King Lear the realm of which the king is head, not to Lear himself, and he tells Lear to behave better for the good of the realm. By contrast, Lear makes an argument similar to James that as king, he holds absolute power and could disregard the views of his subjects if they displease him whenever he liked. In the play, the characters like the Fool, Kent and Cordelia, whose loyalties are institutional, seeing their first loyalty to the realm, are portrayed more favorably than those like Regan and Goneril, who insist they are only loyal to the king, seeing their loyalties
The Cambridge Shakespeare first quarto of "Henry V", quarto "King Lear", the "Richard III", the quarto of "Othello", the first quarto of "Romeo and Juliet", and "The Taming of a Shrew", an alternate version of "The Taming of the Shrew". The general editors of the series are Philip Brockbank (1984-1990) and Brian Gibbons (1990-present), with individual editors, or pairs of, assigned to cover separate plays and poetry. The Cambridge Shakespeare The Cambridge Shakespeare is a long-running series of critical editions of William Shakespeare's works published by Cambridge University Press. The name encompasses three distinct series: "The Cambridge Shakespeare" (1863–1866), "The New Shakespeare" (1921–1969),