King Lear Journal #4: Choice Passage

LEAR: When the mind's free,
            The body's delicate. This tempest in my mind
            Doth from my senses take all feeling else
            Save what beats there.     (3.4.13-17)
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Paraphrase: If your mind is at ease, then the body is more fragile. This raging storm in my mind takes all my senses away from my body except for my mind and thoughts.

Lear is admitting that had he experienced this storm long ago, before he was caught up in his fall from power, he would have cowered in the storm, but now that he has changed and is troubled, his mind isn't free, that his body's needs are insignificant to the "tempest in my mind".

 

Kent, while in disguise as a servant, attempts to lead King Lear into a hovel for shelter from the storm, but Lear responds with delirium, rejecting Kent's plea to get Lear out of the "contentious storm". King Lear says that the storm Kent thinks of as such a huge deal is really nothing to what is going on in Lear's mind. Lear's "greater malady" is the dilemma with his daughters while the lesser malady is the ongoing storm, which is only a reflection of Lear and the falling traditions. King Lear is turned into a humbled, almost naked vagrant, much like how he was rejected from his daughters. His clothes must have been relentlessly torn apart by the tempest, like how his daughters greedily and without any other cares or thoughts. Lear's phrase "Save what beats there" means that he is turning primal. The main drive in a marching army is the pulse, or beat, of the war drum. The source of life is the beating of the heart. This seems a bit ironic because in Lear's mind, he is laboring over chaotic and confusing things. Perhaps the stripping down from bodily senses to just pure thought, King Lear is conceding to the chaotic nature of the natural world, the tempest, and the heavens above which govern life.

The tempest in which Lear is exposing himself to is the embodiment of many aspects and ideas that have developed in the play. The idea of perception appears most strongly in this passage. The mind, which interprets the body's senses, will ignore the body's senses when overwhelmed by its own musings and thoughts. Perception also falls into the things that one focuses one. Since the mind is focused on itself, it can't really notice true intentions of other things. When Lear asked his daughters something along the lines of "Who can say they love me the most?", he wasn't really paying much attention to the daughters' meanings because he already knew that Cordelia loved him the most. His preoccupation with his "darker purposes" led him to look onto one goal and be blind to other things, like his older daughters' guile.

Also, this storm can be viewed as the falling apart of the political structure in King Lear. Lear's daughters are overthrowing the King and Edmund is overturning his "illegitimate" status by disposing of his brother and tricking his father.

KING LEAR = THE STORM

King Lear Journal #3: Two passages that connect Sight/Perception vs. Reality

I am tracking the motif of sight and finding the connection between sight and perception/reality.

OSWALD

This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of

his gray beard—                         (A. 2, Sc. 2, Ln. 53-64)

Kent, disguised as an elderly servant of King Lear, is caught as he challenged another servant, Oswald, to a duel. Despite his goading, Kent failed to bring Oswald into battle because Oswald saw not the well known devoted Kent, but an angry old servant. This passage serves to reveal the control one has over another person's perception of something. When others had arrived in aid of Oswald, Kent tricked them into thinking he was a scoundrel quick talker when in fact, he is of the most helpful manner with King Lear. Thus, Oswald's perception of Kent is false, but still "saved" Kent's life.

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Edgar

I heard myself proclaimed,

And . . .

Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking . . .

I will preserve myself, and am bethought

To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury in contempt of man

Brought near to the beast . . .

"Edgar" I nothing am.    (A. 2, Sc. 3, Ln. 1-21)

Edmund gets away with his plot to gain all of his "legitimate" brother Edgar's inheritance by saying that Edgar planned to kill Gloucester, his father. When Edgar learns of this, Edmund instructs him to flee on his command and to stay low because Gloucester was extremely upset. Edgar, in his naivety, accepts this portrayal of the truth (the truth is Edmund just wants inheritance and isn't really helping Edgar). There are many references to sight in this passage: "vigilance", "bethought", "I . . .myself". Vigilance is the act of watching, and so, Edgar notes that the guards are watching ever closer at all things passing. This is the scrutiny of truth. "Bethought" only means that he has decided to save his life by staying in the disguise of a beggar. He is shedding his old perception of himself, seeing that he now has to live in fear, and no longer refers to him self. In fact, he denounces his name and says "'Edgar' I nothing am."

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At first, I had imagined that Shakespeare would fall closely in line with the ancient Greek use of Sight and Illusion vs. Reality. However, as the play progressed, so did the motif. Sight entangled itself in the fallacies of inheritance and in the ideas of foppish royalty. Now that Edgar has lowered  himself to the position of beggar, he is much like King Lear's Fool, residing only in the noblest terms of honesty, even though Edgar doesn't know the full truth. King Lear, in the beginning of the play, had a blindness to the deceit of his older daughters' false proclamations of love. His follies that the entire play stems from originates in his inability to see what is real and what isn't, thus giving rise to a feeling of payback - how could King Lear not feel repercussions of his mistakes?

