King Lear Essay: The subplot involving Edmund, Gloucester and Edgar adds little to the tragedy.
King Lear Act 2 Quote Bank
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English Literature
Unit A2 1 - The Study of Poetry - 1300-1800 and Drama
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Lear Key Quotes Act 1
Scene Speaker Quote
1:1 Gloucester “I have so often blushed to acknowledge him (Edmund).”
1:1 Gloucester “But I have a son, Sir, by order of law…who yet is no dearer in my account.”
1:1 Gloucester “…there was good sport at his making and the whoreson must be acknowledged.”
1:1 Lear “Meantime, we shall express our darker purpose… ‘tis our fast intent to shake all cares and business
from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we unburthened crawl toward death.”
1:1 Lear “Which of you shall we say doth loth us most? That we our largest bounty may extend where nature
doth with merit challenge.”
1:1 Goneril “Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter…Beyond all manner of so much I love you.”
1:1 Cordelia (Aside) What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
1:1 Reagan “I am made of that self metal as my sister, and prize me at her worth…find I am alone felicitate in you
highness’ love.”
1:1 Cordelia (Aside)…And yet not so; since I am sure my love’s more ponderous than my tongue”
1:1 Lear “Now, our joy, Although our last and least…”
1:1 Cordelia “Nothing, my lord…I love your Majesty according to my bond; no more nor less.”
1:1 Cordelia “Why have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?...That lord whose hand must take…
Half my love with him, half my care and duty: Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, to love my
father all.”
1:1 Lear “Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.”
1:1 Lear “Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and prosperity of blood, and as a stranger to my
heart and me hold thee from this for ever… thou sometime daughter.”
1:1 Lear Peace, Kent! Come not between the Dragon and his wrath. I loved her most, and thought to set my
rest on her kind nursery.”
1:1 Lear “With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third; let pride, what she calls plainness, marry her.”
1:1 Lear “With reservation of an hundred knights by you to be sustained, shall our abode make with you by
due turn. Only we shall retain the name and all th’addition to a king; the sway, revenue, execution of
the rest…this coronet part between you.”
1:1 Kent “Royal Lear, whom I have ever honoured as my King, loved as my father, as my father
1:1 Lear “The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.”
1:1 Kent “When Lear is mad, what would’st thou do, old man?”
1:1 Kent “…check this hideous rashness: answer my life my judgement, thy youngest daughter does not love
thee least…”
1:1 Lear “Kent, on thy life, no more…Out of my sight!...O, vassal! Miscreant! (Laying his hand upon his sword)
1:1 Kent “See better, Lear; and let me still remain the true blank of thine eye…I’ll tell the thou dost evil.”
1:1 Lear “Five days we do allot the for provision to shield from the disasters of the world; and on the sixth to
turn thy hated head back upon our kingdom…Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions, the
moment is thy death.”
1:1 Kent “(To Cordelia) The Gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, that justly think’st and hast most rightly
said! (To G+R) And
1:1 Lear “When she was dear to us we did hold her so, but now her price is fallen…Will you, with those
infirmities she owes, unfriended, new adopted to our hate, dowered with our curse and strangered
with our oath, Take her, or leave her?”
1:1 Lear “I would not from your love make such a stray to match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
t’avert your liking a more worthier way than on a wretch whom Nature is ashamed.”
1:1 France “Love’s not love when it’s mingled with regards that stand aloof from th’entire point…She is herself a
dowry…Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice forsaken; and most loved,
despised! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon…Queen of us, of ours and our fair France…”
1:1 Cordelia “I know what you are…Love well our father…I would prefer him to a better place.”
1:1 Regan “Prescribe not us our duty.”
1:1 Cordelia “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; who covers faults, at last with shame derides.”
1:1 Goneril “You see how full of changes his age is…let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such
disposition as he bears…We must do something, and I’th’heat.
1:2 Edmund “Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom, and permit the curiosity of nations to deprive
me…”
1:2 Edmund “Why bastard? Wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous
and my shape as true as honest madam’s issue?”
1:2 Edmund “Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund.”
1:2 Edmund “Edmund the base shall top th’legitimate -: I grow, I prosper; Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”
1:2 Edmund (Putting up the letter) …I beseech you…it is a letter from my brother that I have not all o’erread, and
for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking.”
1:2 Letter “This policy and reverence of age make the world bitter…keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness
cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny…If our
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