Cordelia's portion

Cordelia's Portion (1843-44)
Ford Madox Brown
Oil on canvas
size unknown
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Port Sunlight, Merseyside.

LEAR
In the meantime I'll get down to my real business.—Hand me that map over there.—I hereby announce that I've divided my kingdom into three parts, which I'm handing over to the younger generation so I can enjoy a little rest and peace of mind in my old age.—Cornwall and Albany, my loving sons-in-law, I now want to announce publicly what each of my daughters will inherit, to avoid hostilities after I die. The two great princes of France and Burgundy, vying for the hand of my youngest Cordelia, have been at my court a long time and will soon have their answers.—My daughters, since I'm about to give up my throne and the worries that go along with it, tell me which one of you loves me most, so that I can give my largest gift to the one who deserves it most.—Goneril, my oldest daughter, you speak first.

GONERIL
Sir, I love you more than words can say. I love you more than eyesight, space, and freedom, beyond wealth or anything of value. I love you as much as life itself, and as much as status, health, beauty, or honor. I love you as much as any child has ever loved her father, with a love too deep to be spoken of. I love you more than any answer to the question “How much?”

CORDELIA
(to herself) What will I say? I can only love and be silent.

LEAR
I give you all this land, from this line to that one—dense forests, fertile fields, rivers rich with fish, wide meadows. This land will belong to your and Albany's children forever.—And now what does my second daughter Regan, the wife of Cornwall, have to say? Tell me.

REGAN
Sir, I'm made of the same stuff as my sister and consider myself just as good as she is. She's described my feelings of love for you precisely, but her description falls a little short of the truth. I reject completely any joy except my love for you, and I find that only your majesty's love makes me happy.

CORDELIA
(to herself) Poor me, what am I going to say now? But I'm not poor in love—my love is bigger than my words are.

LEAR
You and your heirs hereby receive this large third of our lovely kingdom, no smaller in area or value than what I gave Goneril.—Now, you, my youngest daughter, my joy, courted by the rich rulers of France and Burgundy, what can you tell me that will make me give you a bigger part of my kingdom than I gave your sisters? Speak.

CORDELIA
Nothing, my lord.

LEAR
Nothing?

CORDELIA
Nothing.

LEAR
Come on, “nothing” will get you nothing. Try again.

CORDELIA
I'm unlucky. I don't have a talent for putting my heart's feelings into words. I love you as a child should love her father, neither more nor less.

LEAR
What are you saying, Cordelia? Revise your statement, or you may damage your inheritance.

CORDELIA
My lord, you brought me up and loved me, and I'm giving back just as I should: I obey you, love you, and honor you. How can my sisters speak the truth when they say they love only you? Don't they love their husbands too? Hopefully when I get married, I'll give my husband half my love and half my sense of duty. I'm sure I'll never get married in the way my sisters say they're married, loving their father only.

LEAR
But do you mean what you're saying?

CORDELIA
Yes, my lord.

LEAR
So young and so cruel?

CORDELIA
So young, my lord, and honest.

LEAR
Then that's the way it'll be. The truth will be all the inheritance you get. I swear by the sacred sun, by the mysterious moon, and by all the planets that rule our lives, that I disown you now as my daughter. As of now, there are no family ties between us, and I consider you a stranger to me. Foreign savages who eat their own children for dinner will be as close to my heart as you, ex-daughter of mine.

Act I, scene I

King Lear II

King Lear
Edwin Austin Abbey
Oil on canvas
size 54.5 x 127.25 inches
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Abbey exhibited King Lear, another of his large, dramatic pictures, at the Royal Academy in 1898; the painting was accompanied in the catalog by these lines from Act I, scene i:

Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loth to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father.
To your professed bosoms I commit him.
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.

The play begins with King Lear making the decision to abdicate the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The eldest two are already married, while Cordelia is much sought after as a bride, partly because she is her father's favourite. It is announced that each daughter shall be accorded lands according to how much she demonstrates her love for him in speech. To his surprise Cordelia refuses to outdo the flattery of her elder sisters, as she cannot be compelled to describe her love with dishonest hyperbole. Lear, in a fit of pique, divides her share of the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and Cordelia is disowned. The King of France however marries her, even after she has been disinherited.

