King Lear

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noun

1. a tragedy (1606) by Shakespeare.

King Lear

1. A tragedy by William Shakespeare about an old king who unwisely hands his kingdom over to two of his daughters. The daughters, who had flattered Lear while he was in power, turn on him; their actions reduce him to poverty and eventually to madness. His youngest daughter, Cordelia , whom he had at first spurned, remains faithful to him.

Example Sentences

In a New Yorker profile of Jeremy Strong published Sunday evening, Succession producer Adam McKay says that when he originally pitched Strong on Succession, he described the show as a modern-day King Lear.

From Time

Romeo and Juliet is rarely lauded as the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays, an honor that usually goes to Hamlet or Macbeth or King Lear.

From Time

Swathed in three layers of eighth-century garb, he’s tackling that summit of Shakespearean roles, the mad monarch, King Lear.

From Washington Post

William Shakespeare wrote some of his most monumental works during plague outbreaks, including King Lear.

From Time

“Nothing will come of nothing,” snapped King Lear at his one loving daughter, as if he had just been reading Aristotle.

From The Daily Beast

At which point he settles into his late memoir years, graying like King Lear.

From The Daily Beast

His stage credits include Richard II, Hamlet, King Lear, Hedda Gabler, Crime and Punishment, The Seagull, and Terre Haute.

From The Daily Beast

In "King Lear" the persons represented are indeed placed externally in opposition to the outward world, and they struggle with it.

From Project Gutenberg

It's like King Lear throwing off his clothes in the storm because his daughters turned him out.

From Project Gutenberg

The enumeration of plants is quite as unsuitable to so tragical a scene as the description of Dover cliff in King Lear iv.

From Project Gutenberg

In King Lear we seem to come upon something very definitely historical, but I am not able to say what it is.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus we may still find in King Lear the usual scheme of an ascending and a descending movement of one side in the conflict.

From Project Gutenberg