Previous discussion of King Lear

 

The King Lear discussion was 16 weeks, concluding with the BBC film (the only one that doesn't cut the text). You might say, "Sixteen weeks sounds like an awfully long time; you must have been going so slowly." Truthfully, we were hurrying right along and never quite felt like we had fully covered what we needed to.

We post giant (2' x 3') Post-It notes on the walls, on which we record recurrences of thoughts, ideas, motifs, concerns, parallels, character development, etc., in the play. For instance, in the first 33 lines of King Lear, Gloucester spends 14 lines talking about this son he begot with a young woman while he was married and his legitimate son was a few months old. "There was great sport at his making." Why does Shakespeare elaborate at such length on this in the very first scene? We've learned to trust the author—when a point is so belabored, we need to sit up and take notice. We decided to title a giant Post-It note "Lust" and see if the subject appeared again. Lo and behold, by keeping close track we discovered an underlying theme of lust and lechery that ran from the first scene through the last, most specifically around Gloucester. In the final scene, after Edgar has given his illegitimate brother Edmund a fatal blow, Edgar says about their father, "The dark and vicious* place where thee he got, cost him his eyes." And Edmund responds, "The Wheel is come full circle, I am here." *vicious = devoted to vice; morally corrupt.

We can't detail every thing we learned throughout the four months, but these are the sorts of concepts we tracked and discussed:

Trials, such as the trial of the daughters' love, the trial of suitors, Lear's mad trial of his two oldest daughters while in the gatehouse; Gloucester's trial of treason in his own home; the trial of Lear himself in the storm; the theme of the trials of Kent, Edgar, and finally Edmund.

Words vs. deeds runs through the plays, especially in the first part. We were surprised how often characters mentioned these two things together and so we kept a list on one of our Post-Its. Here are a few of the many lines we found.

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.....Cordelia: What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

.....Kent, to Goneril and Regan:
..........And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
..........That good effects may spring from words of love.

.....Edmund, at the end:
..........For my state stands on me to defend, not to debate.

Appearance vs. reality is always a theme in Shakespeare's plays, and in Lear almost every character pretends to be whom they are not. Some are obvious, such as Edgar/Poor Tom/peasants and Kent/Caius. Others are more subtle, such as Edmund who pretends to be an honorable, virtuous man who loves his father; Goneril and Regan who at first pretend to be loving daughters (Goneril's own husband eventually calls her a "gilded serpent"); we hear about servants acting as spies in other households; Gloucester pretends to support Cornwall, etc.

Parallels among themes, scenes, and characters are too many to specifically list here. But they include:
.....Banishment or disowning, as of Cordelia, Kent, Edgar, and Lear himself.
....."Nothing, my lord" being Cordelia's response to Lear and Edmund's response to Gloucester.
.....The number of characters who have but slenderly known themselves.
.....The results of giving power to the wrong people.
.....Edgar was condemned by a letter he never saw, presented by Edmund; Edmund was condemned by a letter he never saw presented by Edgar.
.....The vivid contrast of the tableau of three daughters and their powerful father in the opening scene, paralled with three dead daughters and their dying father in the last scene.

Letters are sent back and forth and discussed throughout the play. We counted at least 17 instances of letters being sent or received, read and displayed. What does this mean?

How old is Kent? When Lear asks Kent how old he is, Kent says he has forty-eight years on his back. But is this the truth? We wondered why Shakespeare would make such a point of his age. So we kept track of how many times Kent is referred to as an old man, a grey-beard, his journey toward death at the end, etc., and wondered if Kent is lying about his age, if he is actually much older than he claims. If so, why? (Don't be thinking a man is old at 48 in those times. Remember, Lear is in his eighties and goes hunting, rides back and forth across the country, kills a man with his bare hands, carries his grown daughter across the stage, etc. The old man who brings clothes to Poor Tom is also in his eighties, and he has to run back home, get some clothes, and then catch up with Gloucester and Tom.)

How old is Cordelia? Her older sisters are already married, but Lear calls on the gods (several times) to make them barren, or to make their issue as ungrateful as his own daughters are. This implies the older sisters haven't been married long enough to have been proven barren. With her older sisters possibly newly married, this could place Cordelia as a 15- or 16-year-old—ready for a fight, wanting a cause, feeling noble and high-minded. Think of yourself at 15/16, and think of the causes you were ready to fight for that perhaps your parents didn't understand.

Was Goneril driving Lear crazy? We noticed that even though Goneril claims that Lear's retinue is wild and contemptible, there is nothing in the text to support her image. In fact, Lear details how courteous and knightly they are. Who is telling the truth? If the knights are indeed so frightful, why does Goneril feel the need to instruct Oswald to be "slack of former services" and to "put on what weary negligence you please" specifically so she can create an argument that she could use as fodder to abuse her father? Is she trying to make him feel like he’s going crazy?

>Calling on the Gods, Goddesses, the Heavens: We kept track of how often characters call on the Gods (36 times), and discussed whether or not the Gods answered. If not, why not? And if not, why continue to call on them?

