King Lear

1
King Lear

• Day Two
• ENGL 305
• Dr. Fike

2
Papers

• Please number your pages and paragraphs and
  underline your thesis statement.
• Make sure that your Works Cited page is attached.
• Your paper should be properly stapled.
• Papers will be returned one week from today.

3
The Sight Pattern

• Reference Paul J. Alpers, King Lear and the
  Theory of the Sight Pattern, In Defense of
  Reading A Readers Approach to Literary
  Criticism.

4
Examples

• 1.1.57 Goneril would trade her most precious
  sense for Lears love.
• 1.1.158-63 Lear orders Cordelia out of his
  sight Kent urges Lear to see better.
• 1.1.235 Cordelia lacks a still-soliciting
  eye.
• 3.7.70-73 Cornwall blinds Gloucester.

5
Points about Lear

• There is trouble with perception it is hard for
  both fathers to distinguish between goodness and
  pretense. In other words, between genuine
  goodness and seeming goodness, appearance and
  reality.
• Lears lack of clear vision leads him into
  trouble. Regan confirms this when she says that
  he hath ever but slenderly known himself
  (1.1.296-97).

6
Points about Gloucester

• Gloucester is a parallel figure he sees
  significance in what the more clear-sighted
  Edmund knows to be insignificant. Like Lear,
  Gloucester is gulliblehe fails to SEE that the
  letter is a forgery he fails to SEE Edgars
  goodness and Edmunds baseness.
• Literal blindness is the emblem of Gloucesters
  lack of proper perception.
• His spiritual blindness ? physical blindness ?
  spiritual sight. See 4.1.18 I stumbled when I
  saw.

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Summary

• Characters mistake each others true natures.
• They fail to see through disguises (Kent and
  Edgar are disguised).
• And physical sight is set in opposition to
  spiritual insight (FYI, one of those insights
  concerns justice and hypocrisy).
• Thus the sight pattern is a major pattern in this
  play.

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So Heres the Big Question

• What is it that Lear and Gloucester come to see
  more clearly? To get at this more clearly, we
  have us a group activity. ?

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Group Activity

• THREE GROUPS 10 MINS.
• Consider the following passages and try to
  construct a statement on what Lears experience
  on the heath teaches him. Work in large groups
  for 10 minutes.
• Group 1 3.2.67-79 and 3.4.28-36
• Group 2 3.4.59, 3.4.100-08, and 3.4.150-51
• Group 3 4.1.63-70 and 4.1.36-37

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Acts 432 (RSV)

• Now the company of those who believed were of
  one heart and soul, and no one said that any of
  the things which he possessed was his own, but
  they had everything in common.

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Summary

• What Lear learns
• He undergoes a spiritual transformation on the
  heath.
• At first unable to see beyond his own ego, he
  gains insight into the plight of the common man.
• He learns the importance of social justice and
  the imperative to help those whose basic needs
  are not met (Lear was remiss in this area when he
  was in power).
• Human justice is especially important because the
  universe is malevolent.

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Show Dover Scene

• Video clip 4.6.1-79.

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Next Exercise

• Work in previously assigned groups for
• 5-7 minutes.
• Dover in 4.6 How and why does Gloucester
  transform?
• Discuss the trial scenes 3.6 and 3.7. What do
  these scenes suggest about justice?

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Gloucesters Experience at Dover

• Gloucester goes through a similar process at the
  supposed white cliffs of Dover.
• What do you make of this experience? Why is it
  significant? What does Gloucester learn, if
  anything, that might parallel Lears insights?
• What are the key words, and what is their
  significance?

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Lear and Gloucester both transform spiritually
and develop in-sight.

• Beginning Ending
• Lear
• Worldly fortune Something Cordelia
• is good social
• justice is important
• Spiritual blindness Nothing
• Gloucester
• Sight Insight/true perception
• Appearances Blindness

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Points

• Analogy to Richard II he grows spiritually only
  when his worldly fortunes are in ruins.
• The previous slide critiques Lears statement
  Nothing will come of nothing (1.1.90)
  something does come of nothing.
• That something is a spiritual rise made possible
  by a worldly fall.

