Workbook Answers: AS/A-level English Literature Workbook

WORKBOOK ANSWERS
AS/A-level English
Literature Workbook:
King Lear
This Answers document provides suggestions for some of the possible answers that might be
given for the questions asked in the Workbook. They are not exhaustive and other answers
may be acceptable, but they are intended as a guide to give teachers and students feedback.
AS/A-Level Literature Workbooks: King Lear 1
© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

Chapter 1 Plot and dramatic structure
Chapter 1
Plot and dramatic structure
Plot
1 (a) ‘Nothing, my lord’
(b) Kent and Cordelia
(c) Put it in his pocket very obviously
(d) Oswald
(e) A letter from Cordelia
(f) Lear, Fool, Kent, Edgar, Gloucester
(g) Lear’s hand
(h) Edgar
(i) Britain
(j) After the battle, if he is victorious
(k) Suicide
(l) Goneril poisoned her
(m) Lear.
2 Possible answers include:
Change in the play Possible reason(s)

1 Monmouth’s version has a greater Shakespeare wanted the emphasis to be
emphasis on finding good husbands for Leir’s instead on land, power and the nature of
daughters. kingship.
2 Leir does not go mad (just distressed) Lear on the heath is Shakespeare’s own
and he does not spend any time on the heath incredible invention – adding drama and
– he goes straight to France. heightening the suffering and depths of
Lear’s tragic decline.
3 The time frame is less compressed in Shakespeare’s version has an eye on
Monmouth’s version (over at least an eight- dramatic pace and tension.
year period).
4 The King of Gaul plays a much more Shakespeare clearly wanted greater dramatic
significant role and the French defeat the focus on Cordelia and her forgiveness. The
British. Jacobean audience may have felt
uncomfortable with the French defeating the
British forces.
5 Leir is restored to the throne and rules Lear’s death in Shakespeare’s play enhances
again. the tragic vision – he is punished, gains

Change in the play Possible reason(s)

insight but, crucially, too late.
6 Crucially, Cordeilla does not die in Leir’s Many readers and critics have debated
arms in the Monmouth version – Cordeilla is Cordelia’s ‘unnecessary’ death in
instead imprisoned and commits suicide Shakespeare’s play, but there is no denying
rather than being hanged. her death tugs at the very fabric of our
humanity as we confront the nothingness of
life.
3 Answers will vary.
Dramatic structure
1
Event Act
A Cordelia sends her soldiers to search for Lear. 4
B Gloucester is blinded. 3
C Edmund persuades Gloucester that Edgar wishes his father was dead. 1
D Edgar gives Albany the letter revealing Edmund and Goneril’s plot 5
against his life.
E Kent argues with Oswald and challenges him to a fight. 2
F Lear meets Poor Tom on the heath. 3
G Lear and Cordelia are reunited and reconciled. 4
H Edgar challenges Edmund and defeats him 5
2 (a)
Main plot (King Lear) Subplot (Gloucester)

Goneril: ‘Old fools are babes A Deluded by Edmund first betrays
again and must be used / With deceitful children Gloucester’s legitimate son
checks as flatteries, when they Edgar, then Gloucester himself,
are seen abused.’ Goneril throws most notably to Cornwall in 3.5:
Lear out and provokes the ‘This is the letter which he spoke
confrontation with him over the of which approves him an
knights in 1.4. Lear thinks Regan intelligent party to the
will prove kind – but she delivers advantages of France.’ 10–12
the key line ‘What need one?’ in
2.1.452.
Lear: ‘We / Have no such B The good child is Gloucester, deceived by
daughter, nor shall ever see / cast out Edmund, issues orders to have
That face of hers again.’ 1.1.264– Edgar hunted down (‘[bring] the
266 murderous coward to the stake’
2.1.62) and have Edmund
replace him as heir (‘I’ll work the
means / To make thee capable.’
2.1.84–85)
The rivalry between Goneril and C Sibling rivalry Edmund: ‘[Edgar’s] foolish
Regan develops, especially in honesty / My practices ride easy.
Acts 4 and 5. Regan’s desire for I see the business. / Let me, if

Edmund leads to Goneril fearing not by birth, have lands by wit’

then hating her, for example, 1.2.181.
Goneril says in 5.1. 18–19: ‘I had
Edgar kills Edmund in 5.3.
rather lose the battle than that
sister / Should loosen him and
me.’
Lear spends Act 3 in the storm D Forced to live The blinded Gloucester: ‘Go,
on the heath. outside civilisation thrust him out at gates and let
him smell / His way to Dover’
3.7.92–93
Goneril and Regan’s betrayal of E Extreme agony and Edgar’s apparent treachery.
Lear. suffering
Gloucester’s blinding and
Lear’s madness on the heath. attempted suicide.
The death of Cordelia.
‘very foolish, fond old man’ 4.7.60 F ‘See’ things more Gloucester’s speech 4.6.34–40,
clearly ending ‘if Edgar live, O, bless
him’.
‘Do you see this? Look on her: G Die of emotional Edgar: ‘… his flawed heart /
look, her lips, / Look there, look shock Alack, too weak the conflict to
there!’ 5.3.308–309 support, / ‘Twixt two extremes of
passion, joy and grief, / Burst
smilingly.’ 5.3.195–198
(b) Possible answers include:
o Lear stays at Gloucester’s castle
o Gloucester decides to help Lear (with disastrous personal consequences)
o the blinding of Gloucester leads to the death of Cornwall
o Goneril wants to marry Edmund and conspires to kill Albany and later poisons
Regan
o Lear and Cordelia fall into Edmund’s hands
o Edmund issues the warrant for the murder of Lear and Cordelia
o Edgar is left to rule the Lear’s kingdom.
(c) Answers to 2(b) make it clear that the subplot plays an essential part in the main plot:
characters and events from each ‘plot’ intersect. Also, the audience can see that what
happens to Lear is not unique, because similarly dreadful things happen to Gloucester.
The subplot therefore helps the play explore the darker forces that afflict our common
humanity. Concerns such as blindness/sight (Lear’s moral blindness has a concrete
parallel in the literal blinding of Gloucester), and family and ‘natural’ bonds are also
explored in both plots.
3 (a) Possible answers include:
o Cordelia’s response to the love test
o Lear and Goneril’s bitter quarrel over the conduct of Lear’s retainers in Act 1

o the indignity of ‘Caius’ placed in the stocks
o Regan and Goneril’s insistence that Lear reduces further his number of knights
o Lear’s madness in the storm on the heath
o the defeat of the French army; Cordelia’s death
o Lear’s death.
(b) & (c) Answers will vary.
4 (a) He has been at Goneril’s castle and is now at Gloucester’s.
(b) Goneril has demanded that Lear cut his retinue.
(c) Regan sides with Goneril and therefore further infuriates and disappoints Lear. Regan
initially commands Lear to return to Goneril. Both sisters then proceed to tell Lear that he
should not have any knights at all.
(d) Fearing madness, he leaves Gloucester’s house in the storm.
(e) Lear begins the passage naively hoping Regan will sympathise with him and agree to
let him stay with her. Regan later angers Lear by refusing to allow Lear to stay and by
siding with her sister. Regan’s stance effectively means Lear is without a home and has
lost the familial ‘bond’ with all three of his daughters.

