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Is King Lear an Antiauthoritarian Play?Author(s): Johannes AllgaierReviewed work(s):Source: PMLA, Vol. 88, No. 5 (Oct., 1973), pp. 1033-1039Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461637 .

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JOHANNES ALLGAIER

Is King Lear an Antiauthoritarian Play?

OST modern criticism of King Lear

directs itself resolutelyagainstthe notion,said to be held by some critics, that the

play forms part of the Christian tradition, that it

ultimately affirms the victory of good over evil,

specifically,the victory of love over hate, and thatit therefore makes virtue prevail in the end.1 On

the contrary, Dr. Johnson felt that "Shakespeare

has sufferedthe virtue of Cordelia to perish in ajust cause, contraryto the naturalideas of justice"

("Notes" to KingLear),and the majority of mod-ern critics holds, as Swinburne did,2that the playis deeply pessimistic, that in writing King Lear

Shakespearedeliberatelyexamined such Christian

concepts as divine providence, retributivejustice,or the existence of some universal moral order,and came to the conclusion that at best man's

world was a "great stage of fools" (Iv.vi.182),whose false sense of security should make the

philosopher chuckle; or that at worst it was a"wheel of fire" (iv.vii.47) upon which not onlyLear but every man is bound, an image thatshould make the poet cry in agony.3

It seems to me that the controversyis at least in

part due to a misunderstandingof Christianityorthe Christianculturaltradition.The proponents ofthe view that Shakespeare was in a Christianframe of mind when he was writing King Lear

sometimes, and their opponents always, fail to dis-

tinguish between the doctrine of the Christian

religion and the ethos of a cultural tradition thatwas shaped by Christianity.Doctrine, like human

consciousness, is to a very large extent the resultof rationalization. To understand the true natureof doctrine one must take a look at the underlying

ambivalence, thought by Freud to be "character-istic of religion," which, partly at least, has givenrise to it.4Thus, if we look at the ethos of Western

Christianity, rather than at its various, changing,and often contradictory doctrines, we arrive at a

picture which may be brieflydelineated as follows.Western Christianity is unique in its emphasis

upon the dignity of suffering in general, and the

sufferingof Christ in particular,an emphasis that

tends to determine the man-God relationship bylove and compassion rather than by respect andobedience. The ethos of the culture to which

Shakespearebelonged had encouragedthe forma-

tion of a Christianknighthood in aid of a sufferingRedeemerwho is not omnipotent and who is sub-

ject to fate. The Christianknight worships woman

as a symbol and a means of redemptive ove. West-ern Christianity emphasizes sin and repentanceand tolerates the concept offelix culpa,the happyguilt which mysteriously strengthensthe bond of

love between man and God; and finally, the West-ern ethos holds a fascination with Satan as a rebel

against an omnipotent God, as in Milton's Para-

dise Lost, for example.It becomes at once clear that if such a picture of

the ethos of Western Christianity is correct, the

pessimism of King Lear, so vehemently asserted

by modern criticism, cannot be said to be un-Christian. Indeed, it may appear in the light of

what has been said so far that Shakespeare, in

writing KingLear, took a critical look at some of

the basic doctrinal tenets of Western Christianity,such as the omnipotence of God, the righteous-ness of total obedience to such a God, or the

existence of an absolute moral order, and that thepoet found these tenets out of tune with the ethos

of the culture to which he belonged.This confrontation of doctrine, which was be-

coming ever more untrustworthyas a reflectionof

reality to the inquiring mind of the Renaissance,and ethos, which was based on a myth that heldundiminished sway over the Elizabethan imagina-tion as it did over that of many precedingand suc-

ceeding generations, forms the philosophicalbasis of the generatingcircumstanceof KingLear,namely the confrontation between Cordelia andher father. Christian moral doctrine holds thatchildrenmust honor and obey theirparents.Why?Because the Fifth Commandment explicitly laysdown such a demand and actually sets forth a spe-

cific reward for compliance, namely longevity, a

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Is King Lear an AntiauthoritarianPlay?

fact that lets the Fifth Commandment appear

unique among the ten, for reasons which will soon

become clear. According to Thomas Becon's mid-

sixteenth-century Catechism, only obedience toGod held a prerogative over obedience to par-ents.5 But the Christian ethos, as we have seen,contains a strong spirit of disobedience and rebel-lion. It extends love rather to a sufferingredeemer

who merits man's compassion than to an omnip-otent Father who demands it.

