Sample Quiz: Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1
1) Name the primary characters in the "subplot" of this play.
2) Match the correct husbands with Lear's daughters (as of the end of Act 1):
Regan Burgundy
Goneril Cornwall
Cordelia Albany
France
3) By the end of the first act, two male characters are either banished or are fleeing for their lives. Who are they and what have they allegedly done?
Extra Credit: Aristotle asserted that no thing could be made from nothing, i.e., that things could not be brought into existence without being made from previous things. As Lear tells Cordelia, "Nothing will come of nothing." In one sentence, explain the obvious problem this poses for a Jacobean Christian English audience, and what Shakespeare might mean by putting the assertion into Lear's dialogue with his daughter.
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