“All is sad, dark and deadly” Are Kent's words an accurate summary of the tragedy of King Lear?Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Samuel Johnson claimed that Gloucester's blinding was an "act too horrible to be endured in dramatic exposition" and that he was "too 'shocked' by Cordelia's death to reread the play until to be given the task of editing it.1 Nor was Dr. Johnson alone in finding himself unable to bear the violence and apparent injustices that unfold in King Lear. The 18th century certainly found the play "all sad" and preferred Nahum Tate's watered-down 1681 History to Shakespeare's original, a tragedy that was simply too tragic, doomed not to be performed for nearly 150 years. King Lear is a dark play, with the near triumph of Edmund's discontent, the intense suffering of Lear and Gloucester, and the apparent lack of justice at the end of the play. Shakespeare sets his tragedy in an extreme, entropic universe that makes his audience uncomfortable, and indeed it is meant to do so. The sheer violence of Act III.7 alone testifies to Kent's nihilistic remarks at the end of the play. However, as I just said, Lear's universe is one of extremes, and not just extremes. As AC Bradley notes: There is in the world of King Lear the same abundance of extreme good and extreme evil. It generates selfless devotion and invincible love in abundance.2 The play contains a group of unequivocally good characters. Kent, for example, is a paradigm of devotion. In Act II, he is publicly insulted and humiliated. Despite Lear's threats, Kent remains determined to serve his master, even braving the storm to be near him. Cordelia is also vilified and punished by Lear, and yet she is the model of magnanimity and familial love. Even the Fool hides an affectionate character behind his sardonic quips. In Act I.4, the audience learns that he has "missed" Cordelia, while his last sentence of the play, "Now, good my lord, lie down here and rest a while", addressed to Lear , is genuine attention and concern. On the one hand, we have Regan's sickening reaction to the torment of his host, Gloucester: Go and push him out to the gates and let him smell his way to Dover. [III.7.94-95] And on the other, the gentle and thoughtless loyalty of the Old Man who leads his blind master in the scene which follows: O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant during these eighty years. . [IV.1.12-14] These two opposites inhabit the same world and must necessarily be so for the play to be tragic. Kent's relentless devotion increases Goneril and Regan's cruelty, and the despair of Act V can only be achieved through the catharsis and hope of Act IV's father-daughter reunion. The first both defines and enhances the second, its opposite. Tragedy makes the characters and spectators oscillate between these two extremes. A truly “joyless” play would simply overload the audience with a single emotion, making them immunized against that emotion in the long run. “Without opposites, there is no progression,” as Blake famously said. Shakespeare creates an antithesis within the play, an antithesis that Lear himself embodies. At times, his language is the most verbally aggressive in the entire play: Into his womb, transmit sterility! Dries up the organs of growth, And from his deviated body never springs A baby to honor him! [I.4. 290-293]This series of violently misogynistic curses, directed against hisown daughter Goneril, is the cruelest and most horrifying outburst in the play. Nothing Cornwall, Regan or Edmund say comes close. And yet the same character is capable of uttering some of the most tender and lyrical lines ever written, such as the famous "birds in the cage" speech from Act V.3. Lear's language encapsulates the dichotomy of tragedy. Love and loyalty are as much a part of the core of King Lear as self-centeredness, lust, malice, and deception. However, the balance must tip in favor of the latter for the drama to reach the level of tragedy. Ultimately, King Lear's glimmer of hope, promise of redemption is defeated. My own interpretation is that the second half of the play is a Shakespearean version of The Passion. Cordelia's return is met with a sudden increase in images of a distinctly Christian, rather than pagan, idiom: There she shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes and the clamor grew moist. [IV.3. 30-32]Cordelia, if the gentleman is to be believed, does not cry tears, but holy water. Even in the form of hyperbole, the playwright draws a parallel with Christ that is difficult to ignore and omnipresent in two scenes in particular. In Act IV.3, Cordelia is described to the viewer using Christian lexicon: “passion”, “patience”, “the most good”, “faith” and “blessing”. And again, in the next scene, when Cordelia speaks, her language continues this pattern, with words such as: "blessed", "virtues", "help" and "remedy". Here is a figure who was ostracized precisely because she stood for the truth while those around her valued hypocrisy. Cordelia's return is very promising. She embodies the hopes for salvation of people like Kent and of the public, on a national and political level. She is the “Sun” [IV.3.19], the light that shines in the darkness and the “medicine” of “Restoration” hangs from her lips [IV.7.26-27]. In Act V, the parallels between Christ and Cordelia continue. She is sentenced to death, although innocent, and is indeed hanged. After carrying his daughter's corpse on stage, Lear dies believing that Cordelia is still alive, uttering the words: "Look at her, at her lips, / Look there, look there!" [V.3.311-312]. But it is a false resurrection and Cordelia a false Messiah. His execution was not followed by a rebirth. Kent is once again the public's spokesperson and their question: "Is this the promised ending?" [V.3.264], says a lot. The answer, of course, lies limply on stage. Yet Cordelia's journey in the play is echoed by Edgar, in the same way that Gloucester's fate is comparable to that of Lear. Edgar is also virtuous, but he suffers and dies not physically, but spiritually when he exclaims: "Edgar, I am nothing!" [II.3.21]. And unlike Cordelia, his resurrection is real, when in Act V he claims his identity as the son of Gloucester. However, his rebirth does not bring healing or salvation, quite the contrary. The revelation of her existence occurs twice, once off-stage and once on-stage, and each time she encounters death: first that of her father, then that of her bastard brother Edmund. So, if Cordelia is the false-Messiah in King Lear, Edgar is the anti-Messiah. And the message he brings with him is certainly not the “promised end”: the oldest carried the most; we who are young will never see so much, nor live so long. [V.III. 327-328]Here the pun on "born" suggests a new life for the "older", while the "young", usually a beacon of hope and fertility, are doomed to a short life - " and don’t live as long.” Edgar's last words are. 304 -305