King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by the English playwright William Shakespeare, written in late 1605 or early 1606 and first recorded as performed at the English court on Saint Stephen's Day, 1606. Set in a legendary pre-Roman Britain, the play follows the aging King Lear as he decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to how extravagantly each professes her love for him, disowning his youngest daughter Cordelia when she refuses to flatter him and instead answers honestly; the two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, to whom Lear has given power, then strip him of his remaining authority and turn him out into a storm, where he descends into madness accompanied only by his Fool. A parallel plot follows the Earl of Gloucester's betrayal by his illegitimate son Edmund and his loyalty from his legitimate son Edgar, and the play builds toward a catastrophic ending in which Cordelia is captured and executed and Lear dies of grief over her body. For more than a century and a half after the Restoration, English audiences knew the play chiefly through Nahum Tate's adaptation with a happy ending, before Shakespeare's own tragic text was restored to the stage. King Lear is regularly ranked among the greatest achievements in dramatic literature for its unflinching treatment of old age, madness, betrayal and the limits of human endurance.