First to explain my title:
Lear is the King of Hearts because he seeks for public love and is all tied up with his daughters.
Richard II is the King of Spades because he seeks money and land to wage war with Ireland and because he does some back stabbing and is then stabbed (literally and figuratively) in return.
Both kings loose their kingship, they both loose someone dear to them, and they both loose their lives and are therefore left Kings of Nothing.
2nd, the comparison:
I wanted to compare these kings because I found so much that they had in common. As I started to look more closely at their characters and the plot surrounding them I found many things that are similar.
Both kings loose their kingship
Richard II looses the throne to Bolingbrook who becomes Henry IV (Henry V father). Bolingbrook claims back lands and money that were rightfully his inheritance that Richard had seized to help fund his war. Other enraged nobles support Bolingbrook in farther claiming the crown and they put Richard in prison as a criminal.
Lear plans for his daughters to take over because he is on his way out, but then he not only looses his kingship, but his parenthood also when Goneril and Regan abandon him.
Both kings loose a loved on
Richard II, when being sent to prison must say goodbye to his queen. First he shows anger at being separated, "Doubly divorced! bad men, you violate a twofold marriage twixt my crown and me and then betwixt me and my married wife." He then turns to her and asks her to remember him and to tell his story. She asks to be banished with him, but is not permitted. "Must we part? Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart."
Lear also anguishes over his beloved daughter Cordelia. They are taken away as prisoners together and he says, "He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven and fire us hence like foxes." Lear also kills the assassin from Edmond that we sent to kill them both and cries and basically dies over her death.
Both kings loose their lives
Richard is stabbed by a Exton, a nobleman who was over zealously loyal to Bonlingbrook.
Lear, though not killed in the end, could be debated as being cause by the assassin sent after him and Cordelia.
Third, similar themes:
I also found that there were some themes that linked these two plays. Both would come back to the same ideas. I found many parallel quotes and figured that a table might just do the trick.
Comparing Man and Animal | Eyes and Sight | Wrongfully Accused | Broken Family Ties | Murder | Heaven Destined | |
King Richard | "Horse, why do I rail on thee since thou, created to be awed by men, was born to bear? I was not made a horse and yet I bear a burden like an ass, spurred galled and tired by jauncing Bullingbrook." (5,5,90) | "Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see. And yet salt water blinds them not so much but they can see a sort of traitors here." (4,1,243) | "Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me whilst that my wretchedness doth bait my self, though some of you with Pilate wash your hands, showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates have here delivered me to my sour cross and water cannot wash away your sin." (4,1,236) | "Good sometime queen" (5,1,37) - He is saying this as a goodbye to his wife out of love and sadness | "Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument. Go thou and fill another room in hell. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire…" (5,5,106) - He says this to his murderer | "Mount, mount my soul. Thy seat is up on high whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die." (5,5,111) - About his own death |
King Lear | "Is man no more than this? Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art." (3,4,109) | "A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief." (4,6,165) | "I am a man more sinned against than sinning." (3,2,62) "We are not the first who with best meaning have incurred the worst." (5,3,4) | "My sometime daughter" (1,1,133) - He is saying this to denounce his daughter Cordelia, out of anger | "A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!" (5,3,325) - He says this about Cordelia's murderer | "Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vault should crack… She is dead as earth." (5,3,309) - About Cordelia's death |
What say you? Do you have any analysis you would lend me in comparing these two plays? Maybe something about the parallel quotes that got you thinking?
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