The Heart of It All

Of all the major characters in King Lear Cordelia has the fewest lines (116 lines, barely edging out Cornwall and less than her two sisters).  Yet, her actions are central to the play: her refusal to flatter her father leads to her banishment, her rescue of Lear restores his sanity, her senseless death leads to Lear's own death. The history of this play is also full of questions and controversies about her character.  Is her refusal to flatter Lear an act of honesty or defiance?  Is her portrayal in the Folio significantly different from the Quarto?  Is there a connection between the Fool and Cordelia (the two never appear on stage together)?  Why did Nahum Tate's adaptation of the play, in which Cordelia survives and marries Edgar, essentially replace Shakespeare's original from 1681 to 1838? FOCUS on a speech, a scene or a controversy and explain Cordelia's importance to the play.

Much Madness Is Divinest Sense

Emily Dickinson, writing around 1862  in America (approximately 250 years after the death of Shakespeare), composed this poem that reflects some of her views about the relationship between insanity and wisdom:

Much Madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-
'Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail-
Assent- and your are sane-
Demur- you're staightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-

What is Dickinson saying in this poem?  How is it related to observations in King Lear, made by Lear or the Fool or others, about the connection between foolishness and wisdom, madness and insight?  Would various characters share Dickinson's view -- or disagree -- or nuance these observations?  Does the play as a whole endorse or reject the ideas in this poem?

"Fortune . . . Turn Thy Wheel"

King Lear is a play in which many of the major characters undergo suffering -- everything from exile, imprisonment, madness, filial ingratitude, madness, mutilation, despair, to extreme physical deprivation. Yet , at the same time, many of these same characters have ideas about the purpose and limits of suffering.  What are some of the those ideas?  How are they related to the idea of a cosmic moral order, that idea that the world is just if we could only discover its deeper meaning?  How is it related to the ideas about moral order expressed in other plays, such as Richard III or the Merchant of Venice? Do the events of the play endorse or undermine these ideas?  What is this play telling us about suffering?

"The Excellent Foppery of the World"?

In Act 1, Scene 2, Gloucester and his illegitimate son Edmund reveal two contradictory views of human agency.  Gloucester looks to the heavens to explain the troubles of the world: "These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend no good to us.  Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by sequent effects"(1.2.109-12).  Edmund mocks his father's beliefs and instead places the blame for human misery squarely in the hands of humans.  He asserts:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that
when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of
our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars as if we were villains
on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves
thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced
obedience of planetary influence; and all that we
are evil in, by a divine thrusting on  (1.2.125-33).

What do we make of these philosophical speeches?  Do these speeches tell us about the character of Gloucester and Edmund?  Do they expound on a major theme or debate in this play?  Given the events of the play and the reaction of the characters, does one of these views prove correct?  Is our belief  in God "the excellent foppery of the world"?  Is this a play in which the divine controls human agency or humans themselves?

Much Ado About Nothing in Lear

In the very first scene of King Lear Lear asks his daughters the measure of their love.  The older sisters try to outdo each other in the hyperbolic humungousness of their lover, but the youngest Cordelia can only manage to assert "Nothing, my Lord."  Lear, not quite believing his ears retorts "Nothing?"  Cordelia affirms her original "nothing" to which Lear responds "Nothing comes from nothing"(1.1.96-99).  In rapid success we have five mentions of "nothing" that begins a veritable feast through out the play.  What do you make of the use of "nothing" in this scene?  Does it reflect a similar use of "nothing" in other parts of the play?  Is nothingness a theme of this play?  Why make such a big deal out of "nothing"?

"Out On Thee, Seeming!"

Through out Much Ado About Nothing characters miscommunicate and misunderstand each other, sometimes through deception.  In several scenes, characters confuse the appearance of things and their reality.  In Act 4, Scene 1, for example Claudio arrives at his wedding to Hero believing that she is lewd (since she appeared to be so when Borachio seduced Margaret) when in fact she is chaste.  Confused by appearances he denounces her appearance as a chaste woman at her wedding as a false appearance.  He states:

     Out of thee, seeming! I will write against it.
     You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
     As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.
     But you are more intemperate in your blood
     Than Venus, or those pampered animals
     That rage in savage sensuality (4.1.57-62)

Thus he curses false appearances, not realizing that he himself is still confounded by false appearances.  This mistake leads to the disruption of his wedding and the ill health of his would-be bride.  Yet on the other hand, deception and misunderstanding also leads to Beatrice and Benedick's union and the reconciliation of Hero and Claudio at the end.  What is the play telling us about communication or miscommunication?  About truth and deception?  About appearance and reality?

Bring in the Clowns

In Act 5, Scene 1, Borachio confesses to Don Pedro and Claudio about his deception of them.  In the process he makes an observation about Dogberry, the constable and clown of Messina, and his charges: "I have deceived even your eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, . . . "(5.1. 242-3). What is Borachio saying in this observation?  Is it applicable to that other clown of comedy, Lancelet Gobbo of Merchant? In general what features do these two clowns have in common?  Are there significant differences?  Do you have any ideas about the role or purpose of the clown in Shakespearean comedy?