Chapter 2 Themes
Chapter 2
Themes
1 Answers will vary, although readers may struggle to justify science, education and the
supernatural as significant themes in the play.
3 (a) Lear; nothingness (and family and loyalty)
(b) Edgar; madness
(c) Gloucester; sight and blindness
(d) Gloucester; suffering
(e) Lear; family and loyalty
(f) Edgar; disguise and clothing
4 Simile: D
Command: A
Animal imagery: E
Repetition: B (and possibly A)
6 Kent is trying to warn the king that he is behaving foolishly and has failed to see the truth
about his three daughters. The Fool is also criticising Lear for the consequences of his
blindness and predicts Lear’s exile in the storm, overwhelmed by dark thoughts. The Fool
is perhaps also suggesting that the consequences of Lear’s folly are exacerbated by his
status as a king – ‘we’ suggests, perhaps, his loyal subjects.
• Gloucester’s blinding makes literal Lear’s metaphoric blindness
• The thrilling dramatic impact
• A potent visual symbol of the cruelty and violence of the world of the play
• It is a clear assertion of Cornwall and Regan’s new power and authority.
8 There is a tragic pity in seeing Gloucester and Lear – two betrayed and fallen fathers –
trying to make sense of their lives. They now see ‘how the world goes’ and seen the errors
of their actions. Perhaps more specifically for this scene, Lear and Gloucester also see the
superficial nature of authority and the inherent corruption and injustice of power.
9

Chapter 2 Themes
Quotation A, B How does the quotation develop ideas of

or C? nature?
LEAR: [Cordelia is] a wretch whom A Lear thinks Cordelia’s response to his love-
nature is ashamed / Almost test was ‘unnatural’ in her apparent
t’acknowledge hers. unwillingness to declare unqualified love for
her father.
1.1.212–213
LEAR: Unaccommodated man is no C Lear realises that, when we stand naked,
more but such a poor, bare, forked stripped of our sophistication and
animal as thou art. civilisation, our natural state is effectively no
more than an animal.
3.4.105–106
EDMUND: Thou, Nature, art my B Edmund has decided to take Nature as his
goddess; to thy law / My services are Goddess, rejecting the social (and
bound. Wherefore should I/ Stand in Christian) customs which condemn him as
the plague of custom? inferior because he was born out of
wedlock.
1.2.1–3
LEAR: Create her [Goneril] child of A This speech is part of Lear’s longer curse
spleen, that it may live / And be a against Goneril, in which he calls on Nature
thwart disnatured torment to her. to affect Goneril and her future children.
This particular quotation is again stating
1.4.274–275
that children being unkind to their parents is
unnatural.
LEAR: No, no, no life! / Why should a C The reference to animals here
dog, a horse, a rat have life / And thou demonstrates how far Lear and, of course,
[Cordelia] no breath at all? Cordelia have declined. The natural
injustice is made evident: the universe
5.3.304–306
apparently values the life of a rat over
Cordelia.
KNIGHT: This night wherein the cub- C Lear’s animalistic wildness is established
drawn bear would couch, / The lion here. Indeed, his behaviour is even wilder
and the belly-pinched wolf / Keep their than animals.
fur dry, unbonneted [Lear] runs, / And
bids what will take all.
3.1.12–14
LEAR: Allow not nature more than C In their relentless stripping away of Lear’s
nature needs, / Man’s life is as cheap possessions and entitlements, Lear argues
as beast’s. that they are reducing him to a beast. Even
beggars would have some miserable
2.2.455–456
possessions.
10
Acts 1 and 2 – Furious madness Acts 3 and 4 – Confused babblings

Some key passages include: Some key passages include:
• 1.1.110–121 (response to Cordelia’s • 3.4.6–36 (anger with the storm; ‘O
‘nothing’) that way madness lies’)
• 1.1.168–180 (banishing Kent) • 3.4.62–107 (Lear’s exchanges with

Poor Tom)
• 1.4.249–281 (cursing Goneril)
• 3.6.20–61 (the mock trial)

Chapter 2 Themes
• 2.2.354–7 (cursing Goneril) • 4.6.86–184 (arguably the apotheosis

of his madness – apparent nonsense
• 2.2.410–415 (cursing Goneril) in his exchange with Gloucester)
• 2.2.461-475 (Lear’s anger and

swearing of revenge on his daughters)
11 Lear’s time spent in the storm seems to accelerate his decline – the storm ‘invades’ Lear.
The thought of his daughters casting him out in the storm also seems to be tipping Lear
into madness – ‘In such a night / To shut me out? … O, Regan, Goneril, / Your old, kind
father, whose frank heart have you all – / O, that way madness lies.’ However, the storm
has a symbolic function as well – the dramatic natural upheaval is a visual, dramatic
representation Lear’s internal trauma.
13
• Mankind without power and wealth is a poor naked animal.
• That he, the King of Britain, is a poor naked animal.
• If man is an animal, he has no soul to save.
• Lear is discovering a sympathy for mankind.
• Having no clothes or possessions is living in a purer state, where nothing is owed.
14 (a)
• 2.2 Poor Tom
• 4.6 After Gloucester’s ‘suicide’ attempt, Edgar changes his identity to convince
Gloucester he really did fall off a cliff
• 4.6 Edgar also says to Gloucester that figure with him on the top of the cliff was a
monstrous ‘fiend’
• 4.6 Edgar puts on another accent so that Oswald would not recognise him; he then
kills Oswald to protect his father
• 5.1 Edgar appears in disguise at the enemy camp and gives Albany the incriminating
letter about Edmund and Goneril
• 5.3 Edgar appears ‘armed’ in another disguise; Edmund does not recognise him but
sees that he has good ‘breeding’
• 5.3 Edgar finally appears as ‘himself’, probably by removing a part of his disguise (a
mask or a helmet, usually).
(b) Caius:
o Kent, as Caius, proves a loyal servant to Lear.

Chapter 2 Themes
o He takes a moral stand against Oswald and Cornwall.
o He leads Lear to the hovel to shelter from the storm.
o Kent finds Cordelia and is instrumental in her reunion with Lear.
Poor Tom:
o Tom guides Gloucester, the blinded aristocrat who needs the commoner to help
him to ‘see’.
o In Tom’s ravings there is frequently wisdom.
o Poor Tom helps Lear unmask the uselessness of royalty.
(c) Through skilful manipulation and masterful control of language, he fools his father into
thinking his brother wants to kills him; he convinces his brother that he should hide and
avoid his father. Edmund then convinces his brother to run away from home and cuts
himself so it looks like he was trying to stop his brother from getting away. Gloucester is
impressed by Edmund’s devotion as a son and says he will inherit the title and estate
rather than Edgar. Later, Edmund betrays his father to Cornwall, who has him blinded as a
result.
(d) They both lie and flatter their father in Act 1 Scene 1. They then conspire together, at
the end of the scene, to ‘do something’ about Lear’s recent rash behaviour. Goneril plots
with Oswald and instructs him to put on a ‘weary negligence’ and tell the other servants to
follow suit in order to provoke an argument with Lear. She writes a letter to Regan,
presumably to tell her of Lear’s unruly behaviour. To avoid having to take Lear into her
own house, Regan goes to Gloucester’s instead.
(e) Possible points include:
o the distinctions between the clothes worn by the poor and the clothes worn by the
wealthy
o the suggestion that the wealthy are better able to hide their sins behind their
luxurious clothing
o Regan and Goneril (and wealthy aristocrats in general) do not need their fine
clothes to keep warm – indeed, the clothes seem insufficient even at fulfilling this
basic purpose
o Shakespeare may be satirising clothing fashions of his time.
15 love test; trappings; sanity; daughter; humanity; stripped away; world; suffering; anarchy;
see; wiser; nothing
16 Answers will vary but will perhaps take into account the religious world view of the play,
caught as it is between the pagan setting, the Christian contexts and a more radical vision
of an indifferent or cruel universe.

Chapter 3 Characterisation
Chapter 3
Characterisation
Character overview
1 A = Edmund; B = Goneril; C = the Fool; D = Goneril; E = Regan; F = Gloucester; G =
Edgar; H = Kent; I = Cornwall; J = Oswald
2 (a) Answers may vary. Possible pairings include: Lear / Gloucester; Kent / Oswald;
Albany / Cornwall; Cordelia / Goneril; France / Burgundy; Edgar / Edmund
(b) Answers will vary.
3 & 4 A = Gloucester – he is shocked by perceived upheavals in social structures; this

reveals Gloucester to value loyalty, but also that he lacks self-awareness in his false
accusations of his brother.
B = Lear – the final, painful (and misplaced) hope that his daughter survives; this helps to
develop tragic sympathy.
C = Goneril – her ‘monstrosity’ is that she assumes the role of a mother to her own father;
she seeks to manipulate and control the situation.
D = Fool – a typically enigmatic utterance; the wise Fool sees things as they really are and
acknowledges the far-reaching impact of the storm.
E = Cordelia – a prayer, appropriate for the saintly Cordelia; she is sympathetically hoping
for Lear’s recovery.
F = Regan – a characteristically cruel command from Regan.
G = Kent – he is ever-loyal to his King, even to the end; he fatalistically acknowledges that
Lear will not want to suffer any more and should be allowed to die.
• This view certainly holds when considering the villains in the tragedy – Cornwall,
Regan, Goneril, Edmund, Oswald.
• The statement might also apply to Gloucester and Lear, who treat Edgar and Cordelia
very poorly indeed.
• But Gloucester and, to a greater extent, Lear, are changed by their experiences and
show human capacity for redemption.
• Cordelia remains saintly throughout, but her death (along with Lear’s and
Gloucester’s?) perhaps suggests that such virtues have no place in a cruel and
chaotic world.

