This is just a wonderful article on Lear, thank you! I’ve been studying this play myself and I tend to think (Goddard hinted so much toward the beginning of his essay that you reference) that Lear is a kind of Adam-in-reverse: a fallen king who learns to be a man on his path toward redemption. Lear does the opposite of naming, as you point out, he annihilates identity rather than affirming it, and curses his daughters with infertility. It’s only once he’s broken down into that chaos that’s shameless and without form that he is able to come to terms with his own humanity and need of redemption.
Thank you for the wonderful article, it helped me order some of my jumbled thoughts about the play!
I highly recommend Northrop Frye and Gideon Rappaport’s essays on Lear as well should you look to read further.
Silvia, this comment is so insightful! I didn't even think too deeply about his shamelessness and the formlessness of the tempest, but I feel there are more rich suggestions of Adam-in-reverse there to explore. Thank you for pointing that and more out!
Also, I've been meaning to read Northrup Frye on Lear, but Gideon Rappaport is new to me! I appreciate those recommendations.
“Dr. Rap’s” work can be found on YouTube, it’s basically a series of lectures that he compiled in his book “Appreciating Shakespeare,” and his commentaries are very accessible and super interesting. He has lectures on KL and Hamlet. Definitely worth a listen!!
I agree! I love the imagery of the creation story reversed; Frye talks about this in his essay in terms of the Renaissance conception of the universe/cosmos (the medieval vision, really), and how all the characters can be seen either ascending or descending, becoming more God-like or more animalistic/demonic.
I love that! I still need to check out Frye's writing. In The Elizabethan World Picture E.M.W. Tillyard gets into how the medieval vision of the cosmos informs Shakespeare as well. I need to revisit that one too. And Goddard comments in depth on the use of animalistic language in his essay. There are so many rich avenues of thought to follow in Lear!
Yes! I loved that little Tillyard book a few years ago when I was still getting my feet wet with Shakespeare. And yes, I think it would be wonderful to go back to it now some years later. I love that he and Lewis were friends and colleagues.
It's always so enlightening when someone simply points out what is already right there in the text, but shines a new light on it, like you did here with several of the words. I feel like if I'd been taught literature this way in high school and college I would have loved it so.much.more! :D
I know exactly what you mean. The way I was taught Shakespeare in high school was extremely lacking. Mostly it was just translating it into everyday English and making sure everyone understood the plot (which is an understandable goal for public high school students.) But then we would essentially do surgery on the text isolating the figurative devices without ever putting them in context of the greater themes. It killed all the life in the poetry.
So much of reading literature in the public school education I had was focused on using a bag of "critical thinking" tricks and not actually understanding, or more importantly loving, the work as a whole. Mostly reading well is having read enough in the western canon to be able to spot patterns and using sheer attentiveness to just look and see what's hidden in plain sight. But here I go on an educational philosophy spiel...haha
Ha-- no, I am totally tracking with your educational philosophy! I also only read 4 Shakespeare plays between 9-12th grades, plus one (repeat) in college! And it was pretty much how you describe it, with maybe some psychological readings thrown in for good measure ("Why do you think x Character made x Choice?" as if that is how stories work...lol!). I was shocked to find out that P. G. Wodehouse didn't actually finish the complete works of Shakespeare until he was in his 60s; but because he was exposed early and often to lots of Shakespeare in his English schools (and of course, other canonical works), he still really did "know his Shakespeare"! (and also, it should give the rest of us hope that we can really pick up something that we hadn't been given in our school education and read it all even in middle age and beyond...)
Pattern-seeking in reading, as well as a really basic understanding of the various forms and genres, is so much more satisfying. And then, once you have those, you're off finding treasures and gems in just about every good book you pick up. :)
Brilliant Dominika! I'm bookmarking this to read again when I next read Lear. I've read it just once and I see I've barely dipped a toe in. *rubs hands in glee* I love when works of art explore blindness and sight. I think it was the Close Reads hosts who opened up my eyes to this in literature and now I see it all the time! (Ha!) Because I'm referencing Gone With the Wind with everything at the moment, I was making lots of connections with Lear and GWTW as I read your essay. They're both tragedies, but I think the same with GWTW as you write so beautifully here with Lear: there is more than meets the eye.
I've never read Gone with the Wind, only seen the movie! I still need to read your review of it! And same, I love the theme of blindness and sight in literature. It's always so powerful!
I really appreciated your comments here about seeing these stories through the right lens or eyes. It's amazing how even just getting a tiny bit outside of the water we currently swim in and how we think, helps us see with new eyes. Wonderful article on a play that keeps on giving, and I'm excited to check out the Garber book!
