Artistic features

Though occasionally relieved by touches of humour, this is Shakespeare's most profoundly and philosophically intense drama, often dense in expression though with shafts of sublime simplicity, especially in Lear's reunion and reconciliation with Cordelia. It is his only tragedy with a fully developed sub-plot, or parallel story, the physical suffering of Gloucester, culminating in his blinding, running alongside the mental torment of Lear, culminating in madness. Shakespeare seems consciously to withdraw all sense of period, avoiding the Christian frame of reference which is notable in Hamlet, and of locality: even Dover is an idea rather than a place. The influence of the morality tradition is apparent in the exceptionally black and white characterization. Lear's Fool represents Shakespeare's most subtle and poignant development of this type of character. The play calls for acting of the highest quality but otherwise makes no exceptional demands; with doubling, it could be acted by thirteen men and three boys, and the staging calls for no special effects except an upper level at only one point.

THEMES

Egoism

King Lear is divided between egoist characters like Lear (at the beginning of the play), Edmund, Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, Oswald, the Captain who kills Cordelia, Burgundy, and even Gloucester, in his sexual profligacy, and sacrificial characters who are motivated by love and adherence to laws above themselves. Cordelia, Edgar, Kent, the servant who defends Gloucester against Cornwall, the King of France, and Gloucester himself, in his loyalty to Lear, are such characters.

The Gods

Set in pre-Christian Britain, King Lear is concerned with the power and the nature of the gods. Lear and Kent hurl curses at each other in the first scene, swearing by Apollo, as Kent admonishes Lear, ‘‘Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.’’ Gloucester believes in the power of planetary influence on world events, and thinks of the gods as capricious, killing us for sport the

way boys kill flies. Lear sees, in his prayer on the heath, that the nature of the gods is partially

defined by human action.

Varieties of Love

King Lear examines the varieties of love. Lear begins the play by demanding of his daughters that they say how much they love him. In his mind love can be measured—it is a quantity rather than a quality. In the last scene of the play, after Goneril and Regan are both dead, Edmund says, ‘‘Yet Edmund was beloved.’’ His idea of love is not very different from Lear’s in act 1, scene 1. To Edmund, love suggests others’ recognition of his power and surrender to him. For Cordelia, love is a quality of tender recognition of the value of the Other, and it shows itself in self-sacrifice and devotion to truth outside herself. Love is also something guided by responsibility and obligation. Goneril and Regan experience love as lust, as a desire to possess. Unlike Cordelia, love for them is selflove. It is not in service to truth but to their wills and appetites. In his bleakest moments, thinking of his elder daughters, Lear sees love as vile and lust-driven rapaciousness. Edgar and Kent, like Cordelia, see love as self-sacrifice in service to truth and to others.