... once father, king and a kind of mortal god," to understand his disempowerment under Goneril and Regan. At their hands, his age changes from a source of wisdom to weakness, changing from a king to merely "a poor old man/As full of grief as age, wretched in both." His authority disappears, and while he curses passionately "-I will do such things-/ What they are, yet I know ... towards its conclusion. Lear still hopes, even in Cordelia's defeat, for a happy ending with her: "so we'll live/And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh/At gilded butterflies." Poignant and loving as this ...

• Word Count: 1506
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School