| rdfs:comment | - King Lear is a play by William Shakespeare. In 2370, Miles O'Brien recalled a line from King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods/They kill us for their sport." (DS9 novel: Fallen Heroes)
- King Lear was a play by William Shakespeare. The First Doctor witnessed its debut performance and later reflected that Richard Burbage was a good actor, but "rubbish at portraying old men crushed by the delicious uncertainties of life". When he was woken by James asking, "Now good sir, what are you?", the Doctor noted the irony and quoted the play, saying: "A poor man made tame to fortune's blows". (PROSE: Byzantium!) Arthur wanted to use a quote from King Lear as his dying words. (PROSE: The Death of Me)
- James T. Kirk quoted from King Lear in 2270, after telling Kukulkan that his assistance to mankind was not required, by stating the lines from Act I scene IV: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!" (TAS: "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth") A copy of King Lear was among the small collection of books in Khan Noonien Singh's possession on Ceti Alpha V, salvaged from the SS Botany Bay, in 2285. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
- The main character, Lear, is an old man who has been King of Britain for many years. He decides to hand over control of his kingdom to his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, dividing the lands between the three of them with the daughter who loves him the most receiving the largest part of the country. Lear mistakenly gets the impression that Cordelia does not love him at all and she receives nothing. Lear later discovers that Cordelia loves him much more than Goneril and Regan, who insult and abuse him. Not wanting to stay with either Goneril or Regan, Lear becomes homeless and gradually goes mad. With the support of her husband, the King of France, Cordelia later tries to regain the kingdom for her father but her troops are defeated and the play ends tragically with the deaths
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| abstract | - King Lear is a play by William Shakespeare. In 2370, Miles O'Brien recalled a line from King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods/They kill us for their sport." (DS9 novel: Fallen Heroes)
- The main character, Lear, is an old man who has been King of Britain for many years. He decides to hand over control of his kingdom to his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, dividing the lands between the three of them with the daughter who loves him the most receiving the largest part of the country. Lear mistakenly gets the impression that Cordelia does not love him at all and she receives nothing. Lear later discovers that Cordelia loves him much more than Goneril and Regan, who insult and abuse him. Not wanting to stay with either Goneril or Regan, Lear becomes homeless and gradually goes mad. With the support of her husband, the King of France, Cordelia later tries to regain the kingdom for her father but her troops are defeated and the play ends tragically with the deaths of Cordelia and her father. A sub-plot centers around Edmund, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, and his dealings with his father and his older brother Edgar. The main source for King Lear, as for Macbeth and all of Shakespeare's plays about historical English kings, was the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. The story of King Leir (as the monarch's name was always spelt before Shakespeare's time) first appeared in written form in Latin in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century work History of the Kings of Britain. In Geoffrey's account, Leir, founder of the English city of Leicester, was King of Britain before the Roman invasion, several centuries before the time of King Arthur. Shakespeare's play follows Geoffrey's version quite closely. In Geoffrey's account, however, Cordelia and Lear survive, Lear is restored to the throne and goes on to reign for many more years. After his death, the once neglected and mistreated Cordelia reigns as Queen of Britain, giving the story some similarities to the fairy tale "Cinderella". The story of a father who asks his daughter how much she loves him, receives an unusual answer, mistakenly believes that his daughter does not love him at all, disowns her and discovers his great mistake much later, is also a theme in many folktales and fairy tales. Shakespeare's King Lear was first published in book form in 1608 in an edition known as the First Quarto (Q1). A different version appeared in the First Folio (F1), the first edition of the complete works of Shakespeare published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. Q1 contains two hundred and eighty-five lines that are not in F1 and F1 contains a hundred lines that are not in Q1. Much of the dialog that appears as prose in Q1 appears as poetry in F1. Since the publication of Alexander Pope's editions of the works of Shakespeare in the 18th century, it has been standard practice for editions of King Lear to be based on a combination of F1 and Q1. Some modern Shakespeare scholars claim that both versions are equally worthy of merit. The Q1 and F1 versions of King Lear are both published seperately by The New Cambridge Shakespeare and the most recent edition of the Pelican Shakespeare's King Lear contains the Q1 and F1 texts and a combination of the two.
- King Lear was a play by William Shakespeare. The First Doctor witnessed its debut performance and later reflected that Richard Burbage was a good actor, but "rubbish at portraying old men crushed by the delicious uncertainties of life". When he was woken by James asking, "Now good sir, what are you?", the Doctor noted the irony and quoted the play, saying: "A poor man made tame to fortune's blows". (PROSE: Byzantium!) Arthur wanted to use a quote from King Lear as his dying words. (PROSE: The Death of Me)
- James T. Kirk quoted from King Lear in 2270, after telling Kukulkan that his assistance to mankind was not required, by stating the lines from Act I scene IV: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!" (TAS: "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth") A copy of King Lear was among the small collection of books in Khan Noonien Singh's possession on Ceti Alpha V, salvaged from the SS Botany Bay, in 2285. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
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