King Lear critics

Jessica Vanden Berg

Christian parable

‘Grace, Consequences, and Christianity in King Lear’

Berg believes that there is a parallel between Cordelia and Christ, thus her death was necessary so Lear accepts her mercy and receives salvation. he is saved by her sacrifice and alleviated from the eternal effects of his sin, but still suffers from earthly consequences of his sin

Susan Snyder

Christian parable

‘King Lear and the Prodigal Son’

unresolved prodigal son with R + G

reversed prodigal son with Lear and Cordelia but he is still punished for his greed

Carol Rutter

Feminist

‘Eel Pie and Ugly Sisters in King Lear’

Rutter says ‘Lear unmanned himself’ when Cordelia refuses to ‘mother his boyhood’ (love test)

Coppelia Kahn

Feminist

‘The Absent Mother in King Lear’

she referred to ‘a tragedy of masculinity’ which spells out the terrible personal and collective price paid by a culture dedicated to ‘repressing’ what were viewed as ‘feminine’ traits eg. vulnerability and dependency. Lear’s progress by the end of play according to Kahn ‘towards acceptance of the woman in himself’ can be seen as a step onwards from Kettle’s earlier Marxist claim that Lear’s progress is ‘from being a king to being a man’

Margot Heinman

Marxist

‘Demystifying the Mystery of State; King Lear and the World Upside Down’

She focusses on the horror of society divided between extremes of rich and poor, greed and starvation, the powerful and the powerless, robes and rags, and the impossibility of real justice and security in such a world.

Lear himself, like the faithful Gloucester, discovers this only when his own world is turned upside down when he himself destitute and mad, and at last sees authority with the eyes of the dispossessed.

David Kastan

‘A Rarity Most Beloved: SHakespeare and the idea of tragedy’

‘directly questioning the world produces no more satisfiying responses’

there are no true answers for the suffereing that takes place in the play

no character is seen to truly grow or benefit positively from suffereing

‘is there any cause that makes these hard hearts?’ ‘why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all’

W R Elton

Existentialist

‘King Lear and the Gods’

the tragedy is not a drama of meaningful suffering and redemption within a just universe ruled by high powers, but one whose last act ‘shatters, more violently than an earlier apostasy might have done, the foundations of faith itself’.

he sees cordelia’s hanging and gloucester’s blinding as proof of ‘the wilful operations of an upside-down providence in an apparently deranged universe’

Sers Jayne

‘Charity in King Lear’

‘Gloucester is totally unaware of the starvation for love which gnaws at Edmund, and so is unaware of Edmund’s hatred for Edgar’