The idea, or possibility, of female centaurs was certainly known in early modern times, as evidenced by Shakespeare's King Lear, Act IV, Scene vi, ln. 124 – 125:

Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play the couple was performing in 1809.

The most common imbrication between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's King Lear.

Shakespeare's play The Life and Death of King John

By contrast, Shakespeare's King John, a relatively anti-Catholic play that draws on The Troublesome Reign for its source material, offers a more " balanced, dual view of a complex monarch as both a proto-Protestant victim of Rome's machinations and as a weak, selfishly motivated ruler ".

Shakespeare's source for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles ( 1587 ), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to be a direct ancestor of the Stuart King James I ( Banquo's Stuart descent was disproven in the 19th century, when it was discovered that the Fitzalans actually descended from a Breton family ).

* In William Shakespeare's history play Henry IV, Part 2, Prince Harry refers to Murad as " Amurath " in Act V Scene 2 when he succeeds his father, King Henry IV, in 1413:

Far from being the aged King Duncan of Shakespeare's play, the real King Duncan was a young man in 1034, and even at his death in 1040 his youthfulness is remarked upon.

In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is portrayed initially as a valorous and good-hearted general to King Duncan, but who later is corrupted by ambition.

The historical content of Shakespeare's play is drawn from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which in turn borrows from Boece's 1527 Scotorum Historiae, which flattered the antecedents of Boece's patron, King James V of Scotland.

* King Philip appears in William Shakespeare's historical play King John.

By the end of Shakespeare's play, Prince Hamlet, Laertes, Ophelia, Polonius, King Claudius and Gertrude all lie dead.

Between 1512 and 1519, Thomas More worked on a History of King Richard III, which was never finished, but which greatly influenced William Shakespeare's play Richard III.

Both More's and Shakespeare's works are controversial to contemporary historians for their unflattering portrait of King Richard III, a bias partly due to both authors ' allegiance to the reigning Tudor dynasty that wrested the throne from Richard III in the Wars of the Roses.

In William Shakespeare's play King Lear ( c. 1600 ), when the King learns that his daughter Regan has publicly dishonoured him, he says They could not, would not do't ; ' tis worse than murder: a conventional attitude at that time.

* December 26 ( St. Stephen's night ) – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, before King James I of England in the banqueting hall of Whitehall Palace.

Shakespeare's plays about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this category, as do Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and George Peele's Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First.

The four tragedies considered to be Shakespeare's greatest ( Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth ) were composed during this period, as well as many others ( see Shakespearean tragedy ).

** Shakespeare's King Lear ( as Cordelia )

One, advanced by Katherine Elwes Thomas in 1930 and adopted by Robert Ripley, posits that Humpty Dumpty is King Richard III of England, depicted in Tudor histories, and particularly in Shakespeare's play, as humpbacked and who was defeated, despite his armies at Bosworth Field in 1485.

Hamlet versus Lear: Cultural Politics and Shakespeare's Art.

Shakespeare's earlier version, The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, was published in quarto in 1608.

Conversely, Frank Kermode, in the Riverside Shakespeare, considers the publication of Leir to have been a response to performances of Shakespeare's already-written play ; noting a sonnet by William Strachey that may have verbal resemblances with Lear, Kermode concludes that " 1604-5 seems the best compromise ".

His version had a powerful emotional impact: Lear driven to madness by his daughters was ( in the words of one spectator, Arthur Murphy ) " the finest tragic distress ever seen on any stage " and, in contrast, the devotion shown to Lear by Cordelia ( a mix of Shakespeare's, Tate's and Garrick's contributions to the part ) moved the audience to tears.

In 1974, Buzz Goodbody directed Lear, a deliberately abbreviated title for Shakespeare's text, as the inaugural production of the RSC's studio theatre The Other Place.

The only two significant big-screen performances of Shakespeare's text date from the early 1970s: Grigori Kozintsev was working on his Korol Lir at the same time as Peter Brook was filming his King Lear.

Unlike Shakespeare's Lear, but like Hidetora and Sandeman, the central character of Uli Edel's 2002 American TV adaptation King of Texas, John Lear played by Patrick Stewart, has a back-story centred on his violent rise to power.

Cordelia takes its name from the youngest daughter of Lear in William Shakespeare's King Lear.

