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ORDER AND CHAOS
“My love’s more ponderous than my tongue”, Cordelia
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Complex and difficult and
contentious because not explicable in basic material terms and bonds like the sisters’ love and Lear’s ideal love
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Rash response to lack of order
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Because he
doesn’t have the social order on his side
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“These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us”, Gloucester - foolish, trying to find reason and
order in astrology
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Demonstrating hierarchy
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“When priests are more in word that matter; when brewers mar their malt with water”, Fool - perceptive on how
society is falling apart and become reversed and backward, as the king falls from power
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“This contentious storm invades us to the skin”, Lear - reason in madness
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Humans Vs
elements and Gods
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“All dark and comfortless” Gloucester now without Gods the momenta after his eyes are removed
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- just before eyes taken out
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“As flies to wanton boys are we to th’gods”, Gloucester - compared to before blinding, he sees the chaos of the
universe
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“Madmen lead the blind”, Gloucester
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But also in a macrocosmic way, Lear’s madness leading immoral subjects who follow and flatter without rationality or
sense
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Reversal of the folly throughout the play,
that is all governed by duty
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PARENTS AND CHILDREN, INHERITANCE
“His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge”, Glouc
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Natural son
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“I love your majesty according to my bond”
“Why have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?” - injustice, flattery
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“Scythian” “gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom”, Lear - like image of a pelican, self-sacrifice parents giving
children their own flesh
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to tribes who literally fed off their parents
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Ironic, because Gonerill and Regan are the real
“sometime daughters”
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“My King, loved as my father”, Kent - Kent is the real brother of Lear, who is loyal throughout and honest
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brotherhood
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“Better thou hadst not been born than not t’have pleased me better”, Lear
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“Abhorred villain”, Gloucester - fooled by Edmond to think Edgar is plotting against him
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Shows folly of family because he is quick to decry Edgar
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Also implications of natural bonds in the
imagery of eggs
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“Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing i' th' middle” , Fool
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Breaking bonds
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“I gave you all”, Lear - owed gratitude by his daughters
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Father loving and caring, pecking his chest to feed young, children selfish
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Edmond, his desires for power
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“Edmond, enkindle all the sparks of nature to quit this horrid act” - Gloucester had his eyes out, calling on Edmond
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There is no genuineness to familial bonds in King Lear
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Fashioning his inheritance
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There are no family bonds
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“I had rather break mine own” - Kent discussing heartbreak
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They form their own family, it is all
male
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Easier to form genuine bond in hardship
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“Led him, begged for him, saved him” - tripartite rhetoric structure by Edmond, avenging his father’s torture
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Albany’s reponse, “I am almost ready to dissolve, hearing of this” and Edmond’s “this speech of
yours hath moved me”
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“[Lear with Cordelia in his arms]” - image of the Pieta, Mary holding Christ
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“Of two she loved and hated, one of them we behold” - Kent, to Lear
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Cordelia hated Lear and
loved him
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The only loyal one
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Pitting people against each other
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“What wouldst thou do, old man?”, Kent
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Sees truth
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Informality and
disregard for status by Kent, “thou” is informal and strongly noticed in Jacobian era
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Lear is flattered by all of his courtiers etc
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“anger hath a privilege”, Kent
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Still carries army and retainers with him for power, but ironic somewhat
because he has to stay at his daughters’ homes
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Lear has placed too much power in his daughters, he needs them
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The
Prince
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“They told me I was everything”, Lear - disappointment
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Wants power still
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“Here I stand your slave” - self-pity
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“Two pernicious daughters” - Daughters go with nature, against Lear
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“Man’s nature cannot carry the’affliction nor the fear” - Kent, to Lear
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“The lunatic King” - Regan about Lear to Gloucester
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Sexual imagery too
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Failing
masculinity and virility in old age and without kingship
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Contrasting “White head” with powerful elements
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“I am not ague-proof” - realisation in madness
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“A dog’s obeyed in office” - Lear
“Methought thy very gait did prophesy a royal nobleness” - Albany, Edgar’s nobleness
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“Do not mock me; I am a very foolish, fond old man” - Lear begging for forgiveness
“For thee oppressed king am I cast down” - Cordelia
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TRAGEDY
“Does any here know me? This is not Lear”, Lear - losing his mind
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Irreparable
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“Her price has fallen” - Lear’s daughters’ highest value to him is them as a commodity to advance his kingdom
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Rights of primogeniture
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“A wretch whose nature is ashamed”, Lear - about Cordelia
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“Monsters” “Monstrous”, King of France - male fear of motherhood, formidable imagery linked with birth
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Semantic field throughout
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Language of
disfigurement
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Cf
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“I am ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood thus” - Lear to Gonerill

