King Lear

"I am a man more sinned against than sinning."
III.2.59-60

Essay Title:

Things to include:

"His [Lear’s] story, put in the simplest terms, is the story of his progress from being a king to being a man, neither more nor less."

From Arnold Kettle, Literature and Liberation: Selected Essays 1988

"Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia."
4.7.67-69

Nicholas R Evans

Lear Quotations

"We have divided

In three our kingdom…while we

Unburdened crawl toward death."     1.1.36-40

"Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again."     1.1.90

"So young and so untender?"     1.1.108

"Come not between the dragon and his wrath!"     1.1.122

Regan: ‘Tis the infirmity of his age, yet he hath
     Ever but slenderly known himself."     1.1.295

"You have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master."     Kent 1.4.22-232

Lear:          Who am I, sir?
Oswald:     My Lady’s father.
Lear:          My Lady’s father? My lord’s knave,
               You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!     1.4.76-79

Lear:          Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool:          All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.      1.4.141-143

"I have used it, nuncle, 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

"Who is it that can tell me who I am?"     1.4.221

"sharper than a serpents tooth it is
To have a thankless child."     1.4.280-81

"O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven"     1.5.43

"O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s."          2.2.453-456

"You unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both"     2.2.467-8

"O fool, I shall go mad."     2.2.475

"Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!"     3.2.8-9

"I am a man more sinned against than sinning."     3.2.59-60

"My wits begin to turn."     3.2.67

"O, Regan, Goneril,

Your old, kind father, whose frank heart gave you
All"                    3.4.19-20

"Poor naked wretches…"          3.427-36

"Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters."     3.4.66-67

"Unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor,
bare, forked animal as thou art."          3.4.105

Cordelia: Alack, ‘tis he. Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud     4.4.1-2

Cordelia: O dear father,
     It is thy business that I go about     4.4.24-25

"they told me I was everything; ‘tis a lie"     4.6.104

"You do me wrong to take me out o’the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fir that mine own tears
Do scold like molten lead."          4.7.45-48

"I am a very foolish, fond old man…
and to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind."          4.7.60-63

"Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia."               4.7.67-69

"We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness."          5.39-11

"And my poor fool[Cordelia] is hanged. No, no, life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life
And thou no breath at all."               5.3.304-306

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