The New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare's plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare's language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. The play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare's language, and by accounts of his life and theater, followed...

Pocket, King Lear's fool, sets out to straighten out the mess the mad king has made of the kingdom and the royal family, only to discover the truth about his own heritage.

These activity guides are designed by teachers for teachers to help students navigate the complexity. Each guide contains a total of 30 activities divided into six sections of four activities and one review. At the end of each guide is a final test, a variety of culminating activities, and an answer key. Each reproducible activity book is approximately 68-pages.

The introduction illminates the plays' origins and practicalities of composition, its reception and influence. Detailed notes pay special attention to language and staging, and the volume includes King Lear's first derivative, a contemporary ballad, and guides to appreciation of the play and its multiple offshoots.

"Based partially on a Celtic legend, King Lear stands among William Shakespeare's supreme achievements. Rivalrous siblings and their conflicted fathers take to the stage in this potent meditation on mortality and the limits of kinship and love. Introduced by scholar Harold Bloom, this new edition presents a selection of contemporary full-length essays offering a range of critical perspectives on a work that remains a pinnacle of Western drama." "Lear's...

Inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, this breathtaking debut tells the unforgettable story of the most famous woman ever written out of literary history. Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear's queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story. Though her grief and rage may threaten to...

"From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch, a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theater community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of King Lear. As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, life for the core members of the company seems to be falling into disarray. Their trusted director has just retired, and theater manager Thaddeus Deerforth—staring down forty and sensing a...

"Akira Kurosawa's brilliantly conceived retelling of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare's plot and Kurosawa's own feelings about loyalty in the epic masterpiece, 'Ran.' Set in 16th century Japan, 'Ran' relates the tale of how an aging ruler, Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), announces his intention to divide his land equally among his three sons. Hidetora's decision to step down unleashes a power struggle among...