Soon after Lear abdicates the throne, he finds that Goneril and Regan's feelings for him have turned cold, and arguments ensue. The Earl of Kent, who has spoken up for Cordelia and been banished for his pains, returns disguised as the servant Caius, who will "eat no fish" (that is to say, he is a Protestant), in order to protect the king, to whom he remains loyal. When Lear's daughters refuse to house his rowdy escort of knights, he rejects their suggestion of firing the knights and is turned out into the stormy darkness, along with his Fool. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan fall out with one another over their attraction to Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester—and are forced to deal with an army from France, led by Cordelia, sent to restore Lear to his throne. A cataclysmic war is fought.

Meanwhile, there is the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar and Edmund. The illegitimate Edmund concocts false stories about his legitimate half-brother, and Edgar is forced into exile, affecting lunacy. Edmund engages in liaisons with Goneril and Regan. Gloucester is confronted by Regan's husband, the Duke of Cornwall, but is saved from death by several of Cornwall's servants, who object to the duke's treatment of Lear; one of the servants wounds the duke (but is killed by Regan), who plucks out Gloucester's eyes and throws him into the storm telling him to, "smell his way to Dover". Cornwall dies of his wound shortly thereafter.

Edgar, still under the guise of a homeless lunatic, finds Gloucester out in the storm. The earl asks him whether he knows the way to Dover, to which Edgar replies that he will lead him. Edgar, whose voice Gloucester fails to recognise, is shaken by encountering his blinded father and his guise is put to the test.

Lear appears in Dover, wandering and raving. Gloucester attempts to throw himself from a cliff, but is deceived by Edgar in order to save him and comes off safely, encountering the king shortly after. Lear and Cordelia are briefly reunited and reconciled before the battle between Britain and France. After the French lose, Lear is content at the thought of living in prison with Cordelia, but Edmund gives orders for them to be executed.

Edgar, in disguise, then fights Edmund, fatally wounding him. On seeing this, Goneril, who has already poisoned Regan out of jealousy, kills herself. Edgar reveals himself to Edmund and tells him that Gloucester has just died. On hearing this, and of Goneril and Regan's deaths, Edmund tells Edgar of his order to have Lear and Cordelia murdered and gives orders for them to be reprieved.

Unfortunately, the reprieve comes too late. Lear appears on stage with Cordelia's dead body in his arms, having killed the servant who hanged her, then dies himself.

Source: Wikipedia

Cordelia

Description	Cordelia
Source	Shakespeare Illustrated
Date	1888
Author	William Frederick Yeames (British Painter, 1835-1918)

Lear’s youngest daughter, disowned by her father for refusing to flatter him. Cordelia is held in extremely high regard by all of the good characters in the play—the king of France marries her for her virtue alone, overlooking her lack of dowry. She remains loyal to Lear despite his cruelty toward her, forgives him, and displays a mild and forbearing temperament even toward her evil sisters, Goneril and Regan. Despite her obvious virtues, Cordelia’s reticence makes her motivations difficult to read, as in her refusal to declare her love for her father at the beginning of the play.

Cordelia’s chief characteristics are devotion, kindness, beauty, and honesty—honesty to a fault, perhaps. She is contrasted throughout the play with Goneril and Regan, who are neither honest nor loving, and who manipulate their father for their own ends. By refusing to take part in Lear’s love test at the beginning of the play, Cordelia establishes herself as a repository of virtue, and the obvious authenticity of her love for Lear makes clear the extent of the king’s error in banishing her. For most of the middle section of the play, she is offstage, but as we observe the depredations of Goneril and Regan and watch Lear’s descent into madness, Cordelia is never far from the audience’s thoughts, and her beauty is venerably described in religious terms. Indeed, rumors of her return to Britain begin to surface almost immediately, and once she lands at Dover, the action of the play begins to move toward her, as all the characters converge on the coast. Cordelia’s reunion with Lear marks the apparent restoration of order in the kingdom and the triumph of love and forgiveness over hatred and spite. This fleeting moment of familial happiness makes the devastating finale of King Lear that much more cruel, as Cordelia, the personification of kindness and virtue, becomes a literal sacrifice to the heartlessness of an apparently unjust world.

