Revision Cards - King Lear: A Level, Genre, structure and language

Revise the key points

Aristotle’s template for tragedy included the downfall of a noble person through hubris (pride or arrogance).
Lear is the classic Aristotelian flawed hero: he rules with casual arrogance, and only learns clear-sightedness through suffering.
Lear’s tragic error is that he mistakes insincere flattery for genuine love; this leads to his downfall.
Cordelia’s death is perhaps the final tragedy; after this, there is little hope in the bleak world of the play.

Genre, structure and language

King Lear: A Level

The two fathers of the play follow the same pathway to understanding – each falls from arrogant authority to nothing.
Gloucester endures physical pain; Lear’s suffering is mental. The plot is intertwined so that they are conjoined in their suffering.
The play is structured so that evil characters are in opposition to good, for example Edmund and Edgar.
The first scene can be viewed as climactic; from here, the play descends into madness and suffering.

Genre, structure and language

King Lear: A Level

Kent describes Lear’s world in terms of torture: ‘the rack of this tough world’ (V.3.314).
Lear uses hellish imagery to describe lightning: ‘You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires’ (III.2.4). ‘Sulph’rous’ is a theological reference to hellfire.
Cordelia reminds the audience of the severity of Lear’s suffering, using violent imagery to describe the storm: ‘warring winds’ (IV.7.32).
Edmund compares Goneril and Regan to adders (V.1.57); this emphasises their viciousness and connotes the fall of Adam and Eve.

Genre, structure and language

King Lear: A Level

Lear compares Goneril to a ‘vulture’ (ll.4.133). In Greek mythology, Prometheus was tortured by a vulture tearing at his liver.
Lear describes Goneril as ‘most serpent-like’ (II.4.159), emphasising the inhuman quality of her cruelty towards him.
The Fool warns Lear not to trust in ‘the tameness of a wolf’ (lll.6.18) – Lear’s daughters are evoked as vicious.
Lear describes his daughters as ‘she foxes’ (III.6.23) – a reference again to their vicious and cunning natures.

Genre, structure and language

King Lear: A Level

At first, Lear speaks in iambic rhythm. This lends his words a measured and royal quality.
Lear’s speech is fragmented when he is mad but, once he has been reconciled with Cordelia, iambic rhythm is restored.
When Edgar returns as challenger, the iambic rhythm of his speech reveals his lordly status at last.
Edgar’s final lines, in solemn, lordly rhythm, proclaim that ‘The weight of this sad time we must obey’ (V.3.323).