Emma Smith on 'King Lear'
Notes on the ‘King Lear’ chapter of Emma Smith’s book This is Shakespeare.
Read MoreCaravaggio and 'King Lear'
King Lear and Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’ were created at the same time, in two different countries, by two artists who never met each other: but they share a lot.
Read MoreKing Lear for Litdrive
‘Shownotes’ from a presentation on teaching the end of King Lear, as part of Litdrive’s online CPD programme, January 2023.
Read MoreThinking about the tragedies: 54 exercises
54 exercises to discuss key quotations when revising Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello, with the rationale behind them, and an example from a key scene in Macbeth.
Read MoreThinking about 'King Lear'
Here are some exercises on quotations in King Lear. They are designed for pair-work 10-minute sessions in class, but work perfectly well for individuals.
Read MoreINOTE, November 28th 2020
Here are the slides from my two presentations at the (virtual) conference of the Irish National Teachers of English on November 28th.
Read More'King Lear' Quizlet 5
Act 5: Quizlet flashcards for recalling and thinking about quotations.
Read More'King Lear' Quizlet 4
Act 4: Quizlet flashcards for recalling and thinking about quotations.
Read More'King Lear' Quizlet 3
A Quizlet of quotation flashcards for Act 3: for prompting thinking, and retrieval practice.
Read More'King Lear': the end
The famously bleak ending of King Lear could so easily have been different. In fact, so different it could have been a comedy, a knife-edge that makes it all the more cheerless, dark and deadly.
Read More'King Lear': blindness and seeing
The central metaphor of King Lear is blindness and seeing: this essay explores that idea.
Read More'King Lear': Albany and Kent
Kent and Albany are lesser characters in King Lear, but each plays an important part, giving us insights into key ideas of the play.
Read More'King Lear' Quizlet 2
Act 2: Quizlet flashcards for recalling and thinking about quotations.
Read MoreJames Shapiro on 'King Lear'
James Shapiro’s outstanding 1606: Shakespeare and the year of Lear, is a great resource for teachers of the play, as well as of the other two plays Shakespeare wrote in that extraordinary period, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Here are some notes that refer to Lear, especially from the chapter ‘Leir to Lear’, in which Shapiro examines how Shakespeare reshaped the main source text, King Leir.
Read More'King Lear': cheerless, dark and deadly
This essay examines the utter bleakness of King Lear, a play in which there is no mitigation of darkness, no religious consolation.
Read More'King Lear': the opening scene
Shakespeare doesn’t waste time at the starts of his great tragedies; in fact, all four open disconcertingly with a sense of confusion and un-ease. In King Lear again we are pitched straight into the middle of a rather flustered conversation, which hits on a central theme of this play – division and disorder.
Read More'King Lear' Quizlet Act 1
Quizlet of quotations from Act 1 of King Lear to use for revision and retrieval practice.
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