Lear
1 Answers will vary. All the words could apply to Lear to some extent.
• Lear mistakenly wants to give up the responsibilities of power but, crucially, remain
king.
• This creates an uncertainty – should he continue to be treated as a king? Goneril and

Regan certainly don’t think so.
• The love test is no such thing – it confirms Lear’s vanity and, it seems, he has already
decided to give the best lands to Cordelia.
• He foolishly thinks Cordelia will take part in the love test – her refusal appals him.
• He is fooled by Goneril and Regan’s superficial and elegant speeches.
• Breaking up his kingdom is likely to (and, indeed, does) result in civil war.
3 1 Lear’s tragic hubris (pride) is made clear; he sees Goneril’s actions as emasculating.
2 One of many of Lear’s curses; the vocabulary confirms his rage and anger.
3 Another image of blindness in the play. Lear is determined not to weep and show
(unkingly) weakness; the hyperbole confirms his strength of feeling; plucking his eyes is
ironic – he is already figuratively blind but doesn’t realise it.
4 Lear’s foolish lack of awareness is developed here – he mistakenly believes Regan

will prove a kinder daughter.
5 Lear is still thinking of himself as king and believes he can easily take back the power
he foolishly gave away. He cannot see that he can no longer do so: Goneril’s authority is
firmly established.
4 Answers will vary. Lear’s fury and pride are in evidence here, but his lack of awareness of
his situation – and his continuing belief in his own power (and Regan’s goodness) heighten
his tragic stature.
Feature of a tragic Evidence

hero / heroine
A One of the main Spectators will find many instances where we feel pity for Lear, especially in
aims of a tragedy is the second half of the play:
to make the
audience feel pity • Cordelia’s death
(pathos) for the hero.
• Lear’s ‘howl, howl, howl’ speech and his final speech (5.3)
• Lear’s encounter with Poor Tom in 3.4
• Lear’s madness, especially in 4.6


hero / heroine
• Lear’s encounter with the blind Gloucester in 4.6
• Lear’s reunion with Cordelia in 4.7
B Another important • The audience – like Kent, the Fool and Cordelia – will be aware that
aim of a tragedy is to Lear makes a fatal error in the first scene.
make the audience
feel terror and fear • The audience are made aware in 5.1 of Edmund’s plans that Lear and
for the fate of the Cordelia will never be pardoned.
hero.
• Edmund’s orders for the execution of Lear and Cordelia (5.3).
C The tragic hero is • Lear is represented as a human and certainly has his shortcomings:
identifiably ‘human’ – he is quick to anger and he demands the ceremonial power of
that is, neither kingship.
entirely good nor
entirely bad – so we
can identify with his
or her plight.
D The tragic hero is • Lear is clearly king.

normally of noble
birth and has a • Interestingly, the play asks what a king is: can someone be king but
higher social status. without any power? Is a king just an unaccommodated man beneath
his robes?
E A tragedy • Lear’s tragic decline is a classical one: he begins as king, he loses his
describes the hero’s authority, he becomes mad and he is isolated on the heath. Forces
fall from status and loyal to him also lose the war in Act 5.
prosperity to
desolation, isolation
and, often, madness.
This reversal of
fortune can be called
peripeteia.
F The tragic decline • Lear cannot ‘see’ that power can’t be separated from responsibility, or
is brought about in that Goneril and Regan will become terrible leaders.
part by a tragic flaw
or error of judgement • Hubris (excessive pride) prevents the King from seeing his errors –
in the hero, known as even when Kent and Cordelia reveal them.
hamartia.


hero / heroine
G The tragic hero Lear experiences a number of moments of insight:

experiences
anagnorisis – a • ‘I have ta-en too little care of this’ (3.4) – he realises he has ignored
moment of his poor subjects.
recognition or
discovery, often of • ‘I am a very foolish fond old man’ (4.7) – he realises his errors in his
his or her own treatment of Cordelia.
mistakes and errors
of judgement. Often, • ‘I might have saved her; how she’s gone for ever’ (5.3) – his change in
this moment of clarify perspective has come too late.
comes too late for
the hero to effect any
change.
H The tragic hero Lear’s death is probably one of the most heart-breaking and tragic in all of
dies at the end of the Shakespeare, especially his final speech as he desperately looks for signs of
tragedy. life in Cordelia
Quotation Order How it suggests changes in Lear’s

1–10 character
A If … thy banished trunk be found in 3 Lear is angrily banishing Kent.
our dominions, / The moment is thy
death. Away! By Jupiter, / This shall not
be revoked.
B Blow winds and crack your cheeks! 4 Lear’s fury is at its peak here as he
Rage, blow! / You cataracts and demands that the storm destroy all
hurricanoes, spout / Till you have humankind.
drenched our steeples
C Tell me, my daughters … Which of 1 Lear is king, using the language of
you shall we say doth love us most, / command and demanding to be loved.
That we our largest bounty may extend
D My wits begin to turn. 5 Lear is becoming increasingly fearful that
he is becoming mad.
E I might have saved her; now she’s 10 Lear’s punishment is almost complete –
gone for ever. / Cordelia, Cordelia, stay he is acknowledging his own guilt in
a little. Cordelia’s death, but crucially, and
tragically, too late.
F I am a very foolish, fond old man. 8 A key moment in Lear’s ‘journey’ – he has
realised the errors of his ways, especially
in his treatment of Cordelia.
G Here I disclaim all my paternal care, / 2 Lear is angrily banishing Cordelia.
Propinquity and property of blood, / And
as a stranger to my heart and me / Hold
thee from this for ever.
H How shall your houseless heads and 6 Lear – in his burgeoning madness – is
unfed sides, / Your looped and learning humility and realising that he

Quotation Order How it suggests changes in Lear’s

1–10 character
windowed raggedness, defend you / should have taken more care of his poor
From seasons such as these? O, I have subjects.
ta’en / Too little care of this.
I And the creature run from the cur – 7 Lear – in the midst of suffering and
there thou mightst behold the great madness – has learnt to condemn the
image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in hypocritical and distorted justice of those
office. who have power but no goodness or
morality.
J I’ll kneel down / And ask of thee 9 Lear is symbolically throwing all trappings
forgiveness. of kingly power (kings never kneel) in his
search for forgiveness.
7 Answers could consider how Lear begins the play as a furious, proud king but, through
suffering, he sees the errors he has made and has learnt about suffering, poverty and
justice. Though diminished in Act 5, he is kinder and humbler. Lear’s changes therefore
correlate with Aristotle’s ideas about peripeteia (decline) and anagnorisis (moments of
clarity and understanding).
Cordelia
1 (a) I loved her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery
LEAR on CORDELIA
(b) [You] are most rich being poor … Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon
FRANCE on CORDELIA
(c) Detested kite, thou liest.
LEAR on GONERIL
(d) The barbarous Scythian, … shall to my bosom / Be as well neighboured, pitied and
relieved, / As thou.
LEAR on CORDELIA
(e) Thou shalt never have my curse. / Thy tender-hafted nature shall not give / Thee o’er
to harshness.
LEAR on REGAN
(f) She shook / The holy water from her heavenly eyes
GENTLEMAN on CORDELIA
2 Some possible answers include:
• ‘The gods to their dear shelter take thee’ 1.1.183
• ‘Thou are most rich being poor’ (recalling the Bible, Corinthians, 6.10) 1.1.252

