What does Beauclerk say about Edmund?
Edmund is essentially an actor, who uses language of the old order - language of pity and responsibility … For his own political ambitions
Critics on Edmund
Charles Beauclerk, Race Capet, Nancy Maguire
What does Capet argue about Edmund?
Far from being a villain, the self-proclaimed devotee of nature functions, amid the collapse of social order … as the emissary of nature
What does Maguire argue about Edmund’s final lines?
His attempt to redeem his lonely self is a gesture which conveys his suffering as an individual … We can now pardon his impulse to acquire in order to protect himself.
Feminist critics
Kathleen McLuskie and Marilyn French
What is McLuskie’s argument?
Goneril and Regan are presented as demons, monsters, anything but human … Women in power can only bring disgrace.
Marilyn French quote
Which critics offer nihilistic readings?
Algernon Swinburne and Jan Kott
What is Swinburne’s quote?
The doctrine of Shakespeare … Is darker in its implication of injustice, it’s acceptance of accident. … Righteousness itself seems subject and subordinate to the masterdom of fate
Critics on family
Charley Hanly and Coppelia Kahn
Coppelia Kahn quote
Lear’s madness is essentially his rage at being deprived of the maternal presence/Lear has habitually suppressed any needs for love
Which critics comment on the role of the Fool?
Marjorie Garber and Harold Bloom
What is Garber’s quote?
The fool is a mirror … Reflecting back at Lear his own concealed image
Critics on madness
Adrian Ingham, Josephine W Bennett, Charley Hanly
What points does Hanly make?
Madness is used as a device to strip away the illusory aspects of royalty
What does Adrian Ingham believe is the most accurate description of Lear’s madness?
Unnatural melancholy, as outlined by Timothie Bright
Unnatural melancholy quote
‘The heavy hand of God upon the afflicted conscience, tormented by remorse of sin’
Critics on Gloucester’s blinding
L.C. Knight, S.L. Goldberg, A.M. Colman
What does L.C. Knight say?
The gouging out of Gloucester’s eyes is a thing unnecessary, crude, and disgusting … It helps to provide an accompanying exaggeration of one element - that of cruelty - in the horror that makes Lear’s madness
What does A.M Colman claim?
In such a world, where gods are absent … Gloucester’s suffering and subsequent despair must inspire pity
S.L Goldberg
The sheer fact of Gloucester’s blinding, and our sheer horrified rejection of it as unendurable … Stand at the very centre of the play
What does Anna Hermesmann argue?
Shakespeare emphasises the absence of justice in order to highlight the necessity of Christian values
Hermesmann quote
There is no just force to establish objective morality
A.C Bradley quote
The business of the gods… Was not to torment him…but lead him to attain … The very end and aim of life