“Honest madam’s issue?”, Edmond - oxymoronic
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Referring to his mother
who had an affair with Gloucester to have him
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Fear of female power
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Fear of birth
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Physical destruction because they have the power to
conceive and men don’t, weaken their power
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Beard symbol of masculinity, reduced by lack of
power and imbalance chaos to social order primogeniture
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Sexuality in violence plucking out Gloucester’s eyes
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Insult
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“Give the distaff into my husband’s hands”, Gonerill - Distaff is a stick for sewing, figurative meaning of female work,
reversal of gender roles
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Also, her almost affair with Edmond reasserts her dominance, as that might typically be possible for a man but not
for a woman to do
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“Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her”
“Wretch whom nature is ashamed”, Lear - Describing Cordelia
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“Since that respects and fortunes are his love, I shall not be his wife” - Cordelia to Burgundy
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Not broken by system
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Semantic field of monsters throughout play
particularly in reference to women
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Freudian idea of monster birth
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Even when sane he has been
the same
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Passed down to his daughters e
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“Tis the infirmity of his age”, sister about Lear’s favouritism
“He hath never but slenderly known himself”, sister
“Nature, art my goddess”, Edmond - he has nature on his side, not law or society
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Permanent mark
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“Legitimate Edgar”, “Fine word, legitimate”, Edmond - scorn
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“Dull, stale, tired bed”, Edmond - Folly of marriage, done out of duty not desire
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Indictment of marriage, and by extent society
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subverting order
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“To lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star”, Edmond - Goatish, lechery
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“If not by birth, have lands by wit”, Edmond
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“I will preserve myself”, Edgar - going into disguise for self defence
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“Take the basest and most poorest shape that ever penury” - Edgar, about disguise
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Could be taken in two ways: that truth and goodness are punished and unsuccessful,
and that they are the most honest characters reiterating that the evil in the world comes from great wealth etc
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Compare to Timon’s foraging and
the connection with man and God in the garden, that is what makes sense
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“The younger rises when the old doth fall”, Edmond - the natural order of things
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“The little dogs and all”, Lear - finds dogs
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What could be possible
with his daughters
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“They told me I was everything”, Lear - disappointment
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“This great stage of fools”, Lear
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Brotherly
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Wisdom obscured by bodily desires
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In weakness Lear finds mental strength
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Lear changes
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“Edmond was beloved” - social acceptance, egocentric, placing himself in the middle of Gonerill and Regan’s deaths
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peace in old age
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Ironic,
somewhat, sending to prolong Lear and Cordelia’s lives but really he makes it worse because tragedy is not in death
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“You are men of stones”, Lear - on Cordelia’s death
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After Cordelia’s death
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Bring out truth in Lear
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“’Tis the infirmity of his age”, Regan - gets more sick with age, loses track of himself
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Cf
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“Wise men are grown foppish”
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“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise”, Fool
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Everybody has more than they need, rejecting Gonerill and Regan’s arguments of necessity
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Weak in old age
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“The oldest hath borne most” - must respect the old
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Hecate appears in
Macbeth as the goddess of the three witches
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“Regan [takes a sword, runs at first servant behind and kills him] - demonstrates a complete lack of moral justice
and care
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Chaos
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“The worst returns to laughter”, Edmond
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Forfended, forbidden because married
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“My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied”, Cordelia - just returned
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“Thou swear’st thy gods in vain” - Lear has created ruin
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“The Gods defend her” - Albany
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There are no Gods
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Physical boundaries broken in
death
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JUSTICE
“Time will unfold what plighted cunning hides” - Cordelia to her sister after she has been excommunicated
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Caring for others too
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Plea
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No more order
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“The gods are just”, “vicious place where thee he got cost him his eyes” - Edgar at the end, having struck Edmond
in fight
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“got”
Biblical word for conceived
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“This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble, touches us not with pity” - justice of the Gods, but not in
sadness because Gonerill and Regan deserved their fate
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“all friends shall taste the wages of their virtue, and all foes the cup of their deservings” - Albany
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Ironic because does not fit with tragic end
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Unjust
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“A moral fool” - Gonerill to Albany
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There is no justice, there is no point in morality
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HONESTY/DECEIT
“Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad?”
“Power to flattery bows?” - giving up everything for flatterers
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“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides” - Cordelia to her sisters
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Bedlam being a mental asylum in London at the time
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Kent being loyal telling him what he does not want to know
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