King Lear
William Shakespeare
350 pp, $12.95. Order Now!
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!"
One of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays, King Lear is also one of the most thought-provoking. The play turns on the practical ramifications of the words of Christ that we should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's. When confronted with the demand that she should render unto Caesar that which is God's, Cordelia chooses to "love and be silent". As the play unfolds each of the principal characters learns wisdom through suffering.
Study Guide to King Lear
32 pp, $3.95
ICE Study Guides are constructed to aid the reader of ICE classics to achieve a level of critical and literary appreciation befitting the works themselves.
Ideally suited for students themselves and as a guide for teachers, the ICE Study Guides serve as a complement to the treasures of critical appreciation already included in ICE titles.
This edition includes new critical essays from some of the leading lights in contemporary literary scholarship as well as classic commentary from John Keats, Samuel Johnson, and A. C. Bradley. A great resource.
A look at the new essays
Plays are sometimes hard to 'see' if you're just reading, and live productions aren't always available, so James Bemis gives readers a guide to the film adaptations of King Lear, with attention to fidelity to the text and quality of performance. His guide can help you or your students connect with this great tragedy.
In "Nature and Convention in King Lear", Paul Cantor inspects Lear as a king destined to become, once again, a mere man. Robert Carballo investigates chaos and order in the work, on the grounds of organic wholeness, and Scott Crider draws from an in-class dispute over Lear an appreciation of the play, and the dialogue it takes to understand the play.
Joseph Pearce contributes an essay on Lear's dramatic and historical context, suggesting we can easily fail in "Seeing the Comedy of the Tragedy". Jack Trotter rounds it all out by making the case for the interior necessity of King Lear being a redemptive, not a nihilistic, work.
R. V. Young situates the reader with the introductory essay. [Read excerpt.]
Books by Author
by last name, except for Wm. Shakespeare
Meet the Minds behind the King Lear Edition
Editor & Critical Essayist
Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce is Writer in Residence and Associate Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University. He is editor-in-chief of Ave Maria University Communications and Sapientia Press, as well as co-editor of the Saint Austin Review (or StAR), an international review of Christian culture, literature, and ideas published in England (Family Publications) and the United States (Sapientia Press). He is also the author of many books, including literary biographies of Solzhenitsyn, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Oscar Wilde.
Other Works Edited
Critical Essayists
James Bemis
James Bemis is an editorial board member, weekly columnist, and film editor for the California Political Review. His work appears regularly on the Catholic Exchange and Catholicity websites, and in the Saint Austin Review, The Wanderer, and Latin Mass Magazine. Bemis is a member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and is currently writing a book on Christianity, culture, and the cinema.
Critical Essays in
Paul A. Cantor
Paul A. Cantor is Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous essays and several books on Shakespeare, including Shakespeare's Rome: Republic and Empire and the Hamlet volume in the Cambridge Landmarks of World Literature Series.
Critical Essays in
Robert Carballo
Robert Carballo is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, where he served for many years as Director of Graduate English Studies. He regularly teaches courses in Victorian literature, comparative literature, and drama. His publications include studies on John Henry Newman, Matthew Arnold, and Shakespeare, among others, and have appeared in scholarly journals in the United States, France, England, Puerto Rico, and Hungary.
Critical Essays in
Scott Crider
Scott Crider is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at the University of Dallas. He has published articles on Shakespeare and a textbook, The Office of Assertion: An Art of Rhetoric for the Academic Essay (ISI Books, 2005). He is currently working on a book on Shakespeare and the ethics of rhetoric.
Critical Essays in
Jack Trotter
Jack Trotter has a PhD in Medieval and Renaissance Drama from Vanderbilt University. He teaches at Trident College in Charleston, South Carolina, and has written frequently on Shakespeare.
Critical Essays in
R. V. Young
R. V. Young is Professor of English at North Carolina State University. He is co-founder of the John Donne Journal and was co-editor for 25 years. In 2008 he became the editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. His bilingual edition of Justus Lipsius' Concerning Constancy is forthcoming from Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. In addition to scholarly books and articles, he has also contributed to journals such as First Things, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the St. Austin Review, and Touchstone, of which he is a contributing editor.