The failure to distinguish between ethos anddoctrine has led the overwhelming majority ofcritics either to doubt that Cordelia means whatshe says in her refusal to declare total devotion toher father on demand, or to suspect, often rue-

fully, that she is guilty of the sin of pride. Even as

keen an observer of the human mind as SigmundFreud fails to see ambivalence in Cordelia's be-

havior when he says that she "masks her true self"in the conflict with her father.6Conversely, A. C.Bradley admires "Cordelia's hatred of hypocrisyand of the faintest appearance of mercenarypro-fessions," but he warns us that "on the other handthere is mingled with her hatred a touch of per-sonal antagonism and of pride." Bradley even

doubts if Cordelia "could have brought herself toplead with her sisters for her father's life."7

H. Granville-Barkerudges Cordeliamore sternly.In his opinion it

will bea fatal error o presentCordeliaasa meeksaint.She has morethana touchof her father n her.Sheisas proudas he is, and as obstinate, or all hersweet-ness and her youth. And being young, she answersuncalculatinglywith pride to his pride even as latershe answerswithpity to his misery.8

Such eminent critics of Shakespeareas Coleridge,Hazlitt, and Swinburne, as well as many others,

also find Cordelia guilty of pride.9

However, John F. Danby seems to be able toapproach the problem of Cordelia'sconduct with-

out the bias of doctrine, even though he cannot

accept Cordelia's rebellion without pointing outthat, in part at least, it was evoked by Lear'sfaults-faults, that is, other than his insistence on

obedience.

The father s a manof long-engraffed eak udgement;he is rash at the best of times; now, cholerworkingmorefreelyon the infirmspiritsof extremeage, he ismore than ever unstable. . . . [Cordelia's] virtues

join withher father's aultsandher sisters'wickedness

to makeher 'Nothing'both inevitable nd right.Folk-

tale is swift andunambiguousn its initial moraldis-tinctions.And oncemadethe distinctionsof folk-taleare neverrevoked.The play in this firstscenerelieson the folk-tale.10

It is interestingthat Danby sees the "initialmoraldistinctions" of a myth beneath the surface of amoral doctrine by the standardof which Cordeliais guilty of pride.

But Cordelia's refusal to compete with her sis-ters in singing her father'spraise is more thanjusta rebellion against Lear's obvious faults; it is arebellion against authority per se. Danby makeshis point clear by comparing Cordelia's situationto that of Blake's Little Boy, in "A Little BoyLost." The boy justifies his refusal to declare his

total devotion to his parents in the first stanza ofthe poem:

"Nought ovesanotheras itself,Nor venerates notherso,Nor is it possible o thoughtA greater hanitself to know."

What the father demands of the little boy, or Learof his daughters, is the only thing which by its

very nature cannot be subject to the law of

obedience."1

A briefreflectionon the natureof love will make

this clear. The unique position love holds amongall human experiences,and the superiority t occu-pies over all the virtues, especially in Christian

ethics, is due to its seeming opposition to the im-

pulse of life itself, the will-to-be, the will to be one-

self, as Freud conjectures in Beyond the PleasurePrinciple. In love man becomes unselfish, some-times to the extent of laying down his life for hisfriends. One may look at love therefore as an

abandonment of self to the object of one's love, sa suspension of self-interest,as it were. But fromthis it follows that

some sense of selfhood, someconsciousness of one's own worth and integrity,some "pride"perhaps, is a necessaryrequirementfor love, for how can one abandon or suspendsomething of which one is not in possession orover which one has no control? Our reflectionhas

yielded a paradox, namely, that one must loveoneself if one wishes to love one's neighbor. Butsurelylogical pedantsneed not shrinkfromaccept-ing such a paradox as a reflection of reality whenmodern psychology, and physics, for that matter,can do no better.

Freud's discovery that "hostility hidden in the

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JohannesAllgaier

unconscious behind tender love, exists in almost

all cases of intensive emotional allegianceto a par-ticular person, indeed [that] it representsthe clas-

sic case, the prototype of the ambivalence ofhuman emotions" is stated in terms of another

paradox which is closely related to the former. It

is interesting to note in this context Freud's hy-

pothesis that "the coincidence of love and hate

towards the same object, [is] at the root of impor-tant cultural formations" (Totem and Taboo, pp.

