King Lear

Shakespeare's bleakest tragedy: an aging king divides his realm with fatal vanity as loyalty goes unrecognized and madness descends.

Specifications & Metrics

author

William Shakespeare

type

Tragedy

era

Jacobean (c. 1605–1606)

language

Early Modern English

setting

Ancient Britain

source text

The Leir legend; Gloucester subplot from Sidney's Arcadia

acts

5 acts

Relative Scale in Plays

Core Principles & Analysis

• Composed around 1605–1606, drawing on the legendary King Leir and a subplot from Sidney's Arcadia.
• The quarto (1608) and Folio (1623) texts differ substantially; editors conflate or separate them.
• Nahum Tate's happy ending replaced Shakespeare's on English stages for about 150 years.

Sources

• Wikipedia: King Lear