KING LEAR: A TRAGEDY OF KINGSHIP AND KINSHIP

Date: Documents prove that the play was staged in 1606, but it is evident that it was written
earlier.

Sources: The main sources are Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland
(1587) and a play entitled The true chronicle history of King Lear and his three daughters
(1594).

Popularity: King Lear was not very popular in early periods. A. C. Bradley believed that the
play was felt to be “too huge for the stage”. In the late 18th century, Nahum Tate changed its
end and cheered the audience up with a reconciliation between Lear and Cordelia.

Scholars and theatre people attacked the play for:

- The too complicated plot and too large number of characters;

- The absurdly improbable incidents; such as the division of the kingdom according to
manifestations of love, Lear’s ignorance of his daughters, and the blinding of
Gloucester;
- The death of Cordelia, considered unjust, although it exists in Holinshed’s chronicle;
- The violence and cruelty of the daughters, considered a low, undignified, physical
essence of violence suggesting the angry striking of bodies against bodies.

SINS AND SINNERS

The play is situated in a vague place of the world, not of England. The period is a pre-
Christian age of lust, cruelty and greed. Both spacelessness and timelessness are meant to
create a feeling of vastness and to transform the characters into moral virtues (Cordelia,
Edgar, the fool) and vices (Goneril, Regan, Edmund) illustrating the universal fight between
the good and the evil.

The theme illustrated by the play is the way in which universal sins – love corrupting power,
flattery, ingratitude, lust and adultery generate universal suffering. The double plot
emphasizes the different social levels on which the same sins work.

King Lear’s sin is two-fold: as king he is not allowed to retire from political duties and as a
mature person he should be able to discern a flatterer from an honest person. A long life of
absolute power has produced in him an absolute blindness to human limitations and a
perverse self-will. His dictatorial pride and too choleric temper make him unable to sustain his
royal dignity, while his desire to cling to power does not stop him from violating order and
justice.

In spite of his shortcomings, King Lear has a generous, unsuspicious and open nature, easily
deceived by appearances. He wants authority and harmony, but is given instead hatred,
ingratitude and lies.

Lear’s suffering is noble, his own humiliation is intense and his disgust is one of the most
profound experiences of pessimism. The storm scene (Act III) shows him a grand, pathetic
and beautiful character, undergoing a two-fold process of discovering the nature without and
within. The effect is that of a symphony in which themes are given out, developed, varied and
combined.

In spite of his old age, King Lear undergoes a process of initiation through suffering: when he
acknowledges his failure: “I am a very foolish, fond old man” – the old Lear dies and a new
Lear is born who unlearns hatred to learn love, humility, and tolerance. He also discovers his
own identity and understands that ingratitude, adultery, lust, cruelty and ignorance are
opposed to integrity, loyalty, patience, love and forgiveness.

The fact that he learns to pray for the poor (I’ll pray and then I’ll sleep”) enriches the play
with a religious dimension. A. C. Bradley speaks about “the redemption of King Lear”, G. C.
Knight about his “purgatorial experience” or Irving Ribner about his “spiritual rebirth”.

The process of Lear’s illumination is doubled by his experience of madness; his insanity starts
with the domination of a fixed idea and develops into real sanity.

Fools and Daughters

- While the king and Gloucester are blind the fool sees clearly. Sigh connects him to the
king and allows the reversal of roles announced early in the play. While the king goes
mad, the fool goes wiser and wiser.
- The antiphonal value of the fool is doubled by his role of representing the king’s
subconsciousness.
- Although Cordelia appears only in 4 of the 26 scenes and speaks scarcely 100 lines,
her psychological portrait is complex.she is tender, loving and honestly horrified at the
hypocrisy of her sisters. At times she proves tough, ironic and masculine.
- Goneril and Regan are the perfect embodiment of Vice; their ingratitude, lust and
jealousy determine a decay in the hierarchy of the world. Shakespeare uses 133
separate mentionings of 64 different animals: serpents, tigers, monkeys, dogs, lions,
bears, horses, worms, flies, rats, mice – to suggest their animalic nature.

