Lear_ in the present lecture, emphasise only certain aspects of the play
and certain elements in the total impression; and in that impression the
effect of these aspects, though far from being lost, is modified by that
of others. I do not mean that the final effect resembles that of the
_Divine Comedy_ or the _Oresteia_: how should it, when the first of
these can be called by its author a 'Comedy,' and when the second,
ending (as doubtless the _Prometheus_ trilogy also ended) with a
solution, is not in the Shakespearean sense a tragedy at all?[156] Nor
do I mean that _King Lear_ contains a revelation of righteous
omnipotence or heavenly harmony, or even a promise of the reconciliation
of mystery and justice. But then, as we saw, neither do Shakespeare's
other tragedies contain these things. Any theological interpretation of
the world on the author's part is excluded from them, and their effect
would be disordered or destroyed equally by the ideas of righteous or of
unrighteous omnipotence. Nor, in reading them, do we think of 'justice'
or 'equity' in the sense of a strict requital or such an adjustment of
merit and prosperity as our moral sense is said to demand; and there
never was vainer labour than that of critics who try to make out that
the persons in these dramas meet with 'justice' or their 'deserts.'[157]
But, on the other hand, man is not represented in these tragedies as the
mere plaything of a blind or capricious power, suffering woes which have
no relation to his character and actions; nor is the world represented
as given over to darkness. And in these respects _King Lear_, though the
most terrible of these works, does not differ in essence from the rest.
Its keynote is surely to be heard neither in the words wrung from
Gloster in his anguish, nor in Edgar's words 'the gods are just.' Its
final and total result is one in which pity and terror, carried perhaps
to the extreme limits of art, are so blended with a sense of law and
beauty that we feel at last, not depression and much less despair, but a
consciousness of greatness in pain, and of solemnity in the mystery we
cannot fathom.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 123: I leave undiscussed the position of _King Lear_ in
relation to the 'comedies' of _Measure for Measure_, _Troilus and
Cressida_ and _All's Well_.]
[Footnote 124: See Note R.]
[Footnote 125: On some of the points mentioned in this paragraph see
Note S.]
[Footnote 126:
'_Kent._ I thought the king had more affected the Duke of
Albany than Cornwall.
_Glos._ It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division
of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes
he values most.'
For (Gloster goes on to say) their shares are exactly equal in value.
And if the shares of the two elder daughters are fixed, obviously that
of the third is so too.]
[Footnote 127:
I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.]
[Footnote 128: It is to Lear's altered plan that Kent applies these
words.]
[Footnote 129: There is talk of a war between Goneril and Regan within a
fortnight of the division of the kingdom (II. i. 11 f.).]
[Footnote 130: I mean that no sufficiently clear reason is supplied for
Edmund's delay in attempting to save Cordelia and Lear. The matter
stands thus. Edmund, after the defeat of the opposing army, sends Lear
and Cordelia to prison. Then, in accordance with a plan agreed on
between himself and Goneril, he despatches a captain with secret orders
to put them both to death _instantly_ (V. iii. 26-37, 244, 252). He then
has to fight with the disguised Edgar. He is mortally wounded, and, as
he lies dying, he says to Edgar (at line 162, _more than a hundred
lines_ after he gave that commission to the captain):
What you have charged me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out;
'Tis past, and so am I.
In 'more, much more' he seems to be thinking of the order for the deaths
of Lear and Cordelia (what else remained undisclosed?); yet he says
nothing about it. A few lines later he recognises the justice of his
fate, yet still says nothing. Then he hears the story of his father's
death, says it has moved him and 'shall perchance do good' (What good
except saving his victims?); yet he still says nothing. Even when he
hears that Goneril is dead and Regan poisoned, he _still_ says nothing.
