The death of King Lear is, perhaps, an example of what some critics call "telescoped" time. With this technique, the events of several months are shown to us in a few minutes of actual stage time. In this case, Lear seems to die of heartbreak right in front of our eyes, which considering his ordeal is plausible. But it's interesting to consider as a possibility his death occurring, say, two or three weeks after Cordelia's, and that we see that amount of time condensed into the two or three minutes of the end of the play. Looked at this way, Shakespeare is doing something much more advanced than simply allowing large periods of time to elapse between scenes - which anyone can do - he is allowing them to elapse during them. (More on this, and another example, tomorrow.)