King Lear By William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) Essay, Research Paper

Since King Lear’s setting is pre-Christian

Britain, some readers chafe under the sort of nihilistic fatalism that

colors the characters’ thinking (”As flies to wanton boys we are to the

gods. . . “). And truly, it’s hard to think of any other play so vast,

passionate and bitter as this. The work is unusually demanding on the reader

or spectator, with so many prominent figures suffering so much for so long,

only, in the end, to find so little redemption.

True, there is a good deal of humor throughout

the play, especially in the lightning-fast wisecracks and puns of the Fool

and in the cryptic babble of Edgar masquerading as a madman. But even the

humor has a steady, grim undertone.

The main plot is marvelously conceived.

Just as Lear mistakenly believes that Cordelia has wronged him and his

other daughters have served him, so Gloucester jumps to the conclusion

that Edgar opposes him and Edmund defends him when in both cases precisely

the opposite is true. The horrific consequences of these misjudgments intertwine

and drive the action along