Lears Relinquishment of Power in Shakespeares King Lear Essay

Lears Relinquishment of Power in Shakespeares world power Lear tycoon Lear is an actor who can only play the world-beater. Thus, by and by he has abdicated his mountain, passing the authority to his posterity, he tranquillize demands respect and power, which he is unable to claim from each of his former subjects, even his daughters. And as a king with no kingdom, he is an actor with no role to play, the approximately loathsome of all told conditions. Lear himself realizes this, and in scene 4, he cries Why, this is not Lear (4.204). And afterwardsward 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 other manner and powerless to provide for himself, causing the ultimate precipitation of he and his family from their status of authority.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 on e may divide the kingdom. Per the divine right of the king, Lear is in control and must remain so he cannot pass the powers of the throne to anyone, save 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 great claims to land 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 forbear The name 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 Lea r. Studies in English Literature 38 (1998) 265-80. Squire, Sir John. Shakespeare as a Dramatist. London Cassell and Company, 1935. Stevenson, William B. A Muse of Fire of a Winter of discontentment? Journal of Management Education 20 (1996) 39-48. Weimann, Robert. Mingling Vice and worth in King John. Shakespeare Studies 27 (1999) 109-33. Zamir, Tzachi. A Case of Unfair Proportions ism in Literature. New Literary History 29 (1998) 501-20. Noteall Shakespeare 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.