• ‘Patience and sorrow strove / Who should express her goodliest’ 4.3.16–17
• ‘All blest secrets … spring with my tears’ 4.4.15–17
• ‘O you kind gods!’ 4.7.14
• ‘Thou art a soul in bliss’ 4.7.46
• ‘You are a spirit’ 4.7.49
• ‘Hold your hands in benediction o’er me!’ 4.7.58
• ‘No cause, no cause’ (forgiveness) 4.7.75
• ‘When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down / And ask of thee forgiveness’ 5.3.10–
11
• ‘As if we were God’s spies’ 5.3.17
• ‘Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, / The gods themselves throw incense’ 5.3.20–21
3 (a) She kisses him in the hope that it would revive him.
(b) She reflects on his age and frailty and the level of suffering such an old man has had
to endure. She emphasises in particular the hardships Lear experienced on the heath:
‘dread-bolted thunder’, and that he had to share a hovel with pigs. Interestingly, she says
she would not have treated her enemy’s dog so cruelly.
(c) Cordelia is addressing her father as a king and therefore confirming he has the right
to be king (and hence justifying her invasion). In many ways, she is ignoring his abdication
in the first scene.
(d) ‘Thou art a soul in bliss’
(e) Kneeling holds enormous symbolic value in the play and in wider Renaissance
contexts. Kneeling is a sign of loyalty, reverence and submission. It also holds religious
connotations as well and would be a powerful stage image when performed. Here it is
used to symbolise mutual reconciliation as both Cordelia and Lear wish to show their
loyalty and reverence. Cordelia wishes to ‘give back’ Lear’s royalty; Lear feels he must
kneel before Cordelia as he acknowledges he is just a senile old man seeking forgiveness.
(f) Cordelia is expressing unconditional love for her father and is forgiving all the harm
and injuries he has caused her. This again might be seen to confirm Cordelia as a saintly
figure of Christian forgiveness – or, perhaps, as a character who is maintaining the
patriarchal status quo.
Goneril and Regan

1 (a) Kills a servant. REGAN
The oldest sister. GONERIL
Takes an initial lead role in planning how to respond to their father’s behaviour. GONERIL

Provokes the first confrontation with her father. GONERIL
Suggests or urges the gouging of Gloucester’s second eye. REGAN
Suggests they lock the doors on Lear to teach him a lesson. REGAN
Poisons her sister. GONERIL
Urges further punishment of Kent. REGAN
(b) Goneril initially takes a lead role in the sisters’ relationship and appears to be the
dominant sister. Regan seems happy to go along with Goneril’s initial plans. However,
Regan’s sadism soon starts to reveal itself in Act 2, as she urges Cornwall to inflict more
punishment on Kent and joins with her sister in their verbal onslaught on Lear in Act 2
Scene 4. Modern productions often place a particularly sexual element to Regan’s sadism.
• They lust after Edmund and take a ‘lead’ role in their (apparent) seduction of him.
• Goneril emasculates Albany and reduces his authority; for example in Act 5 Scene 3:
‘the laws are mine not thine’.
• Regan kills the servant in Act 3 Scene 7.
• They initiate the harsh treatment of Lear.
• Goneril dominates the men around her – Lear, Oswald, Albany and the Fool – in Act 1
Scene 4.
• They desire power.
(b) Jacobean ideals of femininity required women to be quiet and submissive and so
many in a Jacobean audience are likely to have been shocked and horrified at Goneril and
Regan’s subversion of accepted codes of feminine behaviour.
3 Answers will vary here, but the perspective does perhaps ask us to see the daughters in a
different way: as powerful women rebelling against a strict patriarchy and who must be
shown to be punished as a result.
Gloucester
Brave and Placing himself in great danger, Gloucester helps Lear on the heath: ‘I have
courageous o’erheard a plot of death upon him. / There is a litter ready … Take up, take
up, / And follow me’
The blinding scene: ‘I am tied to the stake and I must stand the course’ 3.7.53
Suicidal ‘O you mighty gods, / This world I do renounce and in your sights / Shake
patiently my great affliction off.’
‘No further, sir; a man may rot even here.’ 5.2.8
Adulterous ‘Yet was his [Edmund’s] mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and
the whoreson must be acknowledged.’ 1.1.21–23

Trusting / ‘A credulous father’ 1.2.177

easily
Gloucester’s belief in astrology: ‘These late eclipses in the sun and moon
manipulated
portend no good to us.’ 1.2.103–104
Loyal (to ‘If I die for it – as no less is threatened me – the king my old master must be
Lear) relieved’ (3.3.17–18)
‘O, let me kiss that hand!’ 4.6.128
2&3 Sample paragraph:
Gloucester’s pain and despair reflect Lear’s. Gloucester is suicidal through much of the
second half of the play – especially after his blinding and upon learning of Edmund’s
treachery in Act 3 Scene 7. Being led by his disguised son Edgar, Gloucester prays to the
pagan gods that he wishes to ‘renounce’ this world and to ‘shake’ his ‘great affliction off’ by
ending his own life. In Shakespeare’s time, Christians saw suicide as an unforgivable sin
against God, but Shakespeare may well be exploiting the pagan setting of the play in
refusing to condemn Gloucester’s desires: indeed, here Gloucester is praying to the gods
themselves for assistance. Gloucester’s suffering is presented in a sympathetic light,
especially in the euphemism to ‘shake patiently’ his suffering away. In the chaos and
nihilism which characterises much of the play, perhaps suicide is an inevitable, and
understandable, human response.
4 (a)
o He is tricked by his son Edmund.
o He tries to have Edgar killed.
o He has divided feudal loyalty between Lear and Cornwall.
o He spends a night in the storm looking for Lear.
o His trust in Edmund led directly to his torture.
o He has his eyes gouged out.
o He discovers Edmund’s betrayal and therefore his own errors.
o It is too dangerous for his own servants to help and support him.
o Oswald tries to assassinate him.
o He is on the losing side of the war in Act 5.
o He witnesses his king go mad.
o He dies upon discovery of Edgar’s true identity.
(b) Edgar is articulating a stoical philosophy: if we are to accept the necessity of

suffering, the best way to respond is by putting up with it. Patience and endurance are
valuable qualities in the world of King Lear.
(c) Answers could consider:
o the long list of Gloucester’s suffering in Question 4(a)


o the pagan setting justifies the denial of Christian hope
o the gods ostensibly do not answer the various prayers uttered in the play
o perhaps Gloucester does experience miraculous salvation on his way to Dover in

the hands of Edgar
o Gloucester’s suffering is punishment for his errors of judgement and are

necessary for him to see the mistakes for himself
o Gloucester – not the gods – is to blame for his own suffering and death.
Edmund
1 A soliloquy is a dramatic convention by which a character, alone on stage, utters his or her
thoughts aloud. This can be useful for providing details of plot and motivation. It often also
creates a relationship between the audience and the character as they are given intimate
access to thoughts, schemes and motivations.
• He fools Gloucester into thinking Edgar wants to kill him.
• He convinces Edgar to go into hiding rather than talk to his father.
• He then convinces Edgar to run away.
• He cuts himself to make it appear as though he was trying to stop Edgar from getting
away.
• These actions convince Gloucester to give him his inheritance.
• He tells Cornwall that Gloucester is helping Lear.
• He seduces Goneril.
• He seduces Regan.
• He plots the best way to have them killed so he can become king.
3 (a) Goneril: Having plotted with Edmund and murdered her sister, her scheme has
unravelled. She therefore commits suicide.
(b) Regan: A jealous Goneril poisons Regan upon discovering her affair with Edmund.
(c) Cordelia: Edmund orders the execution of Cordelia.
(d) Lear: Although escaping the killer sent by Edmund, Lear’s dies from grief over
Cordelia’s death (see above).
4 (a) Edmund opposes Nature to Custom/Society. Nature’s laws are here shown to be, in
effect, the laws of the jungle and beasts. In a level playing field, and without any moral
restraints, the most ruthless will survive.
(b) The ‘plague of custom’ here primarily refers to the laws which prohibit men born out
of wedlock from inheriting their father’s estate.

