“King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare — or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.”

— Paul Scofield

Quoted in Royah Nikkhah, "Scofield's Lear voted the greatest Shakespeare performance" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/22/nbard22.xml, Telegraph.co.uk (2004-08-22)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare — or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is cer…" by Paul Scofield?

Paul Scofield11

English actor 1922–2008

Related quotes

“All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lapis Lazuli http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1522/, st. 2 <br class="br">Last Poems (1936-1939)

“King Lear: What is your name?
Kent / Caius: Caius.
King Lear: And whence do you hale?
Kent / Caius: From Bonking, Sire.
King Lear: Well, yes, lad as do we all.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool (2009)

“Scholars are still in search of the exact meaning of certain speeches in each of Shakespeare’s great tragedies — and we should like to assume that those who saw these plays for the first time did not have perfect understanding of all of the lines — but so great was Shakespeare’s power to conceive of action from which thought and feeling can be readily inferred that all of us know Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth more intimately than we know many men whose remarks we understand perfectly.”

Norman Maclean (1902–1990) American author and scholar

"Episode, Scene, Speech, and Word : The Madness of Lear", in Critics and Criticism : Ancient and Modern (1952), edited by R.S. Crane

“A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Robert Skipwith (3 August 1771) http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.html#hd_lf054.2.head.010 ; also in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 4, p. 239 http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC61981280&id=YjaXnbNMaccC&pg=RA6-PA239&lpg=RA6-PA239&dq=Bergh+%22volumes+of+ethics,+and+divinity%22 <br class="br">1770s

“This is a plot, if ever there was one, to illustrate King Lear's complaint, "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." I am aware this is the second time in two weeks I have been compelled to quote Lear, but there are times when Eminem simply will not do.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-life-of-david-gale-2003 of The Life of David Gale (21 February 2003) <br class="br">Reviews, Zero star reviews