William Shakespeare King Lear

Act 1 Scene 1
*Task: Write the answers to these questions in your books.

1. Where is the scene set?

2. Which characters do we first meet?

3. What are Gloucester and Kent discussing at the start of the scene?

4. How does Gloucester feel about his son Edmund? Use embedded quotations in your answer.

5. Explain why Gloucester feels like this. Use embedded quotations to support your answer.

6. When Lear enters, what does he tell the other characters that he proposes to do?

7. What reason do the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy have to be rivals?

** Task: Lear asks his three daughters to profess how much they love him. Write a quotation to show
each daughter’s response:

Goneril Regan

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Cordelia

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M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
*** Task: What impression do we have of the daughters from their responses?

Goneril
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Regan
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Cordelia
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**** Task: Once Lear has refused Cordelia a dowry, how do France and Burgundy respond to this?
Use quotations to support your answer.

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M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear

***** Task: Write references to eyesight/blindness and if you can, make a comment.

Reference Quotation Comment

Act1 Sc 1 L55 ‘I love you…dearer than eye- Goneril compares her love for her father to eyesight
sight’ to convey how precious he is to her.

M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
Act 1 Scene 2

Edmund’s Soliloquy

Thou, Nature, art my _____ ; to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to th’ legitimate. Fine word- ‘legitimate’!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th’ legitimate. I grow; I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

lusty fops letter gods

bastard goddess stale invention
plague land deprive Legitimate

M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
What do the following mean:

Art ______________

Doth _____________

Wherefore ________________

How is Edmund feeling? cheerful/bitter/tired _________________

Which words tell us that he is feeling like this?

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Find examples of the following and write them down:

Repetition: ____________________________________________________________________

Rhetorical Questions:
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Triples:
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What effect do these language techniques have on the audience?

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Write an explanation of the soliloquy in modern English

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M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
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Which line/s do you think were most effective in conveying Edmund’s feelings? Why?
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Act 1 scene 2
*Task: Multiple choice
What does Edmund put in his pocket upon his father’s arrival? A knife/his phone/ a letter/Edgar’s ring

Who has allegedly written the letter? (Shakespeare/Edgar/Edmund/Gloucester)

Where does Edmund say he found it? (his closet/in the car/in his pocket)

What does Gloucester mean by ‘character’ in line 59? (a friend/a person in a play/handwriting/facial
features)

**Task:
Describe what is happening between lines 26- 61
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Explain the significance of this line:

‘Let’s see: come; if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.’

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M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
What references to symbols, themes or motifs can you find in this section? Highlight and annotate your
texts or write them in your books with explanations.

How does Gloucester react to this discovery about his son? Use quotations to support your answer.

SUPERNATURAL

PARENT/CHILD

DIVISION

Act 1 Scene 3
*Task: Short answers
Where is this scene set? ________________________________________________________________
Which characters are present in this scene? _________________________________________________

What does Goneril tell Oswald to say to her father when he arrives?
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Where does she say Lear can go if he is unhappy? ___________________________________________

**Task:
Write a summary of what is happening in Act 1 Scene 3 explaining the characters feelings using key
quotes to help support your points.
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***Task: Prediction

M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
Can you predict how Lear will react to Oswald’s ‘weary negligence’?
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****Task: Opinion
Why do you think Goneril is behaving like this towards her father? What do you think of Goneril and
why?
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Act 1 Scene 4
What does Lear call Goneril (hated cat/loathed wasp/detested kite/killer cow)? _________________

Complete the quotations by matching the first and last parts:

1. That she may feel how sharper than a Thee in a child, than the sea- monster
2. Into her womb Thwart disnatur’d torment to her
3. And from her derogate body never Organs of increase
4. If she must teem Her brow of youth
5. Let it stamp wrinkles in Convey sterility
6. More hideous, when thou show’st To laughter and contempt
7. Dry up in her the Create her child of spleen
8. With cadent fears Spring a babe to honour her
9. Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits fret channels in her cheeks

M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
10. That it may live and be a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child

What insight do we gain from Lear’s words to Goneril?

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Find 3 references to animal imagery

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2.

3.

Find three references to the theme of Sight & Blindness

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2.

3.

What does Goneril take from Lear ‘within a fortnight’?

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What does Goneril want Regan to do?

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How do you think Regan will receive Lear?

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How do you think Lear expects to be received? Find quotations to support your answer.

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M. Georgiou ©
William Shakespeare King Lear
Act 1 Scene 5
Devise questions/tasks based on characters and /or events in this scene for your classmates to answer.

M. Georgiou ©