It is only when directly questioned about Lear and Cordelia that he
tries to save the victims who were to be killed 'instantly' (242). How
can we explain his delay? Perhaps, thinking the deaths of Lear and
Cordelia would be of use to Goneril and Regan, he will not speak till he
is sure that both the sisters are dead. Or perhaps, though he can
recognise the justice of his fate and can be touched by the account of
his father's death, he is still too self-absorbed to rise to the active
effort to 'do some good, despite of his own nature.' But, while either
of these conjectures is possible, it is surely far from satisfactory
that we should be left to mere conjecture as to the cause of the delay
which permits the catastrophe to take place. The _real_ cause lies
outside the dramatic _nexus_. It is Shakespeare's wish to deliver a
sudden and crushing blow to the hopes which he has excited.]
[Footnote 131: Everything in these paragraphs must, of course, be taken
in connection with later remarks.]
[Footnote 132: I say 'the reader's,' because on the stage, whenever I
have seen _King Lear_, the 'cuts' necessitated by modern scenery would
have made this part of the play absolutely unintelligible to me if I had
not been familiar with it. It is significant that Lamb in his _Tale of
King Lear_ almost omits the sub-plot.]
[Footnote 133: Even if Cordelia had won the battle, Shakespeare would
probably have hesitated to concentrate interest on it, for her victory
would have been a British defeat. On Spedding's view, that he did mean
to make the battle more interesting, and that his purpose has been
defeated by our wrong division of Acts IV. and V., see Note X.]
[Footnote 134: It is vain to suggest that Edmund has only just come
home, and that the letter is supposed to have been sent to him when he
was 'out' See I. ii. 38-40, 65 f.]
[Footnote 135: The idea in scene i., perhaps, is that Cordelia's
marriage, like the division of the kingdom, has really been
pre-arranged, and that the ceremony of choosing between France and
Burgundy (I. i. 46 f.) is a mere fiction. Burgundy is to be her husband,
and that is why, when Lear has cast her off, he offers her to Burgundy
first (l. 192 ff.). It might seem from 211 ff. that Lear's reason for
doing so is that he prefers France, or thinks him the greater man, and
therefore will not offer him first what is worthless: but the language
of France (240 ff.) seems to show that he recognises a prior right in
Burgundy.]
[Footnote 136: See Note T. and p. 315.]
[Footnote 137: See Note U.]
[Footnote 138: The word 'heath' in the stage-directions of the
storm-scenes is, I may remark, Rowe's, not Shakespeare's, who never used
the word till he wrote _Macbeth_.]
[Footnote 139: It is pointed out in Note V. that what modern editors
call Scenes ii., iii., iv. of Act II. are really one scene, for Kent is
on the stage through them all.]
[Footnote 140: [On the locality of Act I., Sc. ii., see _Modern Language
Review_ for Oct., 1908, and Jan., 1909.]]
[Footnote 141: This effect of the double action seems to have been
pointed out first by Schlegel.]
[Footnote 142: How prevalent these are is not recognised by readers
familiar only with English poetry. See Simpson's _Introduction to the
Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets_ (1868) and Mr. Wyndham's edition of
Shakespeare's Poems. Perhaps both writers overstate, and Simpson's
interpretations are often forced or arbitrary, but his book is valuable
and ought not to remain out of print.]
[Footnote 143: The monstrosity here is a being with a woman's body and a
fiend's soul. For the interpretation of the lines see Note Y.]
[Footnote 144: Since this paragraph was written I have found that the
abundance of these references has been pointed out and commented on by
J. Kirkman, _New Shaks. Soc. Trans._, 1877.]
[Footnote 145: _E.g._ in _As You Like It_, III. ii. 187, 'I was never so
berhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can
hardly remember'; _Twelfth Night_, IV. ii. 55, '_Clown._ What is the
opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? _Mal._ That the soul of our
grandam might haply inhabit a bird. _Clown._ What thinkest thou of his
opinion? _Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
opinion,' etc. But earlier comes a passage which reminds us of _King
Lear_, _Merchant of Venice_, IV. i. 128:
O be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accused.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous.]
