I. Lear divides his kingdom (Click
on the underlined phrase to go to that section of the lecture)
II. Why Lear is not so dumb: Merit
and Nature
III. Why Lear is dumb and banishes
Cordelia
IV. Lear loses power and realizes
it
A. Lear gives several reasons for dividing his kingdom:
Give me the map there. Know that we have dividedNOTE: Boldface here and throughout the Lectures marks parts of the text that are especially important. If you want to hear the text, click on the act, scene and line number following the quotation.
In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answer'd.(1.1.40-48)
1. He wants to retire because he is old and tired and wants "younger strengths" to handle the "cares and business" of ruling.
2. He himself wants to decide what each daughter and her husband will get after his death rather than letting the sons-in-law decide it in the future through warfare ("future strife"). Notice that he wants to decide before the question of Cordelia's husband has been decided. We'll consider why he wants to do this before the decision (rather than after) as we continue.
B. He sets up the division as a contest, but it is rigged from the start.
Tell me, my daughters,If he decided by "nature," then the eldest, Goneril, would get the whole or at least the biggest share. But Lear wants a set-up in which he can consider "merit" (that is, loving him) as well as "nature" as criteria for dividing the kingdom and giving his "bounty." Although each daughter will get a chance to speak ("Tell me . . . "), Lear alone will be the judge: "which of you shall we say doth love us most?"
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,
Which of you shall we say doth love us most
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.
However, it is clear that the "contest" which follows is ceremonial because he has already decided on the division. (Note the past tense of the verb: "we have divided," 39.) Later in the scene, he apportions the kingdom after each speech rather than waiting until all three have spoken. (In some productions the map is shown already divided before the contest begins.)
So everyone knows he intends to give Cordelia more than the others:
1. He cues her: "What can you say to draw/ A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak."
2. If the production shows the map, it should be clear that the part that is left after giving territory to Goneril and Regan is the biggest of the three parts.
3. After Lear disinherits Cordelia, he says he wanted to live with Cordelia in his retirement: "I loved her most, and thought to set my rest/ On her kind nursery" (1.1.137-38).
4. After Lear's decision, Kent warns him:
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,5. Even Goneril and Regan know of his preference. After the others leave, Goneril says to Regan, "He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly" (1.1.336-38).
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.
II. Why Lear is not so dumb: Merit and Nature
A. The form of the contest (speaking contest) and his reaction to Cordelia are stupid (more on this later), but not the thinking behind it--balancing Nature and merit. Lear thinks of "Nature" as "the way things are supposed to be" according to the Great Chain of Being and the hierarchy of family and state. But he also realizes that, according to the natures of the three daughters, it is a good idea to give Cordelia predominance in the division. He therefore sets up a contest that will give him a reason to go against the Natural rule of the eldest child getting all or more.
B. After Lear disinherits Cordelia, he changes the rules of the division. When he expects Cordelia to get the most, he says only that he divests himself "of rule,/ Interest of territory, cares of state" (1.1.54-5). But after Goneril and Regan are his sole heirs, he adds some important provisions:
I do invest you jointly with my power,In the lines preceding this passage Lear is clearly addressing his daughters, yet he ends up addressing his sons-in-law Albany and Cornwall, the ones who will have the forces at their command to oppose or obey Lear. At what point do you think the Lear actor should turn to the sons-in-law actors on stage?
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights,
By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name and all the addition to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours. . . .
2. Lear does not change the scope of everyday power he has given his heirs: the "power, pre-eminence and . . . large effects/ That troop with majesty" are given to Goneril and Regan, and Lear realizes that carrying it out--"The sway, revenue, execution"--will involve his daughters' husbands. However, Lear assumes that as long as he keeps the "name and all the addition to a king" [that is, kingly titles and honors] that by Nature he will have authority over his heirs' power.
I am using the following definition of terms:
III. Why Lear is dumb and banishes Cordelia
A. Renaissance beliefs underlie Lear's decision
1. According to the concept of the Great Chain of Being, the world is naturally hierarchical: God is above the angels who are above humankind who are above the animals who are above the plants who are above the stones.
2. Not only does this hierarchy exist in the universe, but according to Renaissance belief, a principle of hierarchy ruled in other spheres, too, by analogy or "correspondences" (that is, parallel truths). So this same hierarchy exists, according to this belief, in other spheres of human endeavor. That is, in the family, the father has authority over the mother and both have authority over children; in politics, the king has authority over the nobles who have authority over the commoners. Although today we may agree that it is "human nature" or "natural," for example, for a mother to love her child and for a child to love its mother, we may have difficulty with other Renaissance concepts and their strict sense of hierarchy. An important underlying principle for us is democracy rather than hierarchy. The movements for "animal rights" or "children's rights" or "women's liberation" would puzzle or horrify most Elizabethans and, by the Law of Correspondences, would appear blasphemous because they would challenge the supremacy of God. The play King Lear shows that while Lear generally believed in this ideal of Nature--"the way things are supposed to be"--he was not blind to the way things actually were. His fault, I believe, was wanting to have both Nature and merit in an egocentric way.
B. I see Cordelia as being just like Lear--she considers her word to be her bond, her promise of action. While this attitude may make sense in a king whose word is law, it gets Cordelia in trouble.