Imagery of Inversion

- The symbolic design of the text is superbly rich. Except the complex animal imagery,
the numerous references to nature, sea and sight complete the background of the play.
- The word “nature” is used 40 times. It is seen both as a judge, obeying the laws of
justice and as a goddess, representing a religious principle. Shakespeare also makes
the distinction between the green nature of a peaceful world and the red nature of the
jungle, between the outside and the inside nature, between nature as vital force and
individual will.
- The isotopy of sight is also skillfully exploited. Numerous references to eyesight, eyes,
blindness hint at Lear’s illumination
- Noticeable is the language of inversion insistently cultivated in the play. Negative
prefixes “un”, “dis”, “in”, a[[ear twice as often as in other plays.
 King Lear: Plot Summary

The story opens in ancient Britain, where the elderly King Lear is deciding to give up his
power and divide his realm amongst his three daughters, Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril. Lear's
plan is to give the largest piece of his kingdom to the child who professes to love him the
most, certain that his favorite daughter, Cordelia, will win the challenge. Goneril and Regan,
corrupt and deceitful, lie to their father with sappy and excessive declarations of affection.
Cordelia, however, refuses to engage in Lear's game, and replies simply that she loves him as
a daughter should. Her lackluster retort, despite its sincerity, enrages Lear, and he disowns
Cordelia completely. When Lear's dear friend, the Earl of Kent, tries to speak on Cordelia's
behalf, Lear banishes him from the kingdom. 

Meanwhile, the King of France, present at court and overwhelmed by Cordelia's honesty and
virtue, asks for her hand in marriage, despite her loss of a sizable dowry. Cordelia accepts the
King of France's proposal, and reluctantly leaves Lear with her two cunning sisters. Kent,
although banished by Lear, remains to try to protect the unwitting King from the evils of his
two remaining children. He disguises himself and takes a job as Lear's servant. Now that Lear
has turned over all his wealth and land to Regan and Goneril, their true natures surface at
once. Lear and his few companions, including some knights, a fool, and the disguised Kent,
go to live with Goneril, but she reveals that she plans to treat him like the old man he is while
he is under her roof. So Lear decides to stay instead with his other daughter, and he sends
Kent ahead to deliver a letter to Regan, preparing her for his arrival. However, when Lear
arrives at Regan's castle, he is horrified to see that Kent has been placed in stocks. Kent is
soon set free, but before Lear can uncover who placed his servant in the stocks, Goneril
arrives, and Lear realizes that Regan is conspiring with her sister against him. 

Gloucester arrives back at Regan's castle in time to hear that the two sisters are planning to
murder the King. He rushes away immediately to warn Kent to send Lear to Dover, where
they will find protection. Kent, Lear, and the Fool leave at once, while Edgar remains behind
in the shadows. Sadly, Regan and Goneril discover Gloucester has warned Lear of their plot,
and Cornwall, Regan's husband, gouges out Gloucester's eyes. A servant tries to help
Gloucester and attacks Cornwall with a sword – a blow later to prove fatal. 

News arrives that Cordelia has raised an army of French troops that have landed at Dover.
Regan and Goneril ready their troops to fight and they head to Dover. Meanwhile, Kent has
heard the news of Cordelia's return, and sets off with Lear hoping that father and daughter can
be reunited. Gloucester too tries to make his way to Dover, and on the way, finds his own lost
son, Edgar. 

Tired from his ordeal, Lear sleeps through the battle between Cordelia and her sisters. When
Lear awakes he is told that Cordelia has been defeated. Lear takes the news well, thinking that
he will be jailed with his beloved Cordelia – away from his evil offspring. However, the
orders have come, not for Cordelia's imprisonment, but for her death. 

Despite their victory, the evil natures of Goneril and Regan soon destroy them. Both in love
with Gloucester's conniving son, Edmund (who gave the order for Cordelia to be executed),
Goneril poisons Regan. But when Goneril discovers that Edmund has been fatally wounded
by Edgar, Goneril kills herself as well. As Edmund takes his last breath he repents and the
order to execute Cordelia is reversed. But the reversal comes too late and Cordelia is hanged.
Lear appears, carrying the body of Cordelia in his arms. Mad with grief, Lear bends over
Cordelia's body, looking for a sign of life. The strain overcomes Lear and he falls dead on top
of his daughter. Kent declares that he will follow his master into the afterlife and the noble
Edgar becomes the ruler of Britain.