[Footnote 146: I fear it is not possible, however, to refute, on the
whole, one charge,--that the dog is a snob, in the sense that he
respects power and prosperity, and objects to the poor and despised. It
is curious that Shakespeare refers to this trait three times in _King
Lear_, as if he were feeling a peculiar disgust at it. See III. vi. 65,
'The little dogs and all,' etc.: IV. vi. 159, 'Thou hast seen a farmer's
dog bark at a beggar ... and the creature run from the cur? There thou
mightst behold the great image of authority': V. iii. 186, 'taught me to
shift Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance That very dogs
disdain'd.' Cf. _Oxford Lectures_, p. 341.]
[Footnote 147: With this compare the following lines in the great speech
on 'degree' in _Troilus and Cressida_, I. iii.:
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself.]
[Footnote 148: Nor is it believable that Shakespeare, whose means of
imitating a storm were so greatly inferior even to ours, had the
stage-performance only or chiefly in view in composing these scenes. He
may not have thought of readers (or he may), but he must in any case
have written to satisfy his own imagination. I have taken no notice of
the part played in these scenes by anyone except Lear. The matter is too
huge, and too strictly poetic, for analysis. I may observe that in our
present theatres, owing to the use of elaborate scenery, the three
Storm-scenes are usually combined, with disastrous effect. Shakespeare,
as we saw (p. 49), interposed between them short scenes of much lower
tone.]
[Footnote 149: 'justice,' Qq.]
[Footnote 150: =approve.]
[Footnote 151: The direction 'Storm and tempest' at the end of this
speech is not modern, it is in the Folio.]
[Footnote 152: The gods are mentioned many times in _King Lear_, but
'God' only here (V. ii. 16).]
[Footnote 153: The whole question how far Shakespeare's works represent
his personal feelings and attitude, and the changes in them, would carry
us so far beyond the bounds of the four tragedies, is so needless for
the understanding of them, and is so little capable of decision, that I
have excluded it from these lectures; and I will add here a note on it
only as it concerns the 'tragic period.'
There are here two distinct sets of facts, equally important, (1) On the
one side there is the fact that, so far as we can make out, after
_Twelfth Night_ Shakespeare wrote, for seven or eight years, no play
which, like many of his earlier works, can be called happy, much less
merry or sunny. He wrote tragedies; and if the chronological order
_Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Timon_, _Macbeth_, is correct, these
tragedies show for some time a deepening darkness, and _King Lear_ and
_Timon_ lie at the nadir. He wrote also in these years (probably in the
earlier of them) certain 'comedies,' _Measure for Measure_ and _Troilus
and Cressida_, and perhaps _All's Well_. But about these comedies there
is a peculiar air of coldness; there is humour, of course, but little
mirth; in _Measure for Measure_ perhaps, certainly in _Troilus and
Cressida_, a spirit of bitterness and contempt seems to pervade an
intellectual atmosphere of an intense but hard clearness. With _Macbeth_
perhaps, and more decidedly in the two Roman tragedies which followed,
the gloom seems to lift; and the final romances show a mellow serenity
which sometimes warms into radiant sympathy, and even into a mirth
almost as light-hearted as that of younger days. When we consider these
facts, not as barely stated thus but as they affect us in reading the
plays, it is, to my mind, very hard to believe that their origin was
simply and solely a change in dramatic methods or choice of subjects, or
even merely such inward changes as may be expected to accompany the
arrival and progress of middle age.
(2) On the other side, and over against these facts, we have to set the
multitudinousness of Shakespeare's genius, and his almost unlimited
power of conceiving and expressing human experience of all kinds. And we
have to set more. Apparently during this period of years he never ceased
to write busily, or to exhibit in his writings the greatest mental
activity. He wrote also either nothing or very little (_Troilus and
Cressida_ and his part of _Timon_ are the possible exceptions) in which
there is any appearance of personal feeling overcoming or seriously
endangering the self-control or 'objectivity' of the artist. And finally
it is not possible to make out any continuously deepening _personal_
note: for although _Othello_ is darker than _Hamlet_ it surely strikes
one as about as impersonal as a play can be; and, on grounds of style
and versification, it appears (to me, at least) impossible to bring
_Troilus and Cressida_ chronologically close to _King Lear_ and _Timon_;
even if parts of it are later than others, the late parts must be
decidedly earlier than those plays.
