King Lear
Day Two
ENGL 305
Dr. Fike
Papers
• Please number your pages and
paragraphs and underline your thesis
statement.
• Make sure that your Works Cited page is
attached.
• Your paper should be properly stapled.
• Papers will be returned one week from
today.
The ―Sight Pattern‖
• Reference: Paul J. Alpers, ―King Lear and
the Theory of the ‗Sight Pattern,‘‖ In
Defense of Reading: A Reader’s
Approach to Literary Criticism.
Examples
• 1.1.57: Goneril would trade her most
precious sense for Lear‘s love.
• 1.1.158-63: Lear orders Cordelia out of
his sight; Kent urges Lear to see better.
• 1.1.235: Cordelia lacks ―a still-soliciting
eye.‖
• 3.7.70-73: Cornwall blinds Gloucester.
Points about Lear
• There is trouble with perception: it is
hard for both fathers to distinguish
between goodness and pretense. In other
words, between genuine goodness and
seeming goodness, appearance and
reality.
• Lear’s lack of clear vision leads him
into trouble. Regan confirms this when
she says that ―he hath ever but slenderly
known himself‖ (1.1.296-97).
Points about Gloucester
• Gloucester is a parallel figure: he sees
significance in what the more clear-sighted
Edmund knows to be insignificant. Like Lear,
Gloucester is gullible—he fails to SEE that the
letter is a forgery; he fails to SEE Edgar‘s
goodness and Edmund‘s baseness.
• Literal blindness is the emblem of Gloucester‘s
lack of proper perception.
• His spiritual blindness physical blindness
spiritual sight. See 4.1.18: ―I stumbled when I
saw.‖
Summary
• Characters mistake each other‘s true
natures.
• They fail to see through disguises (Kent
and Edgar are disguised).
• And physical sight is set in opposition to
spiritual insight (FYI, one of those insights
concerns justice and hypocrisy).
• Thus the sight pattern is a major pattern
in this play.
So Here‘s the Big Question:
What is it that Lear and Gloucester come
to see more clearly? To get at this more
clearly, we have us a group activity.
Group Activity
FOUR GROUPS: TWO ON EACH SIDE; 10 MINS.
• Consider the following passages and try to
construct a statement on what Lear‘s experience
on the heath teaches him. Work in large
groups for 5 minutes.
– 3.2.67-79 and 3.4.28-36
– 3.4.59, 3.4.100-08, and 3.4.150-51
– 4.1.63-70 and 4.1.36-37
Acts 4:32 (RSV)
• ―Now the company of those who believed
were of one heart and soul, and no one
said that any of the things which he
possessed was his own, but they had
everything in common.‖
Summary
What Lear learns:
• He undergoes a spiritual transformation on the
heath.
• At first unable to see beyond his own ego, he
gains insight into the plight of the common man.
• He learns the importance of social justice and
the imperative to help those whose basic needs
are not met (Lear was remiss in this area when
he was in power).
• Human justice is especially important because
the universe is malevolent.
Show ―Dover‖ Scene
• Video clip: 4.6.1-79.
Next Exercise
STAY IN YOUR SAME GROUPS:
• ―Dover‖ in 4.6: How and why does
Gloucester transform?
• Discuss the trial scenes: 3.6 and 3.7.
What do these scenes suggest about
justice?
Gloucester‘s Experience at ―Dover‖
• Gloucester goes through a similar process
at the supposed white cliffs of Dover.
• What do you make of this experience?
Why is it significant? What does
Gloucester learn, if anything, that might
parallel Lear‘s insights?
Lear and Gloucester both transform
spiritually and develop in-sight.
Beginning Ending
Lear
Worldly fortune Something: Cordelia
is good; social
justice is important
Spiritual blindness Nothing
Gloucester
Sight Insight/true perception
Appearances Blindness
Points
• Analogy to Richard II: he grows spiritually
only when his worldly fortunes are in ruins.
