Category: King Lear

Thank you to Laura Jayne Wright for offering an introduction to King Lear:

Laura Jayne Wright is a Stipendiary Lecturer at University College, Oxford, where she teaches Shakespeare and English literature from 1550-1760. She has recently completed her DPhil on early modern sound effects. She is currently working on her first monograph, which explores the sounds of the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century stage. She is also collaborating with Creation Theatre on a production of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII, or All is True, with a particular focus on that play’s lengthy stage directions. 

Many thanks, also, to my friend Joey Bianco of Whim Wham for the animated video elements.

Here are some resources to help guide your way into King Lear:

• King Lear resources, character map, and infographic from Course Hero.
• The Royal Shakespeare Company has excellent resources for King Lear.
• Watch a synopsis of King Lear from Thug Notes or SparkNotes.
• The 2018 King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins is available on YouTube (I make no claims about copyright validity).
• There’s also a BBC radio drama from the Renaissance Theater Company (1994) with John Gielgud, Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, and Kenneth Branagh.

Thanks for Dan Hainsworth for letting us use his Shakespeare icons, as shown above right.

Enjoy these King Lear images from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Find more here.