Slightly horrified this was my only designed exposure to Shakespeare in my Hillsdale career and that we only took a week to cover it, but as always with Shakespeare, excellent in every way possible. I would like to properly review this sometime, but 25 minutes before the reading challenge deadline is not the time.

I read it for English class and I think, when you analyze this kind of literature, you should keep in mind that is like 1600 year and all of great writers had not even existed. That’s why all of “plot twists” are seemed good and right for those times, but not for ours.
I really like the language, usually I’m not fond of verses, but it’s great here
Look forward to read Hamlet and The taming of shrew

Did I finish If We Were Villains and immediately reread King Lear? Yes. Yes, I did. It’s not my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but damn. It’s pretty great.

so so good and rich and heartbreaking, definitely now joining my favorites of shakespeare’s plays.
somehow both enjoyed cordelia AND edmund a lot considering they are narrative foils and edmund is like awful and i’m not even a realist but he kinda spoke #real.

Looking forward to now watching Ian McKellen in the title role! Must be one of the meatiest theatre roles out there.

Of all the Shakespeare plays I have now read or seen performed, King Lear is undeniably the most tragic. If Shakespeare set out to write the perfect tragedy, he did so with King Lear. This is not me saying I love the play. I don't. It's incredibly long and difficult to read in some places. However, what King Lear exceeds at is kicking its audience in the stomach at the end and leaving them in pain. There is little to no hope in King Lear. By the end, everyone is dead, and it's almost unbearable.

A quick plot summary: King Lear asks his three daughters to tell him how much they love him. Two play the game, but his youngest, Cordelia, does not. She refuses to flatter him like her sisters, and so she is banished. This is a mistake, of course, as she is the best of them, but Lear will not realize that until he is in the depths of madness.

There is so much to unpack in this play. As per usual, Shakespeare has parallel plot-lines going, which I think is annoying. King Lear is as frustrating as a character as he is pitiable. I had a hard time understanding why some of the characters had such intense loyalty to the king, particularly Kent. The female characters are either evil or absent, and entirely too much eyeplucking is in this play. And dead bodies. So many dead bodies.

If you must read a Shakespeare tragedy, I suppose this is the one you should pick. However, I'd recommend just watching Kurosawa's adaptation Ran, which is excellent and maybe does the story more justice than Shakespeare did.

Actually Rating: 2.5 stars

The joys of required readings. Something about this piece of Shakespeare's work just did not sit with me or resonate as much as his other works. I truly enjoyed Macbeth, or even Romeo and Juliet more than this. Perhaps I need to try one of his comedies instead of all his tragedies.