Thanks for your comment, Nicole! The first time I read it, I really didn't know what to make of Cordelia's death. Why did she have to die? It just seemed so extreme and unjust. I was with Lear on that one: "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all?" But like you said, it's a play that keeps on giving more of its meaning and its light up to you, the more you look at it.
Thank you so much! Yes, I've always found Krista Tippett's story so compelling because it was seeing the interior emptiness in political leaders during her time as a journalist that caused her to go Yale Divinity School and then to start On Being as a way to bring those most essential questions more into the public sphere.
Beautiful, Dominika! I always think of this St. Augustine quotation: "Our entire task in this life, dear brothers, consists in healing the eyes of the heart so they may be able to see God."
This is so beautifully written, and the quotations you select make what you're saying about the play even more powerful and persuasive. The greatest tragedies invite us to see beyond the tragic view of things--to see through grief, I suppose, all the way to wisdom--and you reveal so well that *Lear* is all about opening our eyes.
Oh thank you so much for saying so. The hard thing for me with Lear is to not just quote the entire play. There are just so many rich and resonant lines! And that's a beautiful way to characterize great tragedies. Goddard does a much more thorough job than I do in tracing Lear's movement from pride to suffering and grief to wisdom and mercy. It's such a moving play.
Somehow, I read very little of Shakespeare in my years of schooling, and very little since. So reading your piece was new material for me. I do fall on the life is a miracle side of things, but seeing the struggle in King Lear pried open a new avenue of thought. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your kind words! I didn't get into or appreciate Shakespeare until I took a class on his plays from an incredible professor in college. He really does express the full range of human experience in the most beautiful way. I also fall on the life is a miracle side, though I tend to spiral when I hear or read about particularly horrible events, so reading Lear is helpful in keeping both realities in my mind at once--the hopeful vision while also not downplaying how awful evil really is.
This is just a wonderful article on Lear, thank you! I’ve been studying this play myself and I tend to think (Goddard hinted so much toward the beginning of his essay that you reference) that Lear is a kind of Adam-in-reverse: a fallen king who learns to be a man on his path toward redemption. Lear does the opposite of naming, as you point out, he annihilates identity rather than affirming it, and curses his daughters with infertility. It’s only once he’s broken down into that chaos that’s shameless and without form that he is able to come to terms with his own humanity and need of redemption.
Thank you for the wonderful article, it helped me order some of my jumbled thoughts about the play!
I highly recommend Northrop Frye and Gideon Rappaport’s essays on Lear as well should you look to read further.
Silvia, this comment is so insightful! I didn't even think too deeply about his shamelessness and the formlessness of the tempest, but I feel there are more rich suggestions of Adam-in-reverse there to explore. Thank you for pointing that and more out!
Also, I've been meaning to read Northrup Frye on Lear, but Gideon Rappaport is new to me! I appreciate those recommendations.
“Dr. Rap’s” work can be found on YouTube, it’s basically a series of lectures that he compiled in his book “Appreciating Shakespeare,” and his commentaries are very accessible and super interesting. He has lectures on KL and Hamlet. Definitely worth a listen!!
Thank you so much! I will check them out!
I agree! I love the imagery of the creation story reversed; Frye talks about this in his essay in terms of the Renaissance conception of the universe/cosmos (the medieval vision, really), and how all the characters can be seen either ascending or descending, becoming more God-like or more animalistic/demonic.
I love that! I still need to check out Frye's writing. In The Elizabethan World Picture E.M.W. Tillyard gets into how the medieval vision of the cosmos informs Shakespeare as well. I need to revisit that one too. And Goddard comments in depth on the use of animalistic language in his essay. There are so many rich avenues of thought to follow in Lear!
Yes! I loved that little Tillyard book a few years ago when I was still getting my feet wet with Shakespeare. And yes, I think it would be wonderful to go back to it now some years later. I love that he and Lewis were friends and colleagues.
It's always so enlightening when someone simply points out what is already right there in the text, but shines a new light on it, like you did here with several of the words. I feel like if I'd been taught literature this way in high school and college I would have loved it so.much.more! :D
I know exactly what you mean. The way I was taught Shakespeare in high school was extremely lacking. Mostly it was just translating it into everyday English and making sure everyone understood the plot (which is an understandable goal for public high school students.) But then we would essentially do surgery on the text isolating the figurative devices without ever putting them in context of the greater themes. It killed all the life in the poetry.