Inversions in the Great Chain of Being resound throughout the play. This is what makes the play King Lear more profound than, say, Othello—there are more disruptions on more levels. Son against father, daughters against father, father against daughter, father is ward of the son, eclipses of the sun and moon, Gloucester blinded by guests in his home, bastard children, etc.

Clothing—it comes off, it goes on. The outside appearance was very important to Elizabethans/Jacobeans, and it is used as a very strong visual metaphor in this play. Lear enters grandly dressed, and as he goes through his emotional arc, his clothes go with him. Think of how Kent changes his clothes, Edgar/Poor Tom changes his clothes (and ends up dressed in armor), etc. Clothes come off or go on or change as the people change.

Did Goneril really commit suicide? The gentleman comes in with a bloody knife that came from the heart of Goneril; he doesn't say how the knife got in her heart. It's Edmund who says she killed herself—but Edmund hasn't left the stage. He's assuming she killed herself (over love of him, he assumes). Has anything in the text shown us that Goneril the sort of person to kill herself? When Regan left the stage, she was feeling sick (poisoned by Goneril). When Goneril left the stage, it wasn't yet clear that Edmund was going to die of his wound, so we can't count on her killing herself over Edmund's death. Is it possible that when Goneril ran off, she went to make sure Regan was dead, but Regan's last act was to stab her sister in the heart? As usual, Shakespeare loves to make things ambiguous.

Motifs abound throughout the play:
The word "nothing" is used 34 times in the play.
Seeing and eyes thread throughout the play—references to eyes, seeing, sight, and being blind occur 142 times.
Nature/unnatural is referred to 49 times in varying ways, including the Nature of a human, the Goddess Nature, unnatural events, the natural bonds of fathers and children, unnatural children, and more.
Patience—some have it, some need it, some find it.

And of course we learn a great deal from how people address each other (thee vs. you, "Royal Lear" vs. "old man," etc.); from the differences between prose, blank verse, and rhymed verse, and why different people use different forms; from the soliloquies where characters speak their truths.

And the hidden symbology is another facet we explored—the symbolism behind the individual weeds in Lear's crown; the Centaurs and the wheel of fire; the hawthorne bushes; the crows and choughs in the air and the samphire on the cliffs of Dover; sweet marjoram; and so much more.

Attempt to establish order: Shakespeare always returns order at the end of a play. In King Lear we see such a sad attempt. We noticed that Cordelia refers to Lear as her father while he is sleeping. Once he is awake, she never again addresses him as Father, but as Royal Lord, Your Majesty, Sir, Your Highness. Albany, shortly after admitting that Lear "knows not what he says, and vain it is that we present us to him," announces that he himself is going to resign and return absolute power to "this old Majesty." All around him are attempting to restore order by giving power back to King Lear. Then he dies.

Is Cordelia a Fool?: Throughout Shakespeare, an "allowed" Fool is the one person who is allowed to speak the truth to the King or nobility. Examples of these classic sorts of Fools are Feste in Twelfth Night, the Fool in King Lear, or Touchstone in As You Like It. But there are other characters who occasionally step into the role of Fool. For instance, in The Merchant of Venice, Gratiano prefaces a criticism of Antonio by first saying, "Let me play the Fool." One might consider that Nerissa in that same play at times acts the Fool to Portia, confronting her with unpleasant realities.

With an expanded notion of the Fool, a puzzling line at the end of King Lear might make more sense. As Lear holds his dead daughter Cordelia in his arms, he says:

And my poor Fool is hanged.

This line has led to all sorts of speculative theories about exactly what Lear means (as you know, Shakespeare loves ambiguity). Some productions even show the Fool, whom we haven't seen since Act 3, literally hanged from a tree (which is not in the text).

Cordelia was hanged -- Lear slew the man who hung her. So consider the possibility that Lear, in this last moment before he dies, acknowledges that he knows that Cordelia spoke the truth to him. Cordelia was acting as an allowed Fool in Act 1 (which is what set her father off in the first place), and it has taken the entire play for Lear to admit that he knew she was right all along.

Some of our favorite phrases that we wish we could remember:
Great thing of us forgot!
The Wheel is come full circle.
’Tis a naughty night to swim in
We have seen the best of our time.
Friends of my soul . . .
. . . the Mystery of things
. . . his heart-struck injuries
. . . strives in his little world of man
. . . have secret feet

And of course this doesn't nearly cover the regular rich discussions we had every evening that we met. Oh, it was a grand time.

No matter what we felt we resolved within ourselves or not, every one of us agreed that our awe and respect for this writer only increased by looking more carefully than we’ve ever done before. And we can't tell you what a thrill it is to then see a performance or a film and actually understand every line of the play. This doesn't mean we've gotten to the bottom of it or that there's nothing else for us to learn, but just that our enjoyment and appreciation is so greatly enhanced.

Robin and Amy