William Shakespeare's King Lear is considered by many readers, audiences and critics to be his masterpiece. The tale of the old king who throws away his kingdom along with his greatest treasure, his daughter, is certainly one of the bard's most challenging and affecting works. Taking in the themes of madness, old age, paternal love, the hollowness of existence and the delicate balance in matters of state, it is a powerful piece both in its dramatic content and the starkness of its poetry.
At the start of the play the king, Lear, gathers his three daughters and his courtiers and announces that he is to give up his crown and divide his kingdom between his daughters in proportion to how much they love him. His first two children, Goneril and Reagen, proclaim their love, but his last daughter, Cordelia refuses to be sycophantic and says nothing. The old king, disgusted, casts Cordelia out. However, he soon comes to regret his decision for, now he no longer has the monarch's power, his daughters and their new husbands abuse him and his followers.
Finally, he is cast out with a servant (a nobleman in disguise) and his court fool. He travels through a great storm and goes partly mad before arriving in Dover, where his youngest daughter and her new husband, the King of France, have landed an invasion fleet. A battle commences between Cordelia and her sisters until she, along with Lear, are taken prisoner. In their cell Cordelia is hanged and, clutching the body of his dead child, Lear dies of a broken heart.
Finally, he is cast out with a servant (a nobleman in disguise) and his court fool. He travels through a great storm and goes partly mad before arriving in Dover, where his youngest daughter and her new husband, the King of France, have landed an invasion fleet. A battle commences between Cordelia and her sisters until she, along with Lear, are taken prisoner. In their cell Cordelia is hanged and, clutching the body of his dead child, Lear dies of a broken heart.
Blindness and Madness: King Lear
In a sub-plot, one of the king's supporters, Gloucester, has two sons--one of whom is a bastard, Edmund. Edmund tricks his father into believing that his brother, Edgar, is plotting to murder him--and Edmund, like Cordelia, goes into exile. Like Lear, Gloucester becomes a figure representing the foolishness of age because he chooses wrongly, a metaphorical blindness which becomes manifest when, in one of the most shocking scenes is Shakespeare's work, he has his eyes put out. He too is forced to wander in the wilderness, until he, like Lear is reconciled with the child he wronged.
Madness has played a significant part in the critical reception of King Lear, and for good reason. As the storm rages around him, Lear goes mad, tormented by the agony of the turn his life has taken, and holds an imaginary court in which he tries his daughters for their treachery. This madness, the play seems to suggest, is the natural reaction to a life that lacks meaning or purpose. The world of Lear is one that is bleak, empty, in which the characters are, in the words of Gloucester, "As flies to wanton boys... They kill us for their sport."
In a sub-plot, one of the king's supporters, Gloucester, has two sons--one of whom is a bastard, Edmund. Edmund tricks his father into believing that his brother, Edgar, is plotting to murder him--and Edmund, like Cordelia, goes into exile. Like Lear, Gloucester becomes a figure representing the foolishness of age because he chooses wrongly, a metaphorical blindness which becomes manifest when, in one of the most shocking scenes is Shakespeare's work, he has his eyes put out. He too is forced to wander in the wilderness, until he, like Lear is reconciled with the child he wronged.
Madness has played a significant part in the critical reception of King Lear, and for good reason. As the storm rages around him, Lear goes mad, tormented by the agony of the turn his life has taken, and holds an imaginary court in which he tries his daughters for their treachery. This madness, the play seems to suggest, is the natural reaction to a life that lacks meaning or purpose. The world of Lear is one that is bleak, empty, in which the characters are, in the words of Gloucester, "As flies to wanton boys... They kill us for their sport."
Like all of Shakespeare's great plays, however, the individual disturbances--between fathers and their children, men and their sanity--take on a much wider significance. King Lear is as much about the workings of the state as it is about the individuals who inhabit it. By abdicating from the throne, Lear is seen to be abdicating his responsibilities towards his kingdom and his people. By refusing the responsibilities of his great power, Lear is breaking the great chain of being which ties all people together in the natural order of things. The storm in which Lear is caught up is symbolic of the storm in which his kingdom is tossed due to his lack of good judgement.
The Ending: King Lear
King Lear is a masterful play, one full of tragic grandeur and which, with all the power that great poetry can muster, points its readers to the bleakness of existence. Unlike most of Shakespeare's tragic plays, however, he offers us no hope of restoration or resolution at its end. The state is left in chaos, and the few individuals who survive (most of the main characters die in the closing scenes), can find no moral in the tale that they have witnessed. The final lines are nothing more than a lament for the passing of an old man's life that held no joy: "The oldest hath borne most: we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
The Ending: King Lear
King Lear is a masterful play, one full of tragic grandeur and which, with all the power that great poetry can muster, points its readers to the bleakness of existence. Unlike most of Shakespeare's tragic plays, however, he offers us no hope of restoration or resolution at its end. The state is left in chaos, and the few individuals who survive (most of the main characters die in the closing scenes), can find no moral in the tale that they have witnessed. The final lines are nothing more than a lament for the passing of an old man's life that held no joy: "The oldest hath borne most: we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