King Lear I

James Barry, "King Lear Weeping Over the Death of Cordelia" (1786-87)

full title · The Tragedy of King Lear

author · William Shakespeare

type of work · Play

genre · Tragedy

language · English

time and place written · England, 1604–1605

date of first publication · First Folio edition, 1623

publisher · John Heminge and Henry Condell, two senior members of Shakespeare’s acting troupe

narrator · Not applicable (drama)

climax · Gloucester’s blinding in Act III, scene vii

protagonist · Lear, king of Britain

antagonists · Lear’s daughters Goneril and Regan; Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester

setting (time) · Eighth century b.c.

setting (place) · Various locations in England

foreshadowing · Goneril and Regan’s plotting in Act I foreshadows their later cruel treatment of Lear.

tone · Serious and tragic; the occasional bursts of comedy are uniformly dark

themes · Justice, authority versus chaos, reconciliation, love and forgiveness, redemption

motifs · Madness, betrayal, death

symbols · Weather plays an important symbolic role in the play, notably in Act III, when the tremendous thunderstorm over the heath symbolizes Lear’s rage and mounting insanity; the actual blindness of Gloucester symbolizes the moral blindness that plagues both Lear and Gloucester himself in their dealings with their children; the “wheel” of fortune is another symbol by means of which Edmund, at the end of the play, conceives of his fall from power back into insignificance.

General appearance of an Elizabethan public theater.

Hamlet

Ophelia

John William Waterhouse, 1910

HAMLET

Ha, ha! are you honest?

OPHELIA

My lord?

HAMLET

Are you fair?

OPHELIA

What means your lordship?

HAMLET

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?

HAMLET

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET

You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Act 3, Scene 1

I

Louing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show,

That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine,
Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pittie winne, and pity grace obtaine,

I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inuentions fine, her wits to entertaine,
Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sun-burnd brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Inuentions stay;
Inuention, Natures childe, fledde step-dame Studies blowes;
And others feet still seemde but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with childe to speak, and helplesse in my throwes,

Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite,
Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.

Astrophel and Stella
Sir Philip Sidney

Much ado about nothing

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Writers: William Shakespeare (play), Kenneth Branagh (screenplay)

Release Date: 1993

Genre: Comedy | Romance

Plot: Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

Synopsis: The Prince of Medina Don Pedro (Denzel Washington), his resentful brother Don John (Keanu Reeves), and his noblemen Claudio (Sean Patrick Leonard) and Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) return from war, ready for merriment and love. Claudio loves Hero (Kate Beckinsale), the young daughter of the nobleman Leonato (Richard Briers), but Benedick hates Beatrice (Emma Thompson), Leonato's beautiful but sharp-tongued niece who hates him back. As Claudio and Hero prepare for their wedding, they decide, with the help of Don Pedro, to trick Benedick and Beatrice into confessing their true love for each other. The plan works without a hitch but trouble comes in the form of Don John who is jealous of his brother's power and of his affection for Claudio. Don John devises a scheme where one of his leutenants will make love to Hero's maid Margaret (Imelda Staunton) at Hero's window the night before the wedding. Don John takes Don Pedro and Claudio to Leonato's house where they see the encounter and are convinced the woman is Hero. The next day Claudio disgraces Hero publicly at the wedding and throws her away. She faints and Leonato is persuaded to pretend that she is dead until the situation is sorted out. The foolish warden Dogberry (Michael Keaton) manages to arrest Don John's leutenants and they confess to the plot. Claudio is crushed when he learns that he killed Hero with his untruthful accusations. He begs Leonato to punish him and Leonato tells him his punishment is to marry his (other) niece, who is almost a copy of his dead child. Claudio agrees but first spends a night mourning for Hero and proclaiming her innocence. Don John escapes Medina. The next morning Claudio marries the secret woman who removes her veil to reveal that she is Hero. They are very happy but Benedick and Beatrice almost break up when they discover they were tricked to confess their love. In the end, all is resolved, Don John is arrested and brought back to face punishment, Benedick and Beatrice marry and all dance around Leonato's garden and sing "Noddy noddy".