So much of reading literature in the public school education I had was focused on using a bag of "critical thinking" tricks and not actually understanding, or more importantly loving, the work as a whole. Mostly reading well is having read enough in the western canon to be able to spot patterns and using sheer attentiveness to just look and see what's hidden in plain sight. But here I go on an educational philosophy spiel...haha
Ha-- no, I am totally tracking with your educational philosophy! I also only read 4 Shakespeare plays between 9-12th grades, plus one (repeat) in college! And it was pretty much how you describe it, with maybe some psychological readings thrown in for good measure ("Why do you think x Character made x Choice?" as if that is how stories work...lol!). I was shocked to find out that P. G. Wodehouse didn't actually finish the complete works of Shakespeare until he was in his 60s; but because he was exposed early and often to lots of Shakespeare in his English schools (and of course, other canonical works), he still really did "know his Shakespeare"! (and also, it should give the rest of us hope that we can really pick up something that we hadn't been given in our school education and read it all even in middle age and beyond...)
Pattern-seeking in reading, as well as a really basic understanding of the various forms and genres, is so much more satisfying. And then, once you have those, you're off finding treasures and gems in just about every good book you pick up. :)
Brilliant Dominika! I'm bookmarking this to read again when I next read Lear. I've read it just once and I see I've barely dipped a toe in. *rubs hands in glee* I love when works of art explore blindness and sight. I think it was the Close Reads hosts who opened up my eyes to this in literature and now I see it all the time! (Ha!) Because I'm referencing Gone With the Wind with everything at the moment, I was making lots of connections with Lear and GWTW as I read your essay. They're both tragedies, but I think the same with GWTW as you write so beautifully here with Lear: there is more than meets the eye.
I've never read Gone with the Wind, only seen the movie! I still need to read your review of it! And same, I love the theme of blindness and sight in literature. It's always so powerful!
So much to explore in GWTW. I just love that feeling after reading a book or play—like you can never explore all its depths.
King Lear is my favorite Shakespeare tragedy and you open it up so beautifully here. Thank you!
Thank you, Melody! It's such a staggering masterpiece. One that affects me like few other works of literature can.
I really appreciated your comments here about seeing these stories through the right lens or eyes. It's amazing how even just getting a tiny bit outside of the water we currently swim in and how we think, helps us see with new eyes. Wonderful article on a play that keeps on giving, and I'm excited to check out the Garber book!
Thanks for your comment, Nicole! The first time I read it, I really didn't know what to make of Cordelia's death. Why did she have to die? It just seemed so extreme and unjust. I was with Lear on that one: "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all?" But like you said, it's a play that keeps on giving more of its meaning and its light up to you, the more you look at it.
Brilliant piece of writing. I kept thinking of world leaders and their actions (and impact) on people as well as my own.
Thank you so much! Yes, I've always found Krista Tippett's story so compelling because it was seeing the interior emptiness in political leaders during her time as a journalist that caused her to go Yale Divinity School and then to start On Being as a way to bring those most essential questions more into the public sphere.
Beautiful, Dominika! I always think of this St. Augustine quotation: "Our entire task in this life, dear brothers, consists in healing the eyes of the heart so they may be able to see God."
Ohh that's a great quote! What is the longer work it's from?
I think it's one of his sermons! Pope Benedict quoted it during the funeral homily for Hans Urs von Balthasar.
This is so beautifully written, and the quotations you select make what you're saying about the play even more powerful and persuasive. The greatest tragedies invite us to see beyond the tragic view of things--to see through grief, I suppose, all the way to wisdom--and you reveal so well that *Lear* is all about opening our eyes.
Oh thank you so much for saying so. The hard thing for me with Lear is to not just quote the entire play. There are just so many rich and resonant lines! And that's a beautiful way to characterize great tragedies. Goddard does a much more thorough job than I do in tracing Lear's movement from pride to suffering and grief to wisdom and mercy. It's such a moving play.
I’m teaching Lear for the first time this coming school year. Can I use this? ❤️
Yes, absolutely! I bet your students are going to have an incredible time reading it with you!
Somehow, I read very little of Shakespeare in my years of schooling, and very little since. So reading your piece was new material for me. I do fall on the life is a miracle side of things, but seeing the struggle in King Lear pried open a new avenue of thought. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your kind words! I didn't get into or appreciate Shakespeare until I took a class on his plays from an incredible professor in college. He really does express the full range of human experience in the most beautiful way. I also fall on the life is a miracle side, though I tend to spiral when I hear or read about particularly horrible events, so reading Lear is helpful in keeping both realities in my mind at once--the hopeful vision while also not downplaying how awful evil really is.