854, 927). Maud Bodkin sees in KingLear one of

her poetic archetypes, namely that of "the father

who encounters in separate embodiment in his

natural successors, the extremes of bestial self-

seeking, and of filial devotion." To the father "the

child may be both loving support of age and ruth-

less usurper and rival, and these two aspects findexpression in separate figures, such as the tender

and the wicked daughters of Lear."'2Apparently,Bodkin does not deem Cordelia capable of em-

bodying both extremes of the ambivalence which,

accordingto Freud,governs ourfeelingtoward the

parent. But if Freud's hypothesis is indeed correct,then one may conjecture that Lear's self-seeking,

tyrannical demand has challenged, or activated,that part of Cordelia's mind, dormant until now,which predisposes her to rebel. A specific chal-

lengehas met a

specific response.I have defined love as a suspension of self-

interest, as an abandonment of self to the beloved.Thus love may be said to bear the nature of a self-

sacrifice, and the essence of a sacrifice is that it is

voluntarily made. The full monstrosity of Lear's

demand, and the even greater monstrosity of giv-

ing in to it, as in the case of Goneril and Regan,now becomes clear. Lear is demanding no lessthan the surrenderof that inner worth of a person,of that sovereign sanctuary within the humanheart the integrity of which enables human beings

to love. To allow anyone, even a father or a king,to tear open that sanctuary with the brutality of

power and authoritymeans nothing less than sub-

mitting to spiritual rape; to accept a reward for it,even a kingdom, spiritual prostitution.

One may therefore say that Goneril and Reganallow themselvesto be rapedand that they become

spiritual prostitutes in the process. At first theirbehavior toward their father is entirely rational.Reason must indeed be outraged by the old king's

importunate egoism, cantankerousness,and senile

pompousness. We have no reason to doubt the

justice of Goneril's complaint against her father

when she charges,

Here do you keepa hundredknightsandsquires;Menso disorder'd, o debosh'd,andboldThat this our court,infectedwiththeirmanners,Shows like a riotous nn. Epicurism ndlustMakes t morelikea tavernor a brothelThan a grac'dpalace.

You strikemy people,andyourdisorder'd abbleMakeservantsof theirbetters.

(I.iv.229-45)

But the bond of human fellowship can never be

based on reason and justice alone. In the absenceof love Yeats's terriblevision of the futurebecomes

reality.

Thingsfall apart;the centercannothold;Mereanarchys looseduponthe world,The blood-dimmedideis loosed,andeverywhereThe ceremonyof innocence s drowned.

("TheSecondComing")

Goneril and Regan have allowed their power oflove to be usurped by a tyrant.What is worse, theyhave acceptedpayment for it. And in the end even

reason and formal justice are drowned in theflood of hate that seeks to avenge the rape of two

human souls. The wicked daughters' monstrouscruelty is the cruelty of the slave turned loose, a

phenomenon that leads to the sanguinary excesses

of most revolutions. There exists an intimate rela-

tionship between the tyrant and the slave which

Spinoza describedin his Ethics:

Flatteryalso [like love] gives birth to peace orconcord,but only by meansof the abhorrent rimeofslaveryor by meansof perfidy:none are more takenin by flattery hanthe proud,who wishto be the firstand arenot.

Thereis in self-despising false kind of piety and

religion; and although self-despising s contrary topride,yet one who despiseshimself s the nearest o aproudman.

(iv, Appendices 21-22)

What noble simplicity and tranquil grandeur

mark Cordelia's words in contrast to those of hersisters Cordelia's nobility is of the kind which

obliges, a nobility which is perhapsthe only sourcefrom which a free man may derive an obligation.To maintain the very bond of love that unitesCordelia with her father and all free men she

sacrificesher fortunes by declaring:

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JohannesAllgaier

Cordelia's bosom now freely bestows itself uponthe object of her pity.

Perhapsthere can be no love without pity. The

first scene of the play comes to mind again, the

scene in which France's love for Cordelia is

awakened by his pity for her.

FairestCordelia, hat art most rich,beingpoor;Mostchoice,forsaken;and mostlov'd,despis'dTheeandthy virtueshere I seizeupon.Be it lawful I take up what'scastaway.Gods,gods 'tisstrangehat rom heircold'stneglectMy love shouldkindleto inflam'd espect.

