King Lear, one of Shakespeare's most renowned plays, is about a king who believes he can choose one of his three daughters to rule his kingdom based on which of them can profess the most love for her father. This premise can foster class discussion on familial love. The work also centers on succession, political upheaval, and women in positions of power; historical background on the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I will help contextualize the play. King Lear includes a large cast of characters, so making a character chart, including characters' relationships to one another, will help students keep track.
This tragedy offers fascinating motifs of appearance and reality, vision and blindness, as well as themes of justice and the loss of power. In the classroom, teachers are encouraged to show clips of live productions of King Lear to creatively engage students with the text. Generally speaking, this play is extremely dramatic, so students will love to read it aloud in class.
Summary
King Lear tells the story of an aging ruler who is considering passing his power on to one of his three daughters. To determine which of them is most qualified to take his place, he asks each of them to tell him how much she loves him. When one daughter, Cordelia, says she cannot put her love for Lear into words, he disowns her. The two remaining daughters, Goneril and Regan, claim to love King Lear more than they love anything in the world, yet their subsequent actions indicate otherwise. As the story goes on, they manipulate their elderly father, who is slowly beginning to lose his mind. King Lear is a classic tragedy about characters who quickly become more desperate, more insane, and more power-hungry as the play progresses.