C. Her situation:
1. She is just about to be married--either to France or Burgundy. (In Shakespeare's sources, none of his daughters are married at this point.)
2. She comes third in the contest's order, after Goneril and Regan have said that they love their daddy more than anything.
3. What does Cordelia actually say?
I love your majestyTo see different enactments of this passage, click on the appropriate button below to see:
According to my bond [filial obligation = what a child is supposed to do]; no more nor less. . . .
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
Jonathan Miller's
BBC TV video
Michael Elliott's
version with Laurence Olivier
Cordelia is promising to love only according to her obligations as a daughter--her Natural bond. In fact, as we later see, she loves her father more than this, caring for him despite his disinheritance of her and continuing the war against Goneril and Regan even when her husband has to return to France. In his egocentrism, Lear wants his just-like-him daughter to promise that she loves him with the same love that he feels for her.
D. Lear gets stuck with his mistaken decision.
When she will not go against Nature by promising--in advance of marriage--to love daddy best, he tries to force her into submission through deprivation. He is stuck with his rash act, because of
"Know I have divided..."
IV. Lear loses power and realizes it.
A. The Fool sees the situation clearly and tells Lear.
1. The Fool can get away with criticism in the garb of wit--he reminds Lear of his folly as the old king comes to feel the truth in his daughters' stripping him of power and denying him authority and force (in Acts 1 and 2). Note that one Renaissance meaning of a "natural" is "feeble-minded," as some Fools are thought to be or as Tom o' Bedlams (itinerant beggar madmen) may be through madness.
2. Action in 1.4: On Goneril's orders (1.3), Oswald is slack in doing Lear's bidding, obeying him only as "My lady's father" (1.4.79), but he is punished by Kent (disguised as Caius). The Fool is not fooled by Kent's temporary triumph:
Thou madest thy daughters thy mothers; for when thou gavest them the rod and puttest down thine own breeches,B. Goneril requests a reduction in his forces.
Then they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep,
And go the fools among.
1. Goneril accuses Lear's followers of disrupting the household and asks him (in a threatening way) to reduce his retinue by 50 knights:
be then desired2. Stung by Goneril's ingratitude ("How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is/ To have a thankless child" 302-303), Lear vows to go to Regan, whom he expects to be "kind" in the Elizabethan sense of the word (that is, acting naturally, as a daughter should).
By her, that else will take the thing she begs,
A little to disquantity your train
C. At Gloucester's castle, Regan joins Goneril against their father.
1. Action in 2.4: At Gloucester's palace, Lear is incensed when he sees that his messenger has been put in the stocks by Regan and Cornwall who refuse at first to speak with him. (They have left their own castle in order to have an excuse not to entertain Lear and his followers.)
2. The Fool sees the reality of power and gives pragmatic advice to followers--advice that he is too loyal to follow himself: "Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel; give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it since a fool gives it" (2.4.78-83).
D. As Lear complains to Regan, Goneril enters and the arithmetic of power is played out.
1. Regan will only allow Lear to have 25 followers, so he decides to go back to Goneril, who now questions whether, in her household, he needs even ten or five. Regan joins the chorus: "What need one?"
2. At this point, Lear cries out against the logic of Goneril and Regan quite eloquently, and then breaks with emotion into a ranting, enraged person near madness:
O! reason not the need; our basest beggarsHere, Lear speaks against the arithmetic of power and for the intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual human being. He has taken respect and generosity for granted, because he was king. Now, faced with kin who would deny him anything of his own, he speaks first for the most wretched. (Note that I put my paraphrase in single quotation marks, to distinguish my wording from Shakespeare's text, given in double quotation marks or indented form.)
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady,
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need, --
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall...--I will do such things,
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep.
'Don't respond on the basis of need,' he says: 'Even the poorest beggar has some thing he doesn't strictly need--a comb, a photograph, a book. If people only let others have what they need, then the givers reduce the recipients to the level of animals, figuring only what is needed for physical survival.'
He then contrasts the plight of the basest beggar with the state of his ruling daughters who wear clothing more for beauty and splendor than for need (= to be warm). One writer (Michael Ignatieff in The Needs of Strangers) sees Lear's speech as a plea for charity (given from one individual for love of another individual) in contrast to entitlement (which gives to all who meet certain physical requirements).
It is interesting to compare two different versions of this speech from the same director, Peter Brook, by two talented actors (Orson Welles and Paul Scofield), separated by over 15 years. The first excerpt is from a TV production with Orson Welles.
"Reason
not the need..." (1953 TV production with Welles)
Lear becomes a less sympathetic and more ambiguous figure in Peter Brook's film (1969). Lear is shown to be high-handed and his followers riotous, thus giving some weight to Goneril and Regan wanting to cut back on his train. Click on the button below to see an excerpt from this speech in the 1969 film (with designedly rough filming which feature, but notice the reaction of Goneril and Regan, as well as Lear's logic, even though near madness.
"Reason
not the need..." (1969 film with Scofield)
Lear marches out, but his daughters lock the gates against him and his followers in the storm.
In Acts 3 and 4, Lear grows mad, but even in his anger and pain he tries to understand what sense it makes for events to be occurring as they do. All around him, Lear's initial decision unleashes dissension, deceit and willfulness to bring torture and war to Lear's kingdom