(i.i.250-55)

The last two lines might have been spoken byCordeliawhen she met her fatheragain. Cordelia's

and Lear's cruel desolation, and the loving re-

sponse it elicits, is reminiscent of Christ's desola-

tion upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast

thou forsaken me?" It must have been such a lov-

ing response that made the German poet and

mystic Novalis set himself the "religious task to

havepity for God." Novalis sees "infinitesadness"

in religion. He says, "If we are to love God He__,,?< I-,o ; ,,, ??15Tho as'^A, Ti1'-ynt,,L-__ *

1iIUSt UC 111 11CCU. - 11C pUCL S YV

similar to Lear's in the storm see

awakens his love for his fellowman

Poornakedwretches,

wheresoe'errThatbidethe peltingof thispitiless

How shallyourhouselessheadsandYourloop'dand window'draggednFromseasonssuch as these?O, I h<Too little care of this Takephysic,Expose thyselfto feel whatwretchesThatthou maystshake the superflu?And showthe heavensmore ust.

Lear realizes here that he must not

of "poor naked wretches" to sc

above him, but that it is up to hirman, to "show the heavens more ji

appear.

During his purgatorial sufferinghas come to reject authority as th<

love.l6 He has come to understanc

flatteredand obeyed not because ofworth but because of the mantle

which he symbolically casts off in tt

(Im.iv). "There thou mightst behi

image of authority: a dog's obey'd

exclaims to his fellow suffererGlou

a frenzied vision he recognizes the false image of

another authority from which he had securelyderived his. It is the cruel authority of an absolute

justice and morality by which his mind had been

enslaved until now. According to John M.

Lothian, Lear's development finds "its culmina-tion in his appallingvision of chaos, of the chasm

between reality and justice."'7 In his anguish he

sees before himself a sorry procession of human

sacrificesto the idol of an absolute morality.

See how yondjusticerailsuponyond simplethief.Hark in thine ear.Changeplacesandhandy-dandy,whichis thejustice,which s the thief?

Thourascalbeadle,holdthy bloodyhand

Whydostthou ash hatwhore Strip hineownback.

Thouhotlylusts to use her in thatkindFor which thou whip'sther.The usurerhangsthecozener.

Throughatter'd lothessmallvicesdoappear.Robesand furr'dgownshideall.Platesin withgold,Andthe strong anceof justicehurtlessbreaks;Arm it in rags,a pygmy'sstrawdoespierce t.

(Iv.vi.150-66)

velscnmerz Is If society can only be kept in order under the idolsne, when pity of authorityLearwants no more part in it. But his

kingdom is in chaos precisely because it had been

3u are, governed byidols which

brutally suppressedthat

storm, freedom of the spirit which is the source of love,unfedsides, without which order is impossible.

ess, defendyou If we penetrate to the mythical level of theive ta'en tragedy,the full meaningof Lear'schangebecomespomp; obvious. The jealous God of Sinai has taken fleshfeel, and humbly seeks the love of men by suffering

their fate. The Old Covenant of the Law between

(III.iv.28-36) the Heavenly Father and his children has beenreplacedby the New Covenant of pity and love.

leave the care If the subject of Shakespeare'sdrama had onlyme authority been the conflict between Cordelia and Lear, it

n, as to every might have ended with the reconciliation betweenIst" than they daughter and father, as Dr. Johnson would have

preferred it ("Notes" to King Lear). But even as

the old king that reconciliation required the abandonment of

e antithesis of authority by the paternaldespot, so the resolution

I that he was of the underlying dramatic conflict between man

his own inner and God requires the abandonment of authorityof authority by the Divine Despot. Lear'spurgatorialsuffering

ie storm scene and his humility in the end can point only sym-

1ld he great bolically toward such an abandonment. To bringin office," he about a reconciliationbetweenman and God, and

cester. And in to show that the Covenant of obedience, which

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1038 Is King Lear an A4

made men either slaves or tyrants, had indeed

been replaced by the Covenant of love, Shake-

speare offers more than a symbol.Most modern critics agree with Dr. Johnson

that the events of the last act, especially Lear's

death by heartbreak over the dead body of Cor-delia, brutally murdered,almost by accident, as it