• The previous slide critiques Lear‘s
statement ―Nothing will come of nothing‖
(1.1.90): something does come of
nothing.
• That something is a spiritual rise made
possible by a worldly fall.
Which Brings Us to a Key Concept
• Felix culpa: ―Thus even Adam's sin and
the fall of man involved the paradox of the
felix culpa in that it led to the Incarnation
and the redemption of mankind by Christ‖
(from Credo Reference).
• Translation: happy culpability, fortunate
fall.
Christian Paradoxes
• King Lear is not a Christian play (it takes place, as
Greenblatt mentions, in a pre-Christian universe: note
the references to classical gods).
• Nonetheless, Christian paradoxes are key to the kind of
SEEING that this play favors:
– Matthew 5:5: ―Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth.‖
– Matthew 19:21: ―Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.‖
– Matthew 19:30: ―But many that are first will be last, and the last
first.‖
– Luke 1.:52: ―He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and
exalted them of low degree.‖
– James 4:10: ―Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt
you.‖
Further Points
• ―Nothing can be made out of nothing‖ (1.4.130) mocks
the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing.
Something definitely comes out of nothing.
• Spiritual development results from physical hardship and
material penury. Personal analogy. This, for Lear, is the
benefit of the storm on the heath.
• Lear, in his madness, describes ―poor naked wretches,‖
and Edgar‘s disguise illustrates the very type of person
Lear imagines (2.3.1ff.). This disguise is a sign of
Edgar‘s spiritual worthiness. But Lear is the madman
whom Edgar only pretends to be.
• And it is Edgar who sums up the whole tragedy in five
words: ―He childed as I father’d‖ (3.6.110). See next
slide.
―He childed as I father’d‖
(3.6.110).
• Lear:daughters::Edgar:father
– Lear‘s daughters treated him badly.
– Edgar‘s father treated him badly.
– Thus Lear is to his daughters as Edgar is to
his father.
Transition
• We‘ve been charting similarities between
Lear and Gloucester.
• What about any similarity between Lear
and Edgar?
What Lear and Edgar ―See‖ in a
Similar Way?
• Edgar: 3.4.84-99
• Lear: 4.6.107-31
• Edgar: 5.3.175
Points
• Hell-like damnation
• Monstrosity
• Oedipal stuff (cf. ―nursery‖ at 1.1.124)
• Projection of distorted anima?
• Total revulsion from female sexuality
Trial Scenes: 3.6 and 3.7
• What do these paired scenes tell you
about justice?
Summary of the Trial Scenes
• These scenes respond to the wrongs that have
been suffered or supposed.
• Genuine wrong: trial scene on the heath at
3.6.35ff.: true justice.
• Supposed wrong: trial scene in 3.7 where
Gloucester‘s eyes are gouged out: travesty of
justice.
• Bevington 1204: ―The appearance and the
reality of justice have exchanged places, as
have folly and wisdom [see 1.4] or blindness and
seeing.‖
Other Inversions
• What other inversions do you find in the
play?
Other Inversions in the Play
• Blindness and sight
• Parent and child (1.4.169-71)
• Male and female
• Loyalty and treason
• Man and beast
• Wisdom and folly (the Fool)
• High and low—Edgar as Tom is spiritually
superior.
• Court and heath (the court is civilized but unjust;
the heath is uncivilized but just).
Key Principle
• Shakespeare is building his play on the
basis of such dyads.
• He will do this again in The Tempest.
Discussion
• Whose tragedy is worse, Lear‘s or
Gloucester‘s?
• Construct a chart (see directions on the
next slide).
Whose Tragedy Is Worse?
• In groups of 3-5 persons, discuss the
following questions for both Lear and
Gloucester. In each case, try to establish
who is worse off.
– What is lost?
– What do they suffer?
– Who goes mad?
– Who dies?
Possible Answers
• http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/
ENGL%20305/305%20King%20Lear%20
Chart%20in%20Columns.doc
END