Of all Shakespeare's great tragedy 'King Lear' is considered to be the most vast and complex. It admits of interpretation at various levels. To quote some opinions, Gervinus calls it an epic tragedy, and compares it to the classical and medieval tragic epic. Brinek declares that "taken as a whole, it is the mightiest work that Shakespeare has created." Dow den speaks of it''as the greatest single achievement in poetry of the Teutonic or northern genius"Sch legal is of opinion that"the picture (in king Lear) becomes gigantic, we seem to be out lookers at a great commotion in the moral world."Hazlitt calls it"to attempt to give a description of the play itself, or of its effect on the mind, is mere impertinence"A.C.Bradley observes.
" 'King Lear' Seems to me Shakespeare's greatest achievement, but it seems to me not his best play . " Adding further, he says "I....am grouping it in my mind with works like the Prometheus victus and the Divine Comedy,and even with the greatest Symphonies of Beethoven and the Statues in the Medici chapel" So there is little wonder when lamb declares that it is "essentially impossible to be represented on a Stage ".
All these different opinions imply a very rich tribute to Shakespeare's intellectual and poetical power s what accounts for the greatness of King Lear may be summed up in a single word- "vastness"According to Bradley , the peculiar greatness of king Lear rests upon " the immense scope of the work, the mass and variety of intense experience, the sublime imagination, piercing pathos, the vastness of convulsion both of nature and of human passion , the half - realized suggestions of vast universals powers working in the world of individual fates and passions. " Clearly, the unique mixture of Teutonic vastness and passion with orderly elaboration of devils leads the great number of critics to place king Lear at the head of Shakespeare's writings.
In spite of all this, the basic fact is that king Lear is one of Shakespeare's great and mature tragedies. As one of the four great and mature tragedies, king Lear has all those important features and tragic ingredients which Macbeth , Othello and Hamlet have. It is fundamentally a shadow tragedy.
Shakespearean tragedy according to A.C. Bradley, "is pre-eminently the story of one person, the hero, or at most, of two the hero and heroine. But the hero is not a small man. He is great and eminent-either a king as in Lear or a prince in Hamlet, or a person of high public importance as in Othello and Macbeth.
Though he is a man of uncommon virtue, he is not a superman. He has also some common human failing and weakness in his character.
Again as Bradley says Shakespearean tragedy " is essentially a tale of suffering and calamity leading the hero to death at the end of the drama. But the calamity dose not simply happen, nor it is sent from above or outside." It proceeds from the mature, character, disposition and actions of the hero. The source of all these is a character. So, his character becomes his fate or destiny. Thus ,Shakespeare's tragedy becomes a tragedy of character. This means that all misery and loss,suffering and death of the hero is due to some tragic trait or fatal flaw in the character of the hero himself. It means that some strong desire, will, passion and interest in the character of the hero leads him into a situation that causes suffering and death to him. As Bradley puts it--------
".....desire , passion or attains in them (heroes) a terrible force. In almost all we observe a marked onesidedness , a pre-disposition in some particular direction a total in capacity.... of resisting the force which draws in that direction, a fetal tendency to identify the whole being with one interest,object , passion or habit of mind.this...is......fundamental trait."
This tragic trait, for example, is the pride and anger in Lear, ambition in Macbeth, moral scruple in Hamlet, jealousy and credulity in Othello. This passion in his over-mastering passion. This initials him into action, and starts a course of action which he cannot control nor can he alter its consequences.This passion works like a fury and blinds him to other possibilities. so, Mrs. Campbell calls a Shakespearean hero" a slave of passion." Clearly, Shakespearean tragedy is fundamentally different from the Greek and modern tragedy in many respects. The idea of a Shakespearean tragic hero as a being destroyed simply and solely by external forces is quite strange to Shakespeare.
Now judging 'King Lear' in the light of the observation made above ,it becomes clear that Lear is a tragedy of character and passion. All Lear's misery and suffering are the consequences of his action and conduct ......... . They determine the consequences of his life. There is an intimate connection between his conduct and consequences.
Let us now briefly explain Lear's conduct. Lear is very old and has been the king for a long time. As an old man, he has become childish, infirm, choleric and wayward. As Lear him- self admits....
"Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish bond old man,
Fourscore and upward......
And to deal mainly,
A fear I am not in my perfect mind."
As a king for a long time, he has developed a sense of absolute power, a certain amount of folly and rashness and a love for flattery. His pride and anger are deeply ingrained in his nature. All this is made clear from Kent's speech to Lear:
"when power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound.
when majesty falls to folly. Reserve they state; And in the best consideration, check this hideous rashness......"
All these traits of his character pride, anger, consciousness of power and authority, unsuspiciousness, love of flattery and childish foolness lead him into situations in which he commits a series of errors, blunders and wrong actions.
His rash and childish scheme of dividing his kingdom among his daughters on the basis of their professions of love is one of the great example of his various errors. As A.C. Bradley comments;
"His fatal weakness, error, wrongdoing continues almost to the end."
The result of all these errors is his misery, madness,suffering and death.
It is another matter, as professor Dowden says, that his suffering also start a process of his education and purification. Bit the realization of his errors comes too late to save him from his Catestrophe . So, A.C. Bradley rightly comments:
"The centre of the tragedy, therefore,may be said.... to lie in actin issuing from character issuing in action.''
Needless to add that Lear's tragedy is a tragedy of character and passion in the same way as that of Macbeth's, Othello's, and Hamlet's.
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