A

“All [he does is] managed with an uncommon degree of skill and power”

127
Q

When Edmund is punished for his ruthless rise to power, he says “the wheel is come in full circle, I am here”. This is similar to what?

A

Sophocles ‘Ajax’ when upon the death of Ajax, Teucer states “that wheel comes surely round”

128
Q

Edmund, 1.1 [to Gloucester]

A

“No my lord”

129
Q

Gloucester, 4.1

A

“I stumbled when I saw”

130
Q

Gloucester 4.1

A

“As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods.They kill us for their sport”

131
Q

Gloucester, 3.4

A

“I am almost mad myself”

132
Q

Edmund, 1.2

A

“A credulous father”

133
Q

Gloucester 3.4 [to Lear and Edgar]

A

“Our flesh and blood is grown so vile”

134
Q

Gloucester,

A

“I am your host, do me no foul play, friends”

135
Q

Gloucester, 2.1

A

“My old heart is crack’d, it’s cracked!”

136
Q

Kent, 5.3

A

“I have a journey sir, shortly to go.My master calls me; I must not say no”

137
Q

Kent, 1.1 [to Edmund]

A

“I must love you and sue to know you better”

138
Q

Kent, 1.1 [opening lines]

A

“I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall”

139
Q

Kent, 1.1 [pun]

A

“I cannot conceive you”

140
Q

Kent, 4.3

A

“It is the stars, the stars above us govern our conditions”

141
Q

Kent, 2.2 [to Oswald]

A

“Filthy, worsted-stocking knave”

142
Q

Kent, 2.4 [says of himself]

A

“Having more man than wit about me”

143
Q

Coleridge

A

“The nearest to perfect goodness in all Shakespeare’s characters”

144
Q

Kent, 1.1

A

“See better”

145
Q

Dollimore

A

“King Lear questions the Jacobean status quo”

146
Q

Nahum Tate

A

“A heap of jewels, unstrung and unpolished”

147
Q

Emma Smith

A

The lack of emotion in evil characters would have worried Christian Jacobean audience, especially as King Lear is “a Christian play about a pagan world”