King Lear І Крал Лир І Bilingual Edition

Shakespeare’s King Lear is the third book of the new bilingual library "English Poetic Classics" by the East-West Publishing House. The bilingual format of this library provides readers with the opportunity to get deeper into the subtleties of the text regarding some of the most valuable works of English literature by comparing original text and its translation, and also to get into the specifics of poetic translation of classical works.

Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear?

The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom—one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies is also perhaps his most moving.