The conclusion we may very tentatively draw from these sets of facts
would seem to be as follows. Shakespeare during these years was probably
not a happy man, and it is quite likely that he felt at times even an
intense melancholy, bitterness, contempt, anger, possibly even loathing
and despair. It is quite likely too that he used these experiences of
his in writing such plays as _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _King
Lear_, _Timon_. But it is evident that he cannot have been for any
considerable time, if, ever, overwhelmed by such feelings, and there is
no appearance of their having issued in any settled 'pessimistic'
conviction which coloured his whole imagination and expressed itself in
his works. The choice of the subject of ingratitude, for instance, in
_King Lear_ and _Timon_, and the method of handling it, may have been
due in part to personal feeling; but it does not follow that this
feeling was particularly acute at this particular time, and, even if it
was, it certainly was not so absorbing as to hinder Shakespeare from
representing in the most sympathetic manner aspects of life the very
reverse of pessimistic. Whether the total impression of _King Lear_ can
be called pessimistic is a further question, which is considered in the
text.]
[Footnote 154: _A Study of Shakespeare_, pp. 171, 172.]
[Footnote 155: A flaw, I mean, in a work of art considered not as a
moral or theological document but as a work of art,--an aesthetic flaw.
I add the word 'considerable' because we do not regard the effect in
question as a flaw in a work like a lyric or a short piece of music,
which may naturally be taken as expressions merely of a mood or a
subordinate aspect of things.]
[Footnote 156: Caution is very necessary in making comparisons between
Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists. A tragedy like the _Antigone_
stands, in spite of differences, on the same ground as a Shakespearean
tragedy; it is a self-contained whole with a catastrophe. A drama like
the _Philoctetes_ is a self-contained whole, but, ending with a
solution, it corresponds not with a Shakespearean tragedy but with a
play like _Cymbeline_. A drama like the _Agamemnon_ or the _Prometheus
Vinctus_ answers to no Shakespearean form of play. It is not a
self-contained whole, but a part of a trilogy. If the trilogy is
considered as a unit, it answers not to _Hamlet_ but to _Cymbeline_. If
the part is considered as a whole, it answers to _Hamlet_, but may then
be open to serious criticism. Shakespeare never made a tragedy end with
the complete triumph of the worse side: the _Agamemnon_ and
_Prometheus_, if wrongly taken as wholes, would do this, and would so
far, I must think, be bad tragedies. [It can scarcely be necessary to
remind the reader that, in point of 'self-containedness,' there is a
difference of degree between the pure tragedies of Shakespeare and some
of the historical.]]
[Footnote 157: I leave it to better authorities to say how far these
remarks apply also to Greek Tragedy, however much the language of
'justice' may be used there.]
LECTURE VIII
KING LEAR
We have now to look at the characters in _King Lear_; and I propose to
consider them to some extent from the point of view indicated at the
close of the last lecture, partly because we have so far been regarding
the tragedy mainly from an opposite point of view, and partly because
these characters are so numerous that it would not be possible within
our limits to examine them fully.
1
The position of the hero in this tragedy is in one important respect
peculiar. The reader of _Hamlet_, _Othello_, or _Macbeth_, is in no
danger of forgetting, when the catastrophe is reached, the part played
by the hero in bringing it on. His fatal weakness, error, wrong-doing,
continues almost to the end. It is otherwise with _King Lear_. When the
conclusion arrives, the old King has for a long while been passive. We
have long regarded him not only as 'a man more sinned against than
sinning,' but almost wholly as a sufferer, hardly at all as an agent.