Plot Keywords: Revenge | Typical Outcome | Distress | Mistreat | Bachelor

Awards: Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations

Shakespeare's Sonnets

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 73
William Shakespeare

Beatrice means "the one that blesses"

Description	Beatrice
Source	Shakespeare Illustrated
Date	1888
Author	Frank Bernard Dicksee (1853-1928)

CLAUDIO

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK

I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO

Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK

Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for
my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak
after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO

No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK

Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
for a great praise: only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
do not like her.

CLAUDIO

Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK

Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUDIO

Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK

Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,
to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a
rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take
you, to go in the song?

CLAUDIO

In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
looked on.

BENEDICK

I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
matter: there's her cousin, an she were not
possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty
as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

Act 1, Scene 1 Before LEONATO'S house.

Beatrice is the niece of Leonato, a wealthy governor of Messina. Though she is close friends with her cousin Hero, Leonato's daughter, the two could not be less alike. Whereas Hero is polite, quiet, respectful, and gentle, Beatrice is feisty, cynical, witty, and sharp. Beatrice keeps up a "merry war" of wits with Benedick, a lord and soldier from Padua. The play suggests that she was once in love with Benedick but that he led her on and their relationship ended. Now when they meet, the two constantly compete to outdo one another with clever insults. Although she appears hardened and sharp, Beatrice is really vulnerable. Once she overhears Hero describing that Benedick is in love with her (Beatrice), she opens herself to the sensitivities and weaknesses of love. Beatrice is a prime example of one of Shakespeare's strong female characters. She refuses to marry because she has not discovered the perfect, equal partner and because she is unwilling to eschew her liberty and submit to the will of a controlling husband. When Hero has been humiliated and accused of violating her chastity, Beatrice explodes with fury at Claudio for mistreating her cousin. In her frustration and rage about Hero's mistreatment, Beatrice rebels against the unequal status of women in Renaissance society. "O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!" she passionately exclaims. "I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving" (IV.i.314-320).

Much Ado About Nothing

The Canterbury Tales

The versions of the tales that have survived until today can be attributed to two manuscripts from the Middle English period: The Ellesmere and the Hengwrt.

Read more

Nowher so besy a man as he ther n’ as,
And yet he semed besier than he was.

Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 323.
Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer's Prioress

In the poem, by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer depicts the people of the church and describes them as people who are not the sole embodiment of people who have sworn themselves to God, and to live by the four vows that the church requires them to commit themselves to. The Prioress, a Nun, is no exception, but Chaucer does not directly say how she represents the four vows but rather it is what he does not say that leads people to believe the Prioress is the exact opposite of what is expected of a nun that has committed herself to the four vows.

Men and women of the church are expected to live in poverty and hold no worldly possessions. The Prioress spoke of owning little dogs, which is strictly prohibited in a convent, and treating them exceptionally well and being extremely attached to them. By owing these dogs she violated the vow of poverty but the most apparent item that she owns is a gold broche that and leads the reader to believe that she was not entirely devoted to the church.

Chaucer spent a great deal of time explaining how she was extremely obsessed with her etiquette, that hints to the reader that she is more suited to be a beloved lady rather than a nun. In the days of Chaucer, women used excellent etiquette to attract and keep lovers. This indicates that the Prioress in not completely faithful to her vow of chastity, but rather a woman of promiscuity.

The vow of obedience, in reference to the Prioress, is probably the most odd vow of the four, since he never mentions it. While Chaucer is describing the Prioress he never once mentions how she serves God or nothing of that sort. This leaves the reader wondering if she serves God well or does not, but it is obvious that she has failed to follow the other vows and that this one is no exception.

A nun should pray, study, do service to God, and live a confined life free from temptation, but the Prioress has already violated the first three vows and those have to be followed to successful fulfill the vow of obedience. It is obvious that she does not pray everyday since Chaucer never mentions it and her service to God. She is not obedient to the Rule of order because she acts as an individual rather than a servant to God.

