King Lear

Reading points: some matters to consider as you read:

Following Bevington's headnote, consider the play's mixture of "folkloric" or "fairy tale" elements and the more purely realistic psychological depths in characterization.

bullet Villains everywhere!  Consider Edmund as a villain similar to Iago; consider Goneril and Regan as villains of perhaps an even worse sort. . . .

bullet The depiction of civil conflict (recall 1 Henry IV): a nation divided against itself.

bullet With the return in this play of the court jester, the character of the professional fool which we encountered in both As You Like It, note how even more than his predecessor, Touchstone, Lear's fool offers his master and the audience keenly insightful wisdom. (Harold Bloom calls the Fool a sort of "chorus" in this play.)

bullet Note the artful mirroring and parallels between the primary plot, centering on Lear, and the secondary plot centering on Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar, particularly between adjacent scenes. Note, for instance, how the shameful collusion between Goneril and Regan alternates with the evil plotting of Edmund, or how Lear's madness is reflected and reinforced in Gloucester's blindness. Or note how Lear's failure to apprehend the true character of his two elder daughters is mirrored or echoed by Gloucester's failure to appreciate the true nature of both Edgar and Edmund.

bullet On a smaller scale, be on the lookout for contrasts and oppositions between such motifs, images, and other elements such as love and hate, silence and speech, laughing and crying, vision and blindness—and between pairs of characters: the loyal Edgar vs. the treacherous Edmund, the merciful son-in-law Albany vs. the cruel and pitiless son-in-law Cornwall, the disguised Kent as an honorable and admirable servant vs. the sleazy servant Oswald, Lear's genuine madness vs. the assumed madness of Edgar, and so on.

bullet The most important and sustained running concern with oppositions throughout the play is evident in the many conflicting comments and views on the natural and the unnatural, and these can get quite complex. There are instances where characters behave "unnaturally" in fairly obvious ways: Lear's heartless rejection of Cordelia, and the other sisters' subsequent betrayal of Lear, e.g., or in Edmund's responsibility in his father's arrest and punishment for treason. On the other hand, such views of what is "unnatural" may be tempered or counterbalanced by moral relativism, for it might be quite natural that the bastard son, Edmund, should harbor resentment against both his adulterous father and his legitimate brother, Edgar. It may be natural that Edmund would desire to take his brother's inheritance and his father's wealth and power all for himself, since it would be most natural indeed for him to feel envious and slighted in his second-rank status, which is, after all, through no fault of his own. You'd do well to make note of every direct reference to the words "nature," "natural," "unnatural," etc. as you read.

bullet Keep a sharp eye out for the striking frequency of imagery or references to suffering in a variety of forms and degrees: disease, madness, blindness, self-mutilation, torture, and more, particularly involving animals such as wolves, dogs, birds, tigers, etc. For instance, note the Fool's reference to a sparrow having its "head bit off by it[s] young" (1.4.214), or Edgar, feigning madness, stringing together images such as "bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey" (3.4.91-93).

bullet Note the curious asexuality of the play: the only admirable relationships appearing to be those between parent and child (ultimately), or master and servant; and the tendency of seemingly all sexual references to be wholly negative: Edgar's reminding Edmund that he is the product of illicit sex, e.g., or Lear cursing the sexual acts that produced his two ungrateful daughters and saying in his madness that women are creatures of the gods down to the waist, but below that point they are "centaurs" given over to devils: "Beneath [women's waists] is all the fiends'. / There's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulfurous pit, / burning, scalding, stench, consumption" (4.6.127-29).

bullet Above all, note this play's unrelenting depiction of human suffering!  Note how this play is darker and more agonizing for the audience than either of the other tragedies we've read thus far.