(c) Edmund is playing with the word ‘base’ and its auditory chimes with ‘bastard’. He
appears to be rejecting and criticising aristocratic contempt for the low-born. The repetition
might suggest Edmund’s obsession with his own status in contrast with Edgar and his
larger disgust with the social order.
(d) Edmund suggests that ‘legitimate’ children are conceived during dull lovemaking of a
marriage bed (and are therefore stale themselves). Bastards, meanwhile, are conceived in
the lively ‘sport’ and pleasure of adultery.
(e) Edmund appears to be relishing and enjoying his (forthcoming) success.
(f) They may have been shocked at Edmund’s bold, sinful command to the gods. This
concluding statement confirms Edmund’s villainy.
Edgar
1 Edgar: The legitimate son of Gloucester; embodies heroic, loyal qualities; gullible; lives.
Edmund: The illegitimate son of Gloucester; embodies selfish, deceitful qualities;

manipulative; dies.
Quotation Aspect of
character
(1–6)
A Why I do trifle thus with his despair / Is done to cure it. 3
B A most toad-spotted traitor… / This sword, this arm and my best spirits are 5
bent / To prove upon thy heart … / Thou liest.
C Whose nature is so far from doing harms / That he suspects none 1
D Friends of my soul, you twain, / Rule in this realm and the gored state sustain. 6
E Take the basest and most poorest shape / That ever penury in contempt of 2
man / Brought near to beast.
F I’se try whether your costard [head] or my baton be the harder. Ch’ill be plain 4
with you.
The Fool
• ‘This fellow has banished two on’s daughters and did the third a blessing against his
will’ 1.4.100–102
• ‘Can you make no use of nothing?’ 1.4.128–129
• ‘All thy other titles thou hast given away’ 1.4.142
• ‘e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers; for when thou gav’st them the rod
and putt’st down thine own breeches’ 1.4.163–165

• ‘The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long / That it’s had it head bit off by it young’
1.4.206–207
2 Hamlet; Macbeth; integrated; Richard Armin; medieval; Will Somers; uncle; satirises;
Cordelia; relief; truth; mothers; devastation

Chapter 4 Writer’s methods: Language and imagery
Chapter 4
Writer’s methods: Language and
imagery
1 (a) Simile: suggests mankind’s powerlessness against the cruelty of the gods
(b) Epizeuxis: Cordelia’s caring forgiveness
(c) Hyperbole: the empty, meaningless exaggerations of Goneril’s expression of ‘love’
(d) Metaphor: contrasts with Lear’s heightened emotional response to the death of his
daughter
(e) String of adjectives: the extent of Lear’s changes and his altered perception of himself
(f) Epizeuxis: a memorable, powerful expression of absolute grief
(g) Rhetorical question: underscores Edmund’s argument of the ‘unnatural’ social

customs
(h) Imperative: Goneril is a very powerful woman who exerts absolute control over events
and other characters
(i) Metaphor: archery conceit; Lear has already made up his mind and will not be
convinced otherwise
(j) Invocation: echoes of Edmund’s soliloquy; Lear is calling upon the goddess Nature to
support his curse of Goneril and her future children
2 (a)–(c) Answers will vary, but may share similarities with the answers above.
Group 1 Clothing Examples B, F, J

Group 2 Animals Examples C, E, L
Group 3 Disease Examples A, H, I
Group 4 Eyes/sight Examples D, G, K
(a)
o KENT: ‘Knowing naught, like dogs, but following’ 2.2.78
o KENT: ‘His dog-hearted daughters’ 4.3.46
o LEAR: ‘The little dogs and all … see, they bark at me’ 3.6.60–61

(b)
o LEAR: ‘We two alone will sing like birds i’th’cage’ 5.3.9
o LEAR: ‘Those pelican daughters’ 3.4.74
(c)
o LEAR: ‘… struck me with her tongue / Most serpent-like’ 2.2.349–350
o LEAR: ‘Come not between the dragon and his wrath!’ 1.1.123
(d)
o KNIGHT: ‘the belly-pinched wolf’ 3.1.13
o REGAN: ‘Ingrateful fox, ’tis he’ 3.7.28
• The nature of humanity is measured against the nature of animals.
• An exploration of man’s place in the Great Chain of Being.
• Suggesting how humans can be reduced to the status of animals if we lack ‘sight’, love
and goodness.
6 disruptions; images; metaphorical; terrifying; metaphors; monstrosity
7 (a) Of course, Shakespeare does not provide us with specific dates, and there are plenty
of anachronistic references in the play. However, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth (a
source for Shakespeare), Leir’s (Lear’s) reign would have occurred around the eighth
century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome: a distant, almost mythical past.
o Apollo 1.1.161
o Juno/Jupiter 2.2.211–212
o Hecate 1.1.111
o Nature as a goddess 1.2.1; 1.4.267
(c) Possible answers include:
o 1.4.267 – Lear is asking Nature to assist him in a curse for his daughter.
o 1.2.1 – Edmund is calling on Nature to help him in his efforts to climb the social
hierarchy.
o 4.4.15 – Cordelia is asking Nature to provide her with a restorative aid for her
father.
o 3.2.1 – Lear is asking the storm to drown the world.

(d) Answers will vary. Readers can agree or disagree. Perhaps to a modern audience the
gods appear a long way from being just in this play.
(e) patience; goodliest; pity; holy water; heavenly; benediction.
o direct and confident commands (imperatives): ‘Come not’; ‘Hence’; ‘Avoid my

sight’; ‘Call Burgundy’
o the royal ‘we’: ‘ourself’; ‘our abode’
o interruptions: ‘in my prayers – ’
o the ways in which Lear is addressed by other characters: ‘Royal Lear’; ‘my liege’
o associations with anger: ‘the dragon and his wrath’
o listing: ‘The name … the sway, / Revenue, execution…’
o other words associated with kingly authority: ‘power’; ‘invest’; ‘majesty’; ‘coronet’.
o words associated with Christianity, humility and forgiveness: ‘blessing’;

‘forgiveness’; ‘brand from heaven’; ‘God’s’
o imagery, especially similes: ‘like foxes’; ‘like birds’
o pronoun use: the ‘we’ is no longer the royal ‘we’ but the unification of Lear and
Cordelia
o listing: sentence beginning ‘So we’ll live …’
o commands (imperatives): ‘Take them away’; ‘Come, let’s away’
o other noteworthy differences with the previous passage: pronoun use; Edmund
adopts the language of command; tone of forgiveness rather than anger; the
contrasting use of lists.
(c) Answers will vary.
9 Blank verse is unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a type
of rhythm in which each line has five stressed syllables alternating with five unstressed
syllables. This forms the following rhythmde-DUM de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM, or:
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love
• patterning of imperative verbs, especially foregrounded at the beginning of lines
• other patterns: ‘drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks’; compounded adjectives:
‘thought-executing’
• line breaks formed with a range of extreme or violent words: blow, fires, thunder

• caesura (‘… head!’) announcing structural change of focus from the wind to the
thunder
• shortened final line (iambic trimeter) bringing the verse to an abrupt conclusion.
11
Comic scenes Prose
Moments of high drama or emotional Blank verse

intensity
‘Low status’ characters Prose
Court scenes Blank verse
Letters Prose
Lines spoken by royalty Blank verse
‘Mad’ scenes Prose
Soliloquies Blank verse
(a) Perhaps the prose here indicates the lines are to be delivered at speed and possibly
hints at the comic potential of Edmund duping Edgar and his father. Also, a possible
contrast with the intense drama of the royal court in the preceding scene.
(b) The switch to prose may be significant here as Lear begins to realise his common
humanity with the poorest and most deprived.
(c) The switching perhaps indicates Lear’s mental state, although at this particular point
Lear does adopt a more formal register as he denounces injustices and inequality in a
highly significant speech.
(d) Again, Shakespeare may be suggesting that these lines are to be delivered at speed
– and possibly hinting at a comedic intention in Edmund’s soliloquy as he expresses
incredulity at the gullibility of those around him.
14 Lear is, at this point, at the height of his madness. The focus of Lear’s obsessive fury in
this passage is, initially, on Gloucester’s adultery but it soon switches to a misogynistic
rant against Goneril and Regan and women in general. The passage is littered with words
associated with intense fear and loathing of women’s sexual desires, such as ‘lecher’,
‘copulation’, ‘luxury’ and ‘soiled’. As throughout the play, Shakespeare here deploys bestial
imagery (A) as, ‘down from the waist’ (B), women are referred to metaphorically (A) as
‘centaurs’ (B). Lear may well be articulating Jacobean, patriarchal concerns about the
emasculating effects of sexually powerful women (D and E).

Of course, Lear cannot consciously be aware of Goneril and Regan’s lust for Edmund. So
this is perhaps an example of what critic Maynard Mack called the ‘insight’ into the truth
that only madness brings. Indeed, the language in this passage charts Lear’s mental
deterioration (C) – his peripeteia (A) – as Shakespeare switches, mid-speech, from blank
verse to prose (A). Lear’s language ultimately breaks down. A list (A) outlines a hellish
vision of female genitals as the source of burning sexually transmitted diseases: ‘the
sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption’. This is then followed by angry
non-verbal vocalisations (A) ‘Fie’ and ‘pah’. These suggest Lear is struggling to articulate
his ideas as well as contributing to the overall dramatic impact of an angry but impotent
king (E).