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Which Brings Us to a Key Concept

• Felix culpa Thus even Adam's sin and the fall
  of man involved the paradox of the felix culpa in
  that it led to the Incarnation and the redemption
  of mankind by Christ (from Credo Reference).
• Translation happy culpability, fortunate fall.

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Christian Paradoxes

• King Lear is not a Christian play (it takes
  place, as Greenblatt mentions, in a pre-Christian
  universe note the references to classical gods).
• Nonetheless, Christian paradoxes are key to the
  kind of SEEING that this play favors
• Matthew 55 Blessed are the meek, for they
  shall inherit the earth.
• Matthew 1921 Go and sell that thou hast, and
  give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in
  heaven.
• Matthew 1930 But many that are first will be
  last, and the last first.
• Luke 1.52 He hath put down the mighty from
  their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
• James 410 Humble yourself before the Lord,
  and he will exalt you.

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Further Points

• Nothing can be made out of nothing (1.4.130)
  mocks the Christian doctrine of creation out of
  nothing. Something definitely comes out of
  nothing.
• Spiritual development results from physical
  hardship and material penury. (Personal
  analogy.) This, for Lear, is the benefit of the
  storm on the heath.
• Lear, in his madness, describes poor naked
  wretches, and Edgars disguise illustrates the
  very type of person Lear imagines (2.3.1ff.).
  This disguise is a sign of Edgars spiritual
  worthiness. But Lear is the madman whom Edgar
  only pretends to be.
• And it is Edgar who sums up the whole tragedy in
  five words He childed as I fatherd
  (3.6.110). See next slide.

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He childed as I fatherd (3.6.110).

• LeardaughtersEdgarfather
• Lears daughters treated him badly.
• Edgars father treated him badly.
• Thus Lear is to his daughters as Edgar is to his
  father.

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Transition

• Weve been charting similarities between Lear and
  Gloucester.
• What about any similarity between Lear and Edgar?

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What Lear and Edgar See in a Similar Way?

• Edgar 3.4.84-99
• Lear 4.6.107-31
• Edgar 5.3.175

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Points

• Hell-like damnation
• Monstrosity
• Oedipal stuff (cf. nursery at 1.1.124)
• Projection of distorted anima?
• Total revulsion from female sexuality

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Trial Scenes 3.6 and 3.7

• What do these paired scenes tell you about
  justice?
• 3.6 Lear puts Goneril and Regan on trial on the
  heath.
• 3.7 Cornwall gouges out Gloucesters eyes.

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Summary of the Trial Scenes

• These scenes respond to the wrongs that have been
  suffered or supposed.
• Genuine wrong trial scene on the heath at
  3.6.35ff. true justice.
• Supposed wrong trial scene in 3.7 where
  Gloucesters eyes are gouged out travesty of
  justice.
• Bevingtons introduction The appearance and
  the reality of justice have exchanged places, as
  have folly and wisdom see 1.4 or blindness and
  seeing.

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Other Inversions

• What other inversions do you find in the play?

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Other Inversions in the Play

• Blindness and sight
• Parent and child (1.4.169-71)
• Male and female
• Loyalty and treason
• Man and beast
• Wisdom and folly (the Fool)
• High and lowEdgar as Tom is spiritually
  superior.
• Court and heath (the court is civilized but
  unjust the heath is uncivilized but just).

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Key Principle

• Shakespeare is building his play on the basis of
  such dyads.
• He will do this again in The Tempest.

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Discussion

• Whose tragedy is worse, Lears or Gloucesters?
• Construct a chart (see directions on the next
  slide).

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Whose Tragedy Is Worse?

• In groups of 3-5 persons, discuss the following
  questions for both Lear and Gloucester. In each
  case, try to establish who is worse off.
• What is lost?
• What do they suffer?
• Who goes mad?
• Who dies?

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Possible Answers

• http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL203
  05/30520King20Lear20Chart20in20Columns.doc
• END