| Goneril | |
|---|---|
| King Lear character | |
 Marie Booth Russell in costume as Goneril (1911) | |
| Created by | William Shakespeare |
| In-universe information | |
| Family | Lear (father) Regan (sister) Cordelia (sister) |
| Spouse | Duke of Albany |
Goneril is a character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear (1605). She is the eldest of King Lear's three daughters. Along with her sister Regan, Goneril is considered a villain, obsessed with power and overthrowing her elderly father as ruler of the kingdom of Britain.[1]
Shakespeare based the character on Gonorilla, a personage described by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudo-historical chronicle Historia regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain", c. 1138) as the eldest of the British king Lear's three daughters, alongside Regan and Cordeilla (the source for Cordelia) and the mother of Marganus.