Chapter 5 Contexts
Chapter 5
Contexts
1 (a) Gender roles; Monarchy and King James; Madness; Social hierarchy; Tragedy
(b) For example:
Context Shakespeare’s time Twenty-first century

1 Social hierarchy Social hierarchy was considered Twenty-first-century audiences are
to be much more fixed in more likely to be sceptical of the
Shakespeare’s time (although idea of a natural order, where our
there are plenty of historical social position is fixed and divinely
exceptions) ordained. Perhaps, therefore,
Edmund could excite more
sympathy.
2 Madness Attitudes and responses to Today, such ideas would shock.
madness were often Doctors no longer use the word
unsympathetic. People who were ‘mad’; the condition is considered
mad were believed to be to be largely medical, often a
possessed by devils and it was psychiatric problem. Perhaps
thought that they should be modern secular audiences would
whipped. Madness was also therefore view Lear’s madness in
considered to be a punishment a very different light – possibly
and a result of an unbalance of with more sympathy and
bodily fluids or ‘humours’. understanding?
2 (a)
o Lear dies at the end.
o Cordelia, notably, also dies, ‘caught up’ in the events.
(b)
o Lear clearly learns on his journey.
o He sees ‘better’.
o He acknowledges the suffering of the poor.
o He seeks forgiveness from Cordelia for the way he has treated her.
(c)
o King Lear does not have a single clear tragic villain (such as Claudius in Hamlet).
o Instead, Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Cornwall all variously play a key role in
Lear’s destruction, but especially his two daughters.
(d)

Chapter 5 Contexts
o Lear’s division of the kingdom proved catastrophic, resulting in war and

bloodshed.
o Lear’s love test also led to his estrangement from Cordelia and mistreatment from
Goneril and Regan.
o In Act 4, Lear’s Britain is truly in chaos.
(e)
o The powerful, pitiful poetry of King Lear has been much commented upon,
especially in heightened tragic moments (Lear on the heath; his meeting with
Gloucester; his reunion with Cordelia; and the final, unbearable ‘Never, never,
never, never, never’ speech).
(f)
o The play contains plentiful references to the gods and divine justice.
o A number of references to the wheel of fortune.
o The play clearly evokes a sense of the divine.
(g)
o The play’s treatment of suffering, mortality, cruelty, sin and forgiveness all
perhaps encourage the audience to reflect upon these aspects of the human
condition.
4 (a)
o Lear’s decision to effectively give up being king (and insist on the trappings of
privileges of power) would therefore be seen to be an affront against God. A king
is born a king.
o Other ‘good’ characters (notably Cordelia) therefore continue to see him as king,
despite his abdication.
o Lear in Act 1 Scene 1 is clearly presented as a powerful monarch, with language

and stage directions confirming this.
(b)
o Oswald ambitiously serves the evil Goneril without any moral scruples of his own.
o Oswald is shown to be an agent of corruption and keen to seek financial reward

(in trying to kill Gloucester).
o Oswald is shown to be an insolent, lying coward.
(c)
o Note the play’s preoccupation with clothing
o Lear’s ‘If only to go warm were gorgeous’ speech


Chapter 5 Contexts
o Lear’s proud insistence on keeping his one hundred (expensive) knights.
(d)
o Some scholars have argued that James may have specifically requested the
performance of King Lear at his court to show how dividing a country leads to
political instability and civil war.
(e)
o The issue over who should rule Britain runs through the play: Goneril as the
eldest in normal circumstances would become queen. But Queen Goneril would
have had an ambitious sister (and brother-in-law). Cordelia would also no doubt
have made a better queen. The divided kingdom in King Lear and concerns over
who should rule would no doubt have turned contemporary audiences towards
Elizabeth’s recent succession crisis.
5 (a) Possible answers:
Quotation Context
A–D
ALBANY: [to Edgar] Methought thy very gait did prophesy / A royal nobleness A
EDGAR: The country gives me proof and precedent / Of Bedlam beggars, who, C
with roaring voices / Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms / Pins, wooden
pricks, nails
EDMUND: Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit B
LEAR: ’Tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age, / A
Conferring them on younger strengths
KENT: [on Oswald] That such a slave as this should wear a sword, / Who wears no B
honesty. Such smiling rogues as these / Like rats oft bite the holy cords atwain
LEAR: Plate sin with gold, / And the strong lance of justice hurtles breaks; / Arm it D
in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.
LEAR: Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as A, B
thou art. Off, off, you lendings …
LEAR: I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence. / [to Edgar] Thou robed man of D
justice, take thy place.
EDMUND: Well, then, / Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. B
LEAR: Poor naked wretches … How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides C
… defend you / From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en / Too little care of
this.
KENT: [to Cornwall] Call not your stocks for me; I serve the king, / On whose A, B, D
employment I was sent to you. / You shall do small respect … Stocking his
messenger.
GENTLEMAN: [on Lear] A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch, / Past speaking A
of in a king.
(b) Kent is clearly appalled by Oswald’s behaviour. He calls him a ‘smiling rogue’ who
has no honesty. Oswald represents the ‘new man’ of the Jacobean age, an emerging class
who were motivated by self-interest. Kent confirms this in a later simile, likening Oswald to
a ‘rat’ who bites ‘the holy cords’ of feudal family and community traditions apart. Oswald

Chapter 5 Contexts
and Edmund are shown unsympathetically, so the play might therefore be criticising the
social phenomenon of the ‘new man’.
6 King Lear has always been considered Shakespeare’s bleakest play. Samuel Johnson,
writing in the eighteenth century, was so shaken by a reading of Cordelia’s death that he
could not bear to return to Shakespeare’s original. He admired Tate’s version. The
sensibilities of the eighteenth-century audiences were very different: they seemed
particularly sensitive to violence and horror and needed reassuring that justice is at work in
some way. Cordelia’s invasion from France would have borne some uncomfortable
parallels with Britain’s wars with France in this period.
7 (a) Each interpretation and performance is affected by social and historical contexts. We
seem much more inured to violence and horror. As critic Nutall argues, modern audiences
even expect to be ‘uncomfortable’ when going to the theatre.
(b) The blinding of Gloucester on stage would:
o make real and physical the play’s figurative exploration of sight and blindness
o match the mental agony Lear has endured in Act 3
o indicate that the world has turned upside down
o be a potent symbol of the inherent violence and cruelty of the world of King Lear.
8 (a) Tragedy and the tragic hero; King James’s court; Divine Right of Kings; madness;
Great Chain of Being
(b) Tragedy and tragic villain; Machiavellian villain; Great Chain of Being; the ‘new man’
of Jacobean age; Nahum Tate
(c) Jacobean justice; Nahum Tate; religion; Brian Annesley
9 The rewritten version could have included:
• attitudes towards legitimacy and primogeniture
• machiavellian villains
• tragedy and tragic villain
• the Jacobean ‘new man’ under no obligation to feudal loyalties
• the Great Chain of Being.

Chapter 6 Critical approaches
Chapter 6
Critical approaches
1 (a)–(c) Answers will vary.
2 (a) Johnson assumes that justice is a natural outcome – that the universe and society
are inherently ‘just’ and moral places. Therefore, Cordelia’s death is unnatural because it
is unjust.
(b) Answers will vary but could perhaps consider some of the play’s core concerns about
suffering and its determinedly bleak world-view. It is also interesting to note that all
Shakespeare’s heroines die …
4 Answers will vary. Some key ‘poetic’ speeches can include:
• Lear’s ‘Hear, Nature’ speech, 1.4
• ‘O reason not the need’ 2.2
• Lear’s speeches in the storm, 3.1
• Edgar’s speech to Gloucester at the cliff of Dover, 4.6
• Lear’s speech on justice, 4.6
• Cordelia’s ‘Had you not been their father’ 4.7
• Lear’s speeches in 5.3.
5 (a) The poor are represented in the play by ‘Poor Tom’, on the whole. They are shown to
be the conscience of the play. They suffer and are shown to be the victims of injustice.
(b) Lear ignored the poor when he was in power. He realises that society is unfair and
that kings have too much ‘pomp’ and wealth. A fair society can be brought about by those
who have a ‘superflux’ of wealth.
(c) Those who administer justice hypocritically commit crimes themselves. There is no
difference in the sins committed by the poor and wealthy, except the rich can hide their
crimes behind ‘furred gowns’.
6 (a) His powers are given to him by a monarchical society. He probably inherited the role,
so the power comes from family as well.
(b) It preserves power within a family. Siblings are likely to disagree over the inheritance.
The eldest child may not be the best suited to rule.