Chaucer explained the Prioress's etiquette, appearance, and her possessions. With that knowledge the reader can conclude that the Prioress does not live a sheltered life or a life that is solely dedicated to the service of God. It can be easily said that she has violated every vow, but Chaucer never comes out and say it straight forward. He leaves it up to the reader to decide how they picture the Prioress.

The Prioress's portrait

Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse,
That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy;
Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte loy;
And she was cleped madame eglentyne.
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of stratford atte bowe,
For frenssh of parys was to hire unknowe.
At mete wel ytaught was she with alle:
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe;
Wel koude she carie a morsel and wel kepe
That no drope ne fille upon hire brest.
In curteisie was set ful muchel hir lest.
Hir over-lippe wyped she so clene
That in hir coppe ther was no ferthyng sene
Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte.
Ful semely after hir mete she raughte.
And sikerly she was of greet desport,
And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port,
And peyned hire to countrefete cheere
Of court, and to been estatlich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence.
But, for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous
She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;
And al was conscience and tendre herte.
Ful semyly hir wympul pynched was,
Hir nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal, and therto softe and reed;
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war.
Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene,
And theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
On which ther was first write a crowned a,
And after amor vincit omnia.

Much ado about nothing

Dogbery and Verges with the Watch (Much Ado about Nothing)
Title: Dogbery and Verges with the Watch (Much Ado about Nothing)
Engraver: Meadows, Robert Mitchell (London, Died, 1812)
Designer: Bunbury, Henry William (British, 1750 - 1811)
Date: 1794
Medium: Original Stipple Engraving
Publisher: Thomas Macklin, London

Title · Much Ado About Nothing

Author · William Shakespeare

Type of work · Drama

Genre · Comedy

Language · English

Time and place written · 1598, England

Date of first publication · 1600

Publisher · Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise and William Aspley

Tone · Shakespeare’s attitude toward courtship and romance combines mature cynicism with an awareness that the social realities surrounding courtship may detract from the fun of romance. The need to marry for social betterment and to ensure inheritance, coupled with the importance of virginal chastity, complicates romantic relationships. Although this play is a comedy ending in multiple marriages and is full of witty dialogue making for many comic moments, it also addresses more serious events, including some that border on tragedy.

Setting (time) · The sixteenth century

Setting (place) · Messina, Sicily, on and around Governor Leonato’s estate

Protagonists · Claudio, Hero, Beatrice, and Benedick

Major conflict · Don John creates the appearance that Hero is unfaithful to Claudio, and Claudio and Don Pedro come to believe this lie. The real conflict that underlies all of this “ado about nothing” may be that Claudio, Don Pedro, and Benedick share a suspicion of marriage as a trap in which husbands are bound to be controlled and deceived, but they also deeply desire to be married.

Rising action · Claudio falls in love with Hero; Benedick, Don Pedro, and Claudio express their anxieties about marriage in jokes and witty banter; Don Pedro woos Hero on Claudio’s behalf; the villainous Don John creates the illusion that Hero is a whore.

Climax · Claudio rejects Hero at the altar, insulting her and accusing her of unchaste behavior; Don Pedro supports Claudio; Benedick, who was most opposed to women and love at the beginning of the play, sides with Hero and his future wife Beatrice.

Falling action · Benedick challenges Claudio to a duel for slandering Hero; Leonato proclaims publically that Hero died of grief at being falsely accused; Hero’s innocence is brought to light by Dogberry; Claudio and Don Pedro repent.

Resolution · By blindly marrying a masked woman whom he believes he has never met, Claudio shows that he has abandoned jealous suspicions and fears of being controlled, and that he is ready to marry. He is rewarded by discovering that his bride is actually Hero.

Themes · The ideal of social grace; deception as a means to an end; loss of honor; public shaming
motifs · Noting; entertainment; counterfeiting

Symbols · The taming of wild animals; war; Hero’s death

Foreshadowing · Don John’s plan to cross Claudio out of jealousy in Act I; Benedick and Beatrice’s witty insults foreshadow their falling in love.