King Lear Siro: I am your servant, and servants ought never to ask their masters about anything, nor to look into any of their affairs, but when they are told about them by them themselves, they ought to serve them faithfully, so I have done and so I shall do. Siro asserts in Mandragola that the main duty of a loyal servant- and indeed, of others who serve, such as vassal, spouse

Medea vs. King Lear: Domestic royal tragedies The tragedy of Medea by Euripides and the Tragedy of King Lear by Shakespeare are tales of great kingdoms gone awry yet they are also domestic tragedies. The undoing of Jason's and King Lear's kingdoms are not based in an onslaught of a foreign power but in the kings' irresponsible actions as husbands and fathers. Both plays underline the significance of domestic tragedy in

Screwtape and Lear: What Both Say About Duty and Christian Love The underlying perspective that both King Lear and The Screwtape Letters share may be called a Christian perspective, in which duty, humility and sacrifice are indirectly valued as the best ideals, though, of course, Screwtape also notes that "duty comes before pleasure" (Lewis 21). While Cordelia represents Christ in Lear, the ordeals of Wormwood's patient resemble the crisis of identity

Shakespeare and Insanity An Analysis of Insanity in Four Plays by Shakespeare Shakespeare lived at a time when the old medieval Catholic world was splitting apart and giving rise to the new modern Protestant world. In the midst of this real conflict, Shakespeare depicts on stage several different characters that go mad. Some feign madness, some truly lose their minds, and some are bewitched by the maddening charms of love potions. This

Look with thine ears: see how yond / justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in / thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which / is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen / a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?"(IV. vi. 166-171) Lear's words are very interesting: he urges Gloucester thus to listen inwardly to his deeper sense of perception and not trust merely his eyes.

Hamlet's Insanity Hamlet's sanity has been questioned by critics of the play for centuries: is the Dane merely acting in order to fool the spies following him around the castle? -- or does he actually lose his mind? Part of the difficulty is that both seem possible (Davis 629). The other part is that critics tend to think it an either/or proposition -- as in, either Hamlet is acting or Hamlet