King Lear Journal #2: The Fool

The Role of the Fool, his relationship to King Lear, and the reader's response to him

The Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear is agreed to have served the roll of relieving dramatic tension in the audience. But it is also agreed that the Fool serves the purpose of teaching important moral lessons to the King as well as the audience.  He [the Fool] does exactly what Kent does for Lear. Ironically, King Lear takes a different response to this. With Kent, King Lear took offense, seeing that although Kent is the only other person besides the Fool who could address him so freely, and banished Kent from his kingdom. In the Fool's case, Lear only calls him "old boy" and doesn't take action against him. In fact, the Fool can be seen as almost a fatherly figure to Lear, and so Lear has more respect for him.

In Elizabethan courts, the Jesters must maintain relatively good relationships with the nobles in the court, so that when the Jester does make fun of them, it only seems to be in light hearted humor. Shakespeare takes this to advantage and goes beyond the plain messages of love and death that most jesters would convey in a play. In the Fool's appearance with the King, Lear dismisses his musings and almost turns a blind eye to everything that the Fool says because they maintain such a long and caring relationship. In this position, the Fool can then insinuate the wrongness and follies that King Lear has done. The Fool addresses the ineptitude in the monarchical system that society was using and still is using in Shakespeare's time with Queen Elizabeth. The Fool calls out Lear on his failure to make the right choice when he banished Cordelia.

King Lear Journal #1: A Discussion on the Relationship Between Love, Power, and Wealth

The Relationship Between Power, Wealth, and Love in Act 1, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's King Lear.

A1, Sc. 1:

Cordelia:
Since that respect and fortune are his [Burgundy's] love,
I shall not be his wife. (Shakespeare 288-89)

To paraphrase, Cordelia notes that she has been rejected because she has lost her potential power and wealth. She also notes in this ambiguous phrase "I shall not be his wife" that she has also rejected Burgundy because Burgundy places power/wealth above love.
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How does Shakespeare present love, wealth, and power? How does he express this in A1, Sc. 1?

Shakespeare characterizes King Lear as an old man failing in his age, falling to insecurities and immaturity. From this high seat of power, Lear grants power and wealth in exchange for "love" from his daughters, perhaps in an attempt to prove he is still supposed to be the subject of love and attention. However, Shakespeare uses Lear's characterization against his actions. When Lear denies dowry for Cordelia, he presents his view that power and wealth are more important than love. But, Lear's childish temperament discredits him to the audience, allowing Shakespeare to assert just the opposite of Lear's view on love.

Just as King Lear is characterized as one who splits inheritance of wealth and power before he addresses love (even when he addresses love, he takes it on childishly, in a give and take manner), his daughters are separately characterized in their views and motives for showing filial love. Goneril and Regan, Lear's eldest daughters, once they are alone on stage in the first scene of Act 1, reveal their true nature and intentions. Shakespeare juxtaposes their public speeches earlier in the scene (where they "confess" their undying and boundless love for their father, King Lear) to their isolated and honest discussion of what they intend. They plan to take carefully take advantage of Lear's insecurities in old age, concluding they must "think further on it" and "do something, . . . i' th' heat" (Shakespeare 354-55). This means that while the issues of paternal duties and power and wealth are being discussed and causing rife in the families, they, the scheming sisters, must work to control the situation while it still burns fresh and new.

It is natural for the audience to take an instant interest as well as dislike towards the two sisters. Obviously they intend to play their father's power and wealth into their own hands, but Shakespeare uses this to further remove himself from the idea that power takes precedence over love. King Lear has stated his position and so have his two older daughters. His youngest daughter however values love over the need for a dowry and inheritance of power and wealth, which is why she ends up taking the hand of the King of France, who says his "love kindle to enflamed respect. - / Thy dowerless daughter . . . / is queen of us", defending his love for her love by saying that nothing "Can buy this unprized precious maid of me." (Shakespeare 296 - 301). The King of France sees, for some reason, the now poor Cordelia much more valuable than he has ever seen her. By calling her his "unprized maid of me", he challenges others to say something about her because she is now the bride of the wealthy King of France.
The relationship between love and power and wealth in King Lear, Act 1 Scene 1, plays against two different views. One, a view that power and wealth will spur love or not even require love, and two, a view that love can bring about power and wealth just through the union of a true marriage (between the King of France and Cordelia). However, how true is the love between Cordelia and the King of France? The Duke of Burgundy had discarded Lear's daughter, and so the spoils went to the victor of the battle for Cordelia: the King of France. Thus, who can say that the love that Cordelia expressed, and her acceptance of the King of France, is nothing more than the acceptance of fate's playing cards?

In just the first scene of the first act, Shakespeare already makes clear his preference for love over influence and wealth, but the actions that are unfolding reveal the futility in this sort of relationship; already, Goneril and Regan are plotting to abuse their "love" for King Lear, and already, love has failed in the face of wealth in the rejection of Cordelia's dowry.