User talk:Amvanden

Welcome!
Hello, Amvanden, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Adam and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:46, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Cordelia (King Lear) Evaluative Statements
Hi Alyssa,

For the article on Cordelia, the first citation under the origins section seems like it is incorrect - it is referring to how Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain is the first print source of Lear, and yet what is cited is The History of Britain by John Milton. Maybe Milton wrote about how Lear was first mentioned in Monmouth, but I think a more recent source would show that this information is still accurate and that no earlier sources of Lear have been found in print since. Also, many sentences in the Introduction section could probably be rewritten, as there are a lot of commas and it sounds kind of run-on-y. You could probably also add more in about how Cordelia is essential to the play, and how the play ends tragically with her dead in her father's arms, in the section titled The Ending. You may even be able to retitle this section with something like Acts 4 and 5 to show that it is not necessarily just the ending of the play that she pops back up in, it is in Act 4 and onwards; the way the article is written now, Cordelia almost seems like a minor character that just pops up twice. I also think the line about Cordelia versus Lear's actions regarding love and property in the introduction section seems a bit off, in that either the author has not explained fully what they are trying to say (and maybe it is their own reading of the play, in which case that part shouldn't be there) or has not stated what they are trying to say clearly, since I think the general takeaway from Cordelia's words is not so much that she has separated love and property while Lear can't, but rather that her actions show that she is not willing to over-exaggerate her love for her father in order to obtain property and that Lear does not accept her response. You also may be able to add more about other revisions of the play that have also ended in happy endings for Cordelia. I hope this helps in your editing!

L.l.p.p (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

My Evaluative Statement on "Cordelia (King Lear)"
I plan to add much more detail to the "Cordelia (King Lear)" page. In the "Introduction" section, I will add how Lear divides Cordelia's portion of her inheritance between her two sisters, telling his son-in-laws that Cordelia can simply marry her pride. I also want to include Cordelia's connection to the maternal state (I will likely make this a new section on the page). In Janet Adelaman's "Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest" (which I will cite on the Wikipedia page), she states that Cordelia's role in relation to her evil sisters Goneril and Regan highlights the absence of a mother figure. She states that Cordelia "must become the sacrificial antidote to maternal malevolence in them" (116). Cordelia takes on a maternal role with her father, King Lear, and is the example of the morality that mothers often portray. When Lear decides to give his kingdom to his daughters, he is reversing the role of parents and children. Now, they will have the power, and thus be mother figures to him. Since Cordelia is clearly the most adept of his daughters (and the only one who appears to genuinely love him), he needs her maternal presence to secure his own safety from the maternal figures (his daughters) he has created. Amvanden (talk) 22:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)