Lears Relinquishment of Power in Shakespeares King Lear Essay

Lears Relinquishment of Power in Shakespeares female monarch Lear superpower Lear is an actor who can only work the fagot. Thus, after he has abdicated his throne, passing the representation to his posterity, he still demands respect and power, which he is inefficient to phone call from any of his former subjects, even his daughters. And as a king with no kingdom, he is an actor with no role to play, the most foetid of all conditions. Lear himself realizes this, and in cyclorama 4, he cries Why, this is not Lear (4.204). And later in the same speech, he says Who is it that can tell me who I am? (4.209). Lear is stuck in his role as king, unable to act in any former(a) manner and powerless to provide for himself, causing the ultimate downfall of he and his family from their status of empowerment.As the play opens in the first scene, King Lear uses his authority to divide the kingdom. However, this is a power that not even the king possesses no one may divide the kingd om. Per the divine right of the king, Lear is in chink and must remain so he cannot pass the powers of the throne to anyone, observe his heir, and then only following his death. Yet, Lear contradicts his divine right and divides the kingdom. In this action, authority is not destroyed but split between those with the greatest claims to take and wealth (Spotswood 280). The authority transfers to Goneril and Regan, as Lear no longer has a claim having resigned his reign. But even though he has no claim, Lear still wants to play his kingly role. So then, the major problem of King Lear is that after he has relinquished control of the kingdom, he still desires to rule in principle, though not in deed Only we still retain The anticipate and all th... ...rature 40 (2000) 241-60. Righter, Anne. Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play. Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1962. Spotswood, Jerald W. Maintaining Hierarchy in The Tragedie of King Lear. Studies in English Literature 38 (1998) 265-80. Squire, Sir John. Shakespeare as a Dramatist. capital of the United Kingdom Cassell and Company, 1935. Stevenson, William B. A Muse of Fire of a Winter of Discontent? journal of Management Education 20 (1996) 39-48. Weimann, Robert. Mingling Vice and Worthiness in King John. Shakespeare Studies 27 (1999) 109-33. Zamir, Tzachi. A Case of Unfair Proportions Philosophy in Literature. New Literary History 29 (1998) 501-20. Noteall Shakespeare school text is quoted from The Norton Shakespeare. In the case of Lear, all quotations are from The History of King Lear which contains scene numbers, but no act numbers.