His sufferings too have been so cruel, and our indignation against those
who inflicted them has been so intense, that recollection of the wrong
he did to Cordelia, to Kent, and to his realm, has been well-nigh
effaced. Lastly, for nearly four Acts he has inspired in us, together
with this pity, much admiration and affection. The force of his passion
has made us feel that his nature was great; and his frankness and
generosity, his heroic efforts to be patient, the depth of his shame and
repentance, and the ecstasy of his re-union with Cordelia, have melted
our very hearts. Naturally, therefore, at the close we are in some
danger of forgetting that the storm which has overwhelmed him was
liberated by his own deed.
Yet it is essential that Lear's contribution to the action of the drama
should be remembered; not at all in order that we may feel that he
'deserved' what he suffered, but because otherwise his fate would appear
to us at best pathetic, at worst shocking, but certainly not tragic. And
when we were reading the earlier scenes of the play we recognised this
contribution clearly enough. At the very beginning, it is true, we are
inclined to feel merely pity and misgivings. The first lines tell us
that Lear's mind is beginning to fail with age.[158] Formerly he had
perceived how different were the characters of Albany and Cornwall, but
now he seems either to have lost this perception or to be unwisely
ignoring it. The rashness of his division of the kingdom troubles us,
and we cannot but see with concern that its motive is mainly selfish.
The absurdity of the pretence of making the division depend on
protestations of love from his daughters, his complete blindness to the
hypocrisy which is patent to us at a glance, his piteous delight in
these protestations, the openness of his expressions of preference for
his youngest daughter--all make us smile, but all pain us. But pity
begins to give way to another feeling when we witness the precipitance,
the despotism, the uncontrolled anger of his injustice to Cordelia and
Kent, and the 'hideous rashness' of his persistence in dividing the
kingdom after the rejection of his one dutiful child. We feel now the
presence of force, as well as weakness, but we feel also the presence of
the tragic [Greek: hubris]. Lear, we see, is generous and unsuspicious,
of an open and free nature, like Hamlet and Othello and indeed most of
Shakespeare's heroes, who in this, according to Ben Jonson, resemble the
poet who made them. Lear, we see, is also choleric by temperament--the
first of Shakespeare's heroes who is so. And a long life of absolute
power, in which he has been flattered to the top of his bent, has
produced in him that blindness to human limitations, and that
presumptuous self-will, which in Greek tragedy we have so often seen
stumbling against the altar of Nemesis. Our consciousness that the decay
of old age contributes to this condition deepens our pity and our sense
of human infirmity, but certainly does not lead us to regard the old
King as irresponsible, and so to sever the tragic _nexus_ which binds
together his error and his calamities.
The magnitude of this first error is generally fully recognised by the
reader owing to his sympathy with Cordelia, though, as we have seen, he
often loses the memory of it as the play advances. But this is not so, I
think, with the repetition of this error, in the quarrel with Goneril.
Here the daughter excites so much detestation, and the father so much
sympathy, that we often fail to receive the due impression of his
violence. There is not here, of course, the _injustice_ of his rejection
of Cordelia, but there is precisely the same [Greek: hubris]. This had
been shown most strikingly in the first scene when, _immediately_ upon
the apparently cold words of Cordelia, 'So young, my lord, and true,'
there comes this dreadful answer:
Let it be so; thy truth then be thy dower.
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.
Now the dramatic effect of this passage is exactly, and doubtless
intentionally, repeated in the curse pronounced against Goneril. This
does not come after the daughters have openly and wholly turned against
their father. Up to the moment of its utterance Goneril has done no more
than to require him 'a little to disquantity' and reform his train of
knights. Certainly her manner and spirit in making this demand are
hateful, and probably her accusations against the knights are false; and
we should expect from any father in Lear's position passionate distress
and indignation. But surely the famous words which form Lear's immediate
reply were meant to be nothing short of frightful:
Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!