Though some scholars disagree, Creiddylad is traditionally identified as the prototype of Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical Queen Cordeilla, who is the source of William Shakespeare's heroine Cordelia ( the youngest daughter of King Lear ).

Another of her notable roles was as Goneril in an Emmy-winning television production of Shakespeare's King Lear, opposite Laurence Olivier as King Lear and Robert Lang as the Duke of Albany.

* English poet Robert Browning composed an epic poem, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ; the title of which comes from a line in William Shakespeare's play King Lear.

The dramatic reading in the mix towards the end of the song is a few lines of Shakespeare's King Lear ( Act IV, Scene VI ), which were added to the song direct from an AM radio Lennon was fiddling with that happened to be receiving the broadcast of the play on the BBC Third Programme.

The first Blackadder is named after the treacherous Edmond from Shakespeare's King Lear.

Shakespeare's desire to burlesque a hero of early English Protestantism could indicate Catholic sympathies, but Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham was sufficiently sympathetic to Catholicism that in 1603, he was imprisoned as part of the Main Plot to place Arbella Stuart on the English throne, so if Shakespeare wished to use Oldcastle to embarrass the Cobhams, he seems unlikely to have done so on religious grounds.

Oxfordian researchers believe that the play is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, and point to the fact that Shakespeare's version survives in three quite different early texts, Q1 ( 1603 ), Q2 ( 1604 ) and F ( 1623 ), suggesting the possibility that it was revised by the author over a period of many years.

In 1874, German literary historian Karl Elze dated both The Tempest and Henry VIII — traditionally labeled as Shakespeare's last plays — to the years 1603 – 04.

In Act 3, Scene VI of Shakespeare's Macbeth ( c. 1603 – 06 ) Lennox refers to Edward as " the most pious Edward ," and in Act 4, Scene III, Malcolm describes his powers of healing those afflicted with " the evil ", or scrofula.

In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth ( 1603 – 06 ), the eponymous character resides at Glamis Castle, although the historical King Macbeth ( d. 1057 ) had no connection to the castle.

For example the 1603 death of Elizabeth I falls in the middle of Shakespeare's career as dramatist: he is both an Elizabethan and a Jacobean writer.

This would explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.

He probably was acting with the Admiral's Men in 1590, with Lord Strange's Men in 1592, and with the Earl of Pembroke's Men in 1593 ; but most famously he was the star of William Shakespeare's theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men which became the King's Men on the ascension of James I in 1603.

* The discovery of the First Quarto edition of 1603 of William Shakespeare's Hamlet ( a so-called " bad quarto ") causes great excitement within the scholarly community.

Several surviving references indicate that such a play was well-known throughout the decade of the 1590s, some time before the first published texts of Shakespeare's play ( 1603, 1604 ).

Other scholars believe that the play is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, and point to the fact that Shakespeare's version survives in three quite different early texts, Q1 ( 1603 ), Q2 ( 1604 ) and F ( 1623 ), suggesting the possibility that it was revised by the author over a period of many years.

So, a true-life scandal with noteworthy parallels to the Leir / Lear story was in the news in 1603 and 1604, and may have helped to inspire both Shakespeare's play and the publication of the old play King Leir.

Whilst many scholars feel that Shakespeare used the anonymous play The True Chronicle History of King Leir ( entered into the Stationers ' Register on 8 May 1605 ), and hence must have been written between May 1605 and December 1606, others argue that the relationship between the two plays has been inverted, and The True Chronicle History of King Leir was actually written to capitalise on the success of Shakespeare's play, which was probably written in 1603 or 1604.

The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 7 February 1603, by the bookseller and printer James Roberts, with a mention that the play was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare's company.

In literature, some of Shakespeare's most prominent plays were written in that period ( for example, three plays written during James I's reign: The Tempest ( 1610 ), King Lear ( 1603 ), and Macbeth ( 1603 ).

In William Shakespeare's play King Lear, ( iv, i, 60 ), mention is made of " Hobbididence, prince of dumbness " in a list of diverse fiends, whose names Shakespeare borrowed from Samuel Harsnett's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures ( 1603 ).

After James I visited her at Wilton in 1603 and was entertained by Shakespeare's company " The King's Men ", Mary moved out of Wilton as Dowager Countess and rented homes in London.

Lady Macbeth is a character in Shakespeare's Macbeth ( c. 1603 – 1607 ).