King Lear quotes – responsibility/power

reflecting context – children being after parents’ wealth “I gave you all” (Lear)”and in good time you gave it” (Goneril)
Lear’s intentions to give up responsibilities of state ’tis out fast intent to shake all care and business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths so that we unburdened may crawl toward death
Lear wanting to retain power and privileges of status while giving up responsibilities only we shall retain the name and all th’addition to a king
Kent saying he must be plain to save Lear to plainness honour’s bound when majesty falls to folly
Kent saying he has to speak up when Lear’s being stupid think’st thou that that duty shall have dread to speak, when power to flattery bows?
Lear feeling sorry for himself over Cordelia’s betrayal I loved her most and thought to set my rest on her kind nursery
Lear fighting to keep his retinue, irony because he is losing yet more dutiful followers at the hands of Goneril and Regan but also due to his own selfish debauchery my train are men of choice and rarest parts that all particulars of duty know
Lear describing his knights when Goneril threatens to remove them because of their disrespectful behaviour, means they are punctilious in every particular to uphold the dignity of their reputations – losing his knights is a reflection of Lear losing his power because of his failing reputation as a result of his actions in the most exact regard support the worships of their name
Lear presents an inflated ego that reflects his insecurity of power come not between the dragon and his wrath!
Lear in the storm, trying to out-compete nature in power strives in his little world of man to outscorn / The to and fro conflicting wind and rain
societal expectations and ranks have flipped, reflected by the storm when bawds and whores do churches build
the “foul fiend” could represent the unfairness of hierarchy and the monarchy, or of his father do Poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes…[storm still]
the importance of power and control to Lear in both references to sexual impotency and lack of influence I am ashamed / That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus
Lear’s and Kent’s treatment of Oswald represents the society that values masculinity and virility, and there’s irony in that they practically call him on a level with savages, and yet they are the ones beating him (Lear) do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? [Strikes him] (it would be insolent of Oswald to stare directly at the king)(Kent) [Trips him] you base football player! (lower-class game of “beastly fury and extreme violence” according to Sir Thomas Elyot)
servants see Reg’s evil and fear that society is better off without women “if she (Reg) live long and in the end meet the old course of death, women will all turn monsters”
July 10, 2019