Christian Salvation vs.

Nihilism
The Lasting Impact of Lear

Today...

- I want to meet the suggestion that this is an overly bleak play to be written at a high point in Christian belief - Ill examine the depth of Christian reference as a means of arguing that King Lear reinforces a Christian world view, rather than undermines it - Ill end the lesson by asking you to make an appropriately strong counter-argument to suggest that the very Christian world view I suggest is in fact undermined by the play

Robert Hunter

By the light of nature [alone] King Lear is either incomprehensible or meaningless, or both. In fact, I suspect, what the [play] tells us is different from and rather worse than even that. It tells us nothing. It shows us that in a state of nature, without the knowledge or the grace of God, we are nothing. - Shakespeare and the Mystery of Gods Judgments

As a Christian Play

It is particularly popular in more modern times to see King Lear as a nihilistic tragedy - or a tragedy that reinforces the idea of a life is without meaning or purpose. However, there is plenty of room to argue that the play seeks to reinforce the importance of the place of God.

Setting

Shakespeare consciously sets his play in a pre-Christian, pagan society. They had pagan gods, but no Christian god, no Christian theology or belief system. In keeping with the initial quote, the choice of setting means that the characters exist in a state of nature, without the knowledge or the grace of God. What this allows for is Shakespeare to explore what we are without God. And the fact that there is so little salvation in the play and so much room to argue for a meaningless existence, there is definite place to argue that Shakespeare is illuminating the nothingness that exists in a world without God.

Lear as the Prodigal Son

The parable begins with a young man, the younger of two sons, who asks his father to give him his share of the estate. The parable continues by describing how the younger son travels to a distant country and wastes all his money in wild living. When a famine strikes, he becomes desperately poor and is forced to take work as a swineherd. When he reaches the point of envying the pigs he is looking after, he finally comes to his senses. The son does not even have time to finish his rehearsed speech, since the father calls for his servants to dress him in a fine robe, a ring, and sandals, and slaughter the "fattened calf" for a celebratory meal. The older son, who was at work in the fields, hears the sound of celebration, and is told about the return of his younger brother. He is not impressed, and becomes angry. The parable concludes with the father explaining that because the younger son had returned, in a sense, from the dead, celebration was necessary.

Lear as the Prodigal Son

...[in] King Lear Shakespeare found ... a story resembling in its broad outlines that of the Prodigal Son: the Protagonist starts by rejecting the one who loves him most, embarks on a reckless course which brings him eventually to suffering and want-and, paradoxically, to the self-knowledge he lacked before-and finally is received and forgiven by the rejected one. Two features ... were connected ... with the Prodigal Son: family relationships and ... the premature granting of portions. The Prodigal Son parallels reinforce...Lear as a child. His Prodigal is an old man who has lived to a great age without ever reaching maturity. - Susan Snyder, King Lear and the Prodigal Son

Lear as the Prodigal Son

We have to remember that Shakespeare is presenting to an audience who is very well versed in Christian scripture. The story of the Prodigal Son would have been very recognisable to them.

And there is direct evidence in the play we well: and wast thou fain, poor father,

To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,

In short and musty straw?

Cordelia as Christ figure

Cordelia can be read as Lears Christ figure throughout the play.

If we think of the opening of the play, for all of Cordelias goodness, she is condemned.

Her attitude of love and be silent is very similar to Christs attitude when tried - he refused to deny who he was, just as Cordelia refuses to deny her nature.

Reference to a higher power

Gloucester relies on astrology - as Edmund tells us in Act One

Edmund worships nature

Lear, upon revival, assumes an after-life and a state of being stuck in purgatory

Lear and God

Symbolically, Lear can be seen as the God of the play. Essentially he is the King-God - the all powerful ruler of the world in which the characters inhabit.

For the play to get to the point where the Fool suggests that Thou madest thy daughters they mother, would have suggested a fairly clear blasphemy for the Elizabethan audience - Lear should be master of all, and when that is usurped or undermined, the divine order itself is undermined.

After this moment, the play can be seen as a representation of a

But also...Lear and God

Mans greatest sin is in wanting to be God.

Lear demands to be treated in a God-like fashion, even when he gives away his power

In terms of Christian theory and imagery, Lear acts in a way that works as both representations of God. He is God the Spirit in terms of the way he allows for the existence of all else. And he is God as Son in the way that falls into child-like behaviour as the play goes on.

The opposite...

So, Ive given what I think is a fairly clear representation of how Christian belief and ideas are reinforced across the play.

I think there is a strong case for the emptiness of King Lear to be seen as a warning against a God-less world.

However, modern critics argue again and again that the play is much more a representation of how

Task...

Looking across the play, how could you argue that:

the play represents the loneliness and isolation of humanity in a God-less world

In order to do this successfully, you will need to come up with points that stand up on their own, as well as coming up with some evidence that would argue against what I offered earlier.