(c) With the exception of Edgar and Cordelia, all the royal and aristocratic characters
make catastrophic errors of judgement, conduct unspeakable acts of violence, betray their
family and immorally and ambitiously seize power.
(d) Events in Act 5 seem to indicate this collapse: war, murder, suicide, the destruction of
a royal dynasty. Spectators will have to decide for themselves whether or not Edgar is able
to restore governance and what form of governance this will take – will it be more of the
same?
7 (a) Most of the play describes the terrible consequences of Lear’s refusal to govern, to
rule as God has ordained. A monarch cannot decide whether or not to rule. So it can be
argued that King Lear is a conservative play, warning its audiences of the consequences
of going against established conventions of governance.
(b) The knights are unruly and disruptive and might demonstrate what happens when
symbols of power become separated from actual authority to rule. Tennenhouse: ‘When
he resigns his throne, the retainers operate only as symbols of a power once located in
Lear … It has to be a significant moment, then, when the king’s own retainers [become] a
disruptive social force where once they would have opposed such a force in the name of
political order.’
(c) Gloucester disinherits his legitimate son and therefore does not obey the rule of
primogeniture, central to monarchical and aristocratic power structures. He is clearly
punished as a result.
(d) Gloucester renounces Edmund, the bastard son; Gloucester renews his loyalty to his
king; Cordelia renews loyalty to her king and affirms the patriarchy by re-establishing the
‘natural’ father/daughter relationship.
(e) Edgar and Albany are (largely) loyal, conventional, traditional noblemen who pose no
challenge whatsoever to the established status quo. The system of government, we might
assume, will be ‘back to normal’ after the tumultuous events of the play.
9 (a)–(d) Answers will vary.
10 (a) Goneril is admonishing Lear for the ‘debauched’, ‘disordered’ and ‘bold’ behaviour of
Lear and, especially, his knights in her ‘graced palace’. To a modern audience, at least,
this might seem a reasonable request of Goneril.
(b) Although it will depend enormously on how it is performed, Goneril is a long way from
being cruel or unpleasant in the way she speaks. Her speech is measured and assured.
She beseeches Lear to understand, calls him sir, asks him (politely?) to ‘disquantity your
train’.
(c) Lear, the arch-patriarch, believes her behaviour is unnatural because she is not
treating her father as a daughter should – that is, loving, respectful, grateful and loyal.
(d) He angrily calls her a ‘devil’ and a ‘Degenerate bastard’. She, in his eyes at least, is
aligning herself with evil. Whether or not Lear is being unreasonable here is open to
debate, but modern audiences certainly may view his behaviour unsympathetically.
(e) Answers will vary. Feminist critics might draw a distinction between how Goneril’s
behaviour is interpreted by (the hero) Lear and how she might be interpreted, in this scene

at least, by the audience. Is Goneril being punished by Lear and the patriarchy for being
powerful and in control?
11 Answers will vary, but may consider Lear’s followers’ persistent (misguided?) loyalty, even
to an ostensibly mad king who has just been shouting ‘kill’. Lear views the world as filled
with ‘fools’ and appears to therefore subvert any notion of a social hierarchy. He appears
to be aware that he has been merely playing the role of a king.
12 Answers will vary, but may consider Goneril’s (feminine) associations with disease. Lear is
reduced to impotent cursing. Regan and Goneril’s use of language indicates they are
clearly in command in this scene and Lear’s loss of male authority contrasts with Act 1
Scene 1.

Chapter 7 Boosting your skills
Chapter 7
Boosting your skills
Tackling question types
1 A AO1; B AO5; C AO4; D AO1; E AO3; F AO1; G AO5: H AO2; I AO3.
3 (a)–(d) Answers will vary.
4 (a) This type of question will also ask you to look at a particular aspect of the play, such
as a theme or, in this case, a character. However, you will need to examine this aspect in
the light of the given statement. Ultimately, you are being asked to provide your own
perspective on the statement.
5 Some possible annotations include:
AO2:
• Examples of repetition and patterning: ‘No, no, no’; ‘Never, never …’; parallelism
‘Speak what we feel’
• Imagery of animals, torture and suffering: ‘a dog, a horse, a rat’; ‘the rack of this
world’;
• Stage directions: Lear’s attempts to unbutton; Lear’s death; the dead march; the
removal of the bodies
• Rhyme: Edgar’s two consecutive couplets in the final speech.
AO3:
• Jacobean attitudes towards monarchy and the Great Chain of Being: Edgar’s loyalty
and (initial) attempts to help Lear; why should ‘a rat have life, / And thou no breath at
all?’; ‘you twain / Rule in this realm’
• Attitudes towards legitimacy and illegitimacy: Edgar is able to claim the throne by
virtue of his legitimate and noble birth
• Varying attitudes towards death: ‘My master calls me, I must say no’; ‘O, let him pass’;
‘Vex not his ghost’; ‘O thou’lt come no more’
• God, religion and justice: why should ‘a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all?’.
AO4:
• The tragic death of the tragic hero: ‘Look there, look there! He dies’

• Sadness and pity (pathos); catharsis: ‘Never, never, never …’; ‘Break, hear, I prithee
break’; ‘Our present business is general woe’
• Lear’s changing tragic stature: Lear’s polite request contrasting with his regal
commands of Act 1, ‘Pray you, undo this button: thank you sir’
• A renewed hope at the end of a tragedy: ‘Friends of my soul, you twain / Rule in this
realm and the gored state sustain’
• A sense of a ‘lesson being learnt’ from the catastrophe: Edgar has learnt a lesson, ‘we
that are young / Shall never see so much’.
AO5: Answers will vary according to your own views, but may make reference to
Johnson’s views on the unnecessary death of Cordelia and Bradley’s attempts to discern a
Christian solace in the ending.
Essay planning and structure

1 The following are not likely to help you to write a successful essay:
A Spend no more than two minutes planning – it is more important that you use the time
writing a five-page essay.
E Spend the planning time trying to remember how you wrote your recent A-grade
mock essay on a similar theme.
F Do not worry about having a central argument – hopefully you will have thought of
one by the time you write your conclusion.
2 (a) ‘Cruel’ means to deliberately cause pain or suffering to somebody else, and probably
to feel no concern about it as well. ‘Ambitious’ means a strong desire or determination to
achieve – often at any cost.
(b) Edmund is clearly prepared to do anything to become Duke of Gloucester and, later,
King, including killing his own father and half-brother, wilfully seducing Goneril and Regan
and hoping one sister will kill the other.
(c) It is deliberately strongly worded. It would be difficult to claim that Edmund is not
ambitious, but the question is asking you to consider whether or not there is more to him
than ‘just’ ambitious cruelty. Also, a modern audience may well think that Edmund has a
fair point: why should ‘legitimate’ Edgar inherit and not him? Perhaps Edmund is more
deserving of our (modern) sympathy.
(d) Weigh up the evidence, look at both sides and come to a clear argument of your own
in relation to the statement. It is also acceptable for you to agree with some parts of the
statement rather than all of it.
(e) A range of techniques used by Shakespeare in his presentation of the character of

Edmund, including stage directions, soliloquies, language and imagery, interactions with
other characters, dramatic irony, dramatic contrasts, shared lines, invocations, etc.
3, 4 & 5 Answers will vary.
6 (a) Answers will vary.

