LitAide

 In the sonnet, the narrator describes his beloved's proclamation of herself as "truth" i.e. she is an embodiment of truth. Our clever narrator further says that he pretends to believe that indeed she is truth although he knows that it is completely false. She might be thinking that he is some inexperienced youth who is unaware of the falseness in the world and in particular, dealings of love.  The beloved is also clever as she also tries to make him believe that he is still young. He knows that he is no longer a youth but an old man who is past his prime age. On both sides, pretensions is made but both knows the truth, but the plain truth is never spoken. Then the narrator asks the rhetorical question, why shouldn't she credit her just nature and he, admit his old age? Then he answers that in love, the "best habit" is of pretension of trust between the partners. Even though the lovers know about their partners shortcomings, they live by them with ease. This...

Cordelia - A true daughter of her father who unconditionally loved him with no hidden greed to his share of the kingdom. She is plain and simplistic and doesn't want to show off the love towards her father she has in her heart. This is her only flaw, she is too honest to be misunderstood. This brings her from being an apple of her father's eyes to one whose father banish her with hatred. But she remains faithful to his father till the end despite earlier his rude conduct. Goneril and Regan - Both of these elder daughters of King Lear share a common character of conditional love for their father. They pretend to show love to their father just to get a bigger share of the kingdom after his retirement. Their love was fake. Both of them remain greedy first for the larger share, then for Edmund. Both of them admit that they could face defeat at the hands of French but could not see Edmund with the other. Their intention was to marry Edmund and in this race, both lost their live...

Most of Shakespeare's tragedies depicts the fall of powerful people from great heights to their total destruction not only in terms of their reputation but their life also. King Lear too faced such prospects of having ruled England undisputably with no one to question him. His hyper-assertive and naive character prohibit him to see the world reasonably, he couldn't see the true faces of his daughters who showed him the life of misery. Her daughter's flattery hides their true character. Their insidious behaviour deceives Lear into rewarding them the shares of his kingdom. His tragic flaw depicts his poor judgement of true characters of people. He misunderstood Kent and Cordelia's plainness and honesty as their apathy towards him. The impression of their unappealing conduct changed the course of his own life. Even after retirement, he intended to live like a king which created conflicts with his daughters. His daughters didn't like his kingship, they didn't wa...