were, and the ambiguous final speeches in the last

scene, make the existence of a retributivejustice,

or of any moral order, for that matter, appear

extremelydoubtful.'8The death in spiritualagony

of the hero of KingLear is in no way linked to his

catharsis; indeed it makes his loving resignation,

so beautifully expressed in his speech just before

he is led away to prison, appear insignificant and

futile. Perhaps no one expresses that insignifi-

cance and futility more poignantly than Jan Kott,when he states: "In KingLear both the medieval

and the Renaissance orders of established values

disintegrate. All that remains at the end of this

gigantic pantomime, is the earth-empty and

bleeding."'l9But the apparent emptiness and the

bleeding are the price men have to pay for their

freedom from the authority of a Divine Despot.20It is not only the freedom to suffer but also the

freedom to love, as Spinoza knew when he wrote

these strange words in his Ethics:

He who loves God must not demandthat Godlove him in return.

(v, 19)

Shakespeare justifies the ways of God to man

betterthan Milton does by makingman's sufferingat the hands of cruel and arbitraryfortune appearworthwhile in a world which, curiously enough, is

not unlike Milton's hell.

Notes

1 For a list of criticswho regard KingLear as a "Chris-tian" play see William R. Elton, King Lear and the Gods

(San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library,1966),pp. 3-8;BarbaraEverett,"The New King Lear," CritQ,2 (1960),325-39; for some interestingrepliesto this articlesee alsothe two subsequentssuesof CriticalQuarterly;Roland M.

Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine (Princeton, N. J.:

PrincetonUniv. Press, 1963), pp. 19-42.2 A Study of Shakespeare (London: Chattoand Windus,

1880), pp. 170-76. Opinions expressed at the followingplaces are representativeof the "pessimistic"view of the

play: Everett;SearsJayne, "Charity n KingLear," SQ, 15

(1964), 277-88; Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary,trans. Boleslaw Taborski(New York: Doubleday, 1964),

ntiauthoritarianPlay ?

Hereat leastWe shallbe free; the Almightyhathnot builtHerefor his envy,will not driveus hence:Herewe mayreignsecure;andin my choiceTo reign s worthambition, hough n Hell:

Betterto reignin Hell than servein Heaven.(Paradise Lost I.258-63)

Milton could not understandwhy his devils lived

in harmony with each other while men were di-

vided by hate and war.

O shameto men Devil with devildamnedFirm concordholds,menonlydisagreeOf creatures ational, houghunderhopeOf heavenlygrace;and God proclaimingpeace,Yet live in hatred,enmityand strife

Amongthemselves, ndlevycruelwars,

Wasting he earth,each other to destroy.(II.496-502)

Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear provides the

answer to Milton's puzzle. The devils live in har-

mony because, like Cordelia, they have refused to

surrender to the Divine Despot that sovereign

sanctuary of their hearts the integrity of which

enables them to love each other and to accept the

authority of one of their own kind, according to

their "bond, no more nor less," because in follow-

ing him they follow themselves. In King Lear,

Shakespeare casts off the "mind-forg'd mana-cles"21of Divine authority in order to attain the

freedom of love, the only freedom that does not

lead to anarchy-if we like, the freedom of the

Christianwhich was proclaimed at Golgotha.

University of Alberta

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

pp. 87-124; Robert K. Presson, "Boethius, King Learand Maystresse Philosophie,"JEGP, 64 (1965), 406-24;John D. Rosenberg, "King Lear and His Comforters,"

Essays in Criticism, 16 (1966), 135-46; Minas Savvas,

"KingLear as a Play of Divine Justice,"CE, 27 (1966),560-62; BettyKantorStuart,"Truthand Tragedy n KingLear,"SQ, 18 (1967), 167-80.

3 Citations from KingLear in my essay are to GeorgeLyman Kittredge'sedition of the play, revisedby IrvingRibner, The Kittredge Shakespeares Waltham, Mass.;Ginn-Blaisdell,1967).

4"Totem and Taboo," The Basic Writings of Sigmund

Freud,ed. and trans. Abraham Arden Brill (New York:ModernLibrary,1938),p. 922.

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Johannes

6 John Ayre, ed., The Catechism of Thomas Becon, with

OtherPieces (Cambridge:The UniversityPress, 1844),pp.86-87.

