A king foolishly divides his kingdom between his scheming two oldest daughters
and estranges himself from the daughter who loves him. So begins this profoundly
moving and disturbing tragedy that, perhaps more than any other work in
literature, challenges the notion of a coherent and just universe. The king and
others pay dearly for their shortcomings?as madness, murder, and the anguish of
insight and forgiveness that arrive too late combine to make this an
all-embracing tragedy of evil and suffering.