King Lear

King Lear was the very first piece of classical English literature that I ever studied. The play is cited as one of the Bard's supreme achievements and is considered one of the greatest works of literature ever written. And despite Shakespeare's use of a very unfamiliar Elizabethan English, I loved every page of the play.

King Lear is a classic tragedy full of all sorts of internecine familial and courtier feuding that results in the death of many of the main characters.

In short, it is a tale of how King Lear gets old and decides to retire and divide up his power and his land between two of his evil, sycophantic daughters. Meanwhile, a third daughter, Cordelia, is mercilessly banished and made penniless for her truthfulness and sincerity.

King Lear's ill-advised, benevolent generosity on the one hand, and his malevolent meanness on the other, ultimately leads to the disintegration of his family, and his and Cordelia's premature death.

Mirroring this sorry tale is a subplot about the Earl of Gloucester and his two warring sons, Edgar his legitimate son, and Edmund the illegitimate younger brother. Edmund plots to get rid of his elder brother, and then his father, so that he may become the new Earl. This does not end well for anybody.

So, why does this play resonate so much with me, even more so than it did when I first read it? Why did it make such an impression on me? Well, for very personal and family reasons is why.

I come from a big family of ten, including my parents, with four sisters and three brothers. If I were to tell you about the almost constant warring between siblings, well you might just as well read King Lear. At least Lear had its compensating elements.

What impressed me so much about Lear, or any Shakespearean play, or poem for that matter, was the in-depth insight into human behavior. As a result, I see so many parallels between King Lear and my personal life, even more so since the passing of my mother, as well as the two acrimonious divorces I have behind me.

In my family, the elder siblings bitterly resented the very existence of the younger ones, and vice versa. Did anybody in my family die as a result of the constant conflicts? No, although there were times when abusive physical violence was very much on the agenda. For example, I have one younger brother who tried, and failed, to kill me three times! And shortly after my mother had passed away, I was violently attacked by two younger sisters. Suffice it to say that these days I only have contact with one sibling, my younger brother.

As for my two failed marriages, well the less I say about that the better. I have had no contact with any of my four children for well over ten years and I am highly unlikely to have any in the future.

Getting back to King Lear, it helped me to understand what lies behind familial conflict, as if I didn't know already. More than that, I learned about the use of Iambic Pentameter, rhetoric, and all manner of other linguistic and poetic devices. And having learned about those things, I became both a writer in my own right and a teacher of classical literature. More than anything, what King Lear did was stimulate in me a love of literature that abides in me until the right here and now.

It would be fair to say that King Lear changed me from a barely educated student of life to a knowing empath and a professional writer and teacher. The entire journey of my life so far began all those years ago in my halcyon days of after-work evening classes.

King Lear was the very first stepping stone that led me away from a dead-end career of one lousy, menial, physically exhausting, laboring job after another, to the Elysian fields of a university education and cerebral occupations using my grey matter, with a very high salary to boot.

Literature of all types and eras has been extremely instrumental in sustaining me emotionally, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, and physically. It has put food on the table as much as it has given me food for thought. And for all of that, I remain eternally grateful that I got the opportunity to read and study King Lear. If I had my time again and got the choice of what to begin my reading experience with, it would still be King Lear.