6 "The Theme of the Three Caskets," in On Creativityand the Unconscious, ed. Benjamin Nelson (New York:

Harper, 1958), p. 66. See also Elton, pp. 75-84; AugustWilhelm von Schlegel, Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art

and Literature, rans. John Black (1846; rpt. New York:AMS Press, 1965), p. 413; Levin Ludwig Schucking,Character Problems in Shakespeare's Plays (London:

Harrap, 1922), p. 179; Hildegard Schumann, "KonigLear,"Shakespeare ahrbuchWeimar),100/101(1964-65),193; Stuart,p. 171.

7 Shakespearean Tragedy (1905; rpt. Greenwich,Conn.:Fawcett,1966),pp. 266-67.

8Prefaces to Shakespeare, ed. Muriel St. Clare Byrne(1946; rpt. Princeton,N. J.: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1963),It, 43.

9Coleridge, Shakespeareanz Criticism, ed. Thomas

MiddletonRaysor(New York: Dutton, 1960), , 54; Haz-litt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (London: Dent,

1906), p. 119; Swinburne, A Study of Shakespeare, p. 173.Others include Robert B. Heilman, This Great Stage(BatonRouge: LouisianaStateUniv. Press, 1948),pp. 35-36; G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire: InterpretationsofShakespearean Tragedy: With Three New Essays, 4th rev.and enl. ed. (London: Methuen, 1960), p. 198; KennethMuir, Shakespeare: The Great Tragedies (London: Long-mans, 1961),p. 29. For some GermantheoriesregardingCordelia's"pride"see Horace H. Furness,ed., KingLear,New Variorum Ed. (1880; rpt. New York: AmericanScholarPublications,1965),pp. 449-65.

10John F. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature: A

Studyof KingLear(London:Faber, 1949),p. 117.11 cannotagreewithRobertH. Westthat the playtakes

the obligation of children "to love and to revere theirparents ... for granted," hat this much"is a givenmoral-ity in the action." In the most startlingscene,the one thatsets the eventsof the tragedy n motion, Cordelia'saction,whateverhermotive,cannotbe saidto be dictatedby love,for charity"Bearethall things,believethall things,hopeth

Allgaier 1039

all things,endurethall things" I Cor. xiii.7).And Cordeliaclearlyhas the author'sand the audience'ssympathy.See"Sexand Pessimism n KingLear,"SQ, 11(1960), 55-60.

12 Maud Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: Psycho-

logical Studies of Imagination (1934; rpt. New York:

Vintage-Knopf,1958),pp.

14-15. See also KennethMuir,ed., ArdenEd. of KingLear(London: Methuen,1952),p.

lii.

13 Danbyemphasizes heimportance f thestudyof "alle-gorical levels of meaning"for Shakespeare riticism.SeeShakespeare's Doctrine of Nature, pp. 121-25.

14 Principles of Shakespearean Production (Harmonds-

worth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1936), p. 231. But see alsoKnight's defense against Roland M. Frye's charge ofChristian bias in Shakespeare and Religion: Essays ofForty Years New York: Barnesand Noble, 1967),esp. p.297.

15Novalis: Schriften, ed. J. Minor (Jena: Diederichs,1907), "Fragment213," II, 42-43.

16 For an analysisof Lear'sdevelopment s a tragicherosee J. Stampfer,"The Catharsisof King Lear," SS, 13(1960), 1-10.

17 King Lear: A Tragic Reading of Life (Toronto: Clarke,Irwin,1949),p. 96.

18See John Shaw, "King Lear: The Final Lines," Essaysin Criticism, 16 (1966), 261-67.

19Shakespeare Our Contemporary, p. 105; NicholasBrooke puts it similarly:"We are left with unaccommo-dated man indeed;naked,unshelteredby any consolationwhatsoever,"Shakespeare:King Lear (London: Arnold,1963),p. 60.

20Cf. Brooke, p. 60: "Our feelings, crushed by facing

ultimatenegation,are simultaneouslychannelled owardsrecognizingthe perpetualvitality of the most vulnerablevirtues." Also Maynard Mack, King Lear in Our Time

(Berkeley ndLosAngeles:Univ. of CaliforniaPress,1965),p. 117:Theplay"begsus to seekthemeaningof ourhumanfate not in what becomesof us, but in what we become."See also "Sex and Pessimismin KingLear," p. 60.

21WilliamBlake,"London."