(b) A possible structure could be: E, B, A, D, C. E would make a secure first point on
Lear’s suffering in general; B, A and D are effectively in chronological order showing the
development of Lear’s suffering; the essay could finish with a point comparing Lear with
Gloucester (C).
(c)–(d) Answers will vary.
7 (a) Answers will vary.
(b)
o The student is being far too strong in his or her unqualified agreement with the
statement: studying literature should open up critical debates, not shut them
down.
o The student also repeats the words in the question (cruel and ambitious).
o The student should try to find other ways of saying ‘In this essay, I am going to
…’
8 (a) B and C.
Essay-writing skills
1
• ‘King Lear’ requires capital letters and quotation marks.
• The quotation is not integrated or appropriately contextualised.
• Line breaks are not indicated in the quotations.
• The quotation is summarised/described and not analysed.
• The paragraph loses its focus on Kent and becomes a (descriptive) study of Edmund
instead.
(a) In his pride, Lear commands Kent to get ‘Out of my sight’.
(b) Towards the end of the play, Lear finally admits his errors and that he has been ‘a
very foolish, fond old man’.
(c) Lear calls on the storm to destroy the world as he commands it to ‘spout’ until it has
‘drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks’.
3 A:
• There is accurate reference to Edmund as a Machiavellian villain (literary contexts).

• Bedlam beggars are accurately identified as a social context.
• There is some attempt to analyse how this context has influenced the play, although
this could be more developed.
• The student shows an awareness of how the play could be read differently over time.
• A subtle point is made on the significance of Edgar’s decline.
B:
• The contextual point is broadly relevant as the student explores the significance of
Lear’s relinquishing of power.
• Some unnecessary/irrelevant details are provided, especially in the sentence

beginning ‘He was also earlier crowned …’.
• Contexts are rather clumsily bolted on and not related to any details from King Lear.
• At the very least, this paragraph would benefit from including at the end a link back to
the play.
4 (a)
• Invocations: ‘O most small fault’; ‘O Lear’
• Images of animals and monsters: ‘sea-monster’; ‘marble-hearted fiend’; ‘Detested kite’
• Other similes and metaphors: ‘like an engine … ’; ‘Beat at this gate’
• Repetition: ‘Lear, Lear, Lear’
• Stage directions: the language indicates the delivery of Lear’s lines is likely to be bitter
and angry; Lear striking his head (foreshadowing madness?).
(b) Lear characteristically uses a number of invocations in this passage. He initially

invokes ‘ingratitude’. He calls it a ‘marble-hearted fiend’ and uses imagery when he
says it is more hideous than ‘the sea-monster’. This invocation therefore suggests the
strength and depths of Lear’s anger towards Goneril. Later in the same passage, Lear
even invokes himself in the remarkable tripling of ‘O, Lear, Lear, Lear’, as he criticises his
own actions. He is, in a crucial, tragic moment of clarity, acknowledging what the Fool and
Kent have been trying to tell him: he has committed a grave error in banishing
Cordelia and trusting in the goodness – or, at least, gratitude – of Goneril.
(c)
o Considered literary or dramatic techniques: invocation, imagery, tripling, tragic

moment of clarity.
o Embedded quotations: He calls it a ‘marble-hearted fiend’ and uses imagery

when he says it is more hideous than ‘the sea-monster’
o Analysed the techniques and/or the quotations: ‘This invocation therefore

suggests the strength and depths of Lear’s anger towards Goneril’.
(d) Answers will vary.


Essay practice
2 (a) King Lear
(b) The evidence should be integrated and contextualised (who says it and to whom).
(c) With a forward slash /
(d) Answers could comment on the language of command ‘Out’, which might also
suggest Cornwall is having some difficulty removing the eye; the adjective ‘vile’ and the
remarkable (figurative?) noun ‘jelly’ heighten the horror of the scene; rhetorical question –
perhaps suggesting Cornwall’s triumph.
(e) The student could have reflected on why it has been included in modern productions
– perhaps reflecting on the thematic significance of the scene as well as the changing
tastes and the modern preference for ‘uncomfortable’ theatrical experiences.
3 (a) Three from:
o Two alternative readings of Lear’s speeches – truth vs. Nonsense
o Meaningful and integrated reference to wider critical reading
o The evidence is effectively contextualised (Act 4, Lear’s reunion with Gloucester,

etc.)
o Quotations are embedded
o Literary terms used – motif; imagery
o Fluent and well-structured, with an effective and useful return to Mack at the end
o Meaningful reference to the significance of contexts (James’s court) on the play’s

perception of corruption.
(b) Answers will vary, but should follow the model paragraph and cover most or all of the
bullet points.
4 (a)
Points which support Points which contest

• Goneril and Regan’s various • Lear’s apparent favouritism for
duplicitous plots against Lear Cordelia
• Animal imagery ‘Pelican daughters’, • Lear’s absurd love test

etc.
• Lear’s general tyrannical behaviour
• Regan’s participation in the blinding of
Gloucester • Lear’s unruly knights, and his
insistence on keeping them
• Casting Lear into the storm
• Lear’s curses and insults and threats
• No sign at all of any remorse of revenge
• Are they victims of the patriarchy? Are


• Goneril’s adultery with Edmund they punished for their attempts to

adopt ‘masculine’ power?
• Their feud with each other over
Edmund.
(b) A: The argument becomes more subtle and opens up a sensible, balanced critical
discussion.
B: Adopts a formal expression appropriate for an academic essay.
C: Embedded and contextualised quotations and a useful reference to a stage action as

evidence.
D: Literary terminology (tragic villain); fluent expression; knowledgeable analysis;

sophisticated reference to wider critical reading.
6 (a)
o Gloucester is still reeling from the events of the first scene.
o Edmund has been clearly established as a Machiavellian villain in his soliloquy.
(b)
o A key triggering action in the subplot
o Gloucester is tricked by Edmund, leading to Edgar’s exile, Edmund becoming heir

and Gloucester’s subsequent sufferings.
(c)
o Gloucester’s gullibility
o Edmund’s remorseless and effective scheming
o Do we admire Edmund’s cleverness?
(d)
o Family
o Nature/natural bonds
o Nothingness.
(e)
o Edmund visibly pocketing the letter
o Gloucester’s initial incredulity swiftly followed by shock and condemnation
o Edmund’s respectful tone

o Dramatic irony
o Gloucester’s frequent questioning.

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WORKBOOK ANSWERS

AS/A-Level Literature Workbooks: King Lear 1

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

(b) Kent and Cordelia

(c) Put it in his pocket very obviously

(e) A letter from Cordelia

(f) Lear, Fool, Kent, Edgar, Gloucester

(g) Lear’s hand

(j) After the battle, if he is victorious

(l) Goneril poisoned her

2 Possible answers include:

Change in the play Possible reason(s)

AS/A-Level Literature Workbooks: King Lear 2

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

Change in the play Possible reason(s)

3 Answers will vary.

Main plot (King Lear) Subplot (Gloucester)

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

Edmund leads to Goneril fearing not by birth, have lands by wit’

(b) Possible answers include:

o Lear stays at Gloucester’s castle

o Gloucester decides to help Lear (with disastrous personal consequences)

o the blinding of Gloucester leads to the death of Cornwall

o Lear and Cordelia fall into Edmund’s hands

o Edgar is left to rule the Lear’s kingdom.

3 (a) Possible answers include:

o Cordelia’s response to the love test

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

o the indignity of ‘Caius’ placed in the stocks

o Lear’s madness in the storm on the heath

o the defeat of the French army; Cordelia’s death

(b) & (c) Answers will vary.

4 (a) He has been at Goneril’s castle and is now at Gloucester’s.

(b) Goneril has demanded that Lear cut his retinue.

(d) Fearing madness, he leaves Gloucester’s house in the storm.

AS/A-Level Literature Workbooks: King Lear 5

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

2 Answers will vary.

3 (a) Lear; nothingness (and family and loyalty)

(b) Edgar; madness

(c) Gloucester; sight and blindness

(d) Gloucester; suffering

(e) Lear; family and loyalty

(f) Edgar; disguise and clothing

Repetition: B (and possibly A)

5 Answers will vary.

• Gloucester’s blinding makes literal Lear’s metaphoric blindness

• The thrilling dramatic impact

• It is a clear assertion of Cornwall and Regan’s new power and authority.

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

Quotation A, B How does the quotation develop ideas of

Acts 1 and 2 – Furious madness Acts 3 and 4 – Confused babblings

• 1.1.168–180 (banishing Kent) • 3.4.62–107 (Lear’s exchanges with

AS/A-Level Literature Workbooks: King Lear 7

© Richard Vardy 2018 Hodder Education

• 2.2.354–7 (cursing Goneril) • 4.6.86–184 (arguably the apotheosis

• 2.2.461-475 (Lear’s anger and

12 Answers will vary.

• Mankind without power and wealth is a poor naked animal.