As we might expect, a change in the duration and level of the climax produces a change in its nature. Lines of action leading to crisis are foreshortened, thereby throwing fuller emphasis on the response of the character, often expressed in lyrical ecstasy.
The center of intensity in Lear demonstrates this qualitative change. The impellent occasion for the storm scenes occurs in Act II, scene iv. Goneril and Regan’s determination to divest him of his royal position is brought home to Lear. He rushes into the raging storm after the words:
You think I’ll weep:
No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
[II, iv, 285-289]
His heart and mind have been shaken by rejection, but this is only the prelude to madness. The succeeding scenes on the heath (III, ii, iv, vi) are a prolonged reaction to the rejection. Lear does not mount steadily to another stage of madness, but reveals multiple effects of this madness: rage, bewilderment, fantasy, vengefulness, helplessness. Instead of self-realization at the climax, we find passionate release. Lear exceeds the limit of emotional endurance; he can go no further in anguish. That is the reason why he disappears from the play for the succeeding six scenes (III, vii; IV, i-v).[23] During this absence Gloucester loses his sight, the disguised Edgar comes to nurse his father, Goneril and Regan separately conspire to satisfy their passions for Edmund, and the British and French armies prepare to do battle. After the climactic plateau comes story progression.