... we are in a world where many of the characters, though not all, are hungry for power; at the end we see characters who apparently cannot wait to hand over power to others. The course of the action has evidently been a sobering experience for decent men like Albany, Kent, and Edgar. No one of them is Plato's philosopher-king "Edgar perhaps comes closest ... Everett's essay, "King Lear: Loving," in her Young Hamlet: Essays on Shakespeare's Tragedies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 59-82. 3 See, for example, Knight, who speaks of "the absurdity of the old King's anger" in the first scene...

• Word Count: 8939
• Approx Pages: 36
• Grade Level: High School