Shakspeare and His Times

by François Guizot

Meanwhile, Leir's two sons-in-law, beginning to think he was reigning too long, seized violently upon the land which he had reserved for himself, and assigned him only a sufficient income to live and maintain his rank. Even this allowance was gradually diminished; but what caused Leir most pain was the extreme unkindness of his daughters, who "seemed to think that all was too much which their father had, the same being never so little; insomuch that, going from one to the other, he was brought to that misery that scarcely they would allow him one servant to wait upon him." The old king, in despair,' fled from the country, and took refuge in Gaul, where Cordelia and her husband received him with great honors, and raised an army and equipped a fleet to restore him to his possessions the succession of which he promised to bequeath to Cordelia, who accompanied her father and husband on this expedition. The two dukes having been slain, and their armies defeated, in a battle fought with Aganippus, Leir reascended his throne, and died two years afterward, forty years after his first accession. Cordelia succeeded him, and reigned five years; but in the mean while, her husband having died, her nephews, Margan and Cunedag, rebelled against her, conquered her, and cast her into prison, where, "being a woman of a manly courage, and despairing to recover liberty," she committed suicide. [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: Holinshed's Chronicle, History of England, book ii., chaps. 5, 6.]

This story is borrowed by Holinshed from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who probably constructed the history of Leir from an anecdote of Ina, king of the Saxons, and the answer of the "youngest and wisest of the daughters" of that king, who, under circumstances similar to those in which Cordelia was placed, gave a similar answer to her father, that, although she loved, honored, and revered him in the highest degree that nature and filial duty could require, yet she thought it might one day happen that she would more ardently love her husband, with whom, by the command of God, she was to constitute one flesh, and for whom she might leave father and mother. It does not appear that Ina disapproved of the "wise speech" of his daughter; and the sequel of Cordelia's history is probably a development added by the imagination of the chroniclers to this primary fact. However this may be, the anger and misfortunes of King Lear had, before Shakspeare's time, found a place in several poems, as well as formed the subject of one drama and several ballads. In one of these ballads, mentioned by Johnson, under the title of "A lamentable Song of the Death of King Leir and his three Daughters," Lear, as in the tragedy, goes mad, and Cordelia, having been killed in the battle gained by the troops of the King of France, her father dies of grief upon her body, and her sisters are condemned to death by the judgment of the "lords and nobles of the kingdom." Whether the ballad preceded Shakspeare's tragedy or not, it is very probable that the author of the ballad and the dramatic poet derived their facts from the same source, and that it was not without some authority that Shakspeare, in his denouement, departed from the chronicles, which give the victory to Cordelia. This dénouement was changed by Tate, and Cordelia restored to her rights. The play remained on the stage in this second form, to the great satisfaction of Johnson, and, says Mr. Steevens, of "the upper gallery." Addison, however, pronounced against this change.

As to the episode of the Earl of Gloster, Shakspeare has imitated it from the adventure of a king of Paphlagonia, related in Sidney's "Arcadia;" only, in the original narrative, the bastard himself deprives his father of sight, and reduces him to a condition similar to that of Lear. Leonatus, the legitimate son, who, having been condemned to death, had been obliged to seek service in a foreign army, on learning the misfortunes of his father, leaves all at the moment when his merits were about to gain him a high rank, in order to hasten, at the risk of his life, to share and succor the misery of the old king. The latter, restored to his throne by the aid of his friends, dies of joy on crowning his son Leonatus; and the bastard Plexirtus, by a feigned repentance, succeeds in disarming the anger of his brother.

It is evident that the situation of King Lear and of the King of Paphlagonia, both persecuted by the children whom they preferred, and succored by the one whom they rejected, struck Shakspeare as fitted to enter into the same subject, because they belonged to the same idea. Those who have blamed him for having thus injured the simplicity of his action have given their opinion according to their own system, without taking the trouble to examine that of the author whom they criticised. Starting even from the rules which they are desirous to impose, we might answer that the love of the two women for Edmund, which serves to effect their punishment, and the intervention of Edgar at this part of the dénouement, are sufficient to acquit the play of the charge of duplicity of action; for, provided that all the threads at last unite in one knot which it is easy to seize, the simplicity of the progress of an action depends much less upon the number of the interests and personages concerned in it than upon the natural and clearly visible play of the springs which set it in motion. But further, we must never forget that unity, in Shakspeare's view, consists in one dominant idea, which, reproducing itself under various forms, incessantly produces, continues, and redoubles the same impression. Thus as, in "Macbeth," the poet displays man in conflict with the passions of crime, so in "King Lear" he depicts him in conflict with misfortune, the action of which is modified according to the different characters of the individuals who experience it. The first spectacle which he brings under our notice is the misfortune of virtue, or of persecuted innocence, as exemplified in Cordelia, Kent, and Edgar. Then comes the misfortune of those who, by their passion or blindness, have rendered themselves the tools of injustice, namely, Lear and Gloster; and upon these the effort of compassion is directed. As for the wicked personages, we do not witness their sufferings; the sight of their misfortune would be disturbed by the remembrance of their criminality; they can have no punishment but death?

Of the five personages subjected to the action of misfortune, Cordelia, a heavenly figure, hovers almost invisible and half-vailed over the composition, which she fills with her presence, although she is almost always absent from it. She suffers, but never complains, never defends herself: she acts, but her action is manifested only by its results; serene regarding her own fate, reserved and restrained even in her most legitimate feelings, she passes and disappears like a denizen of a better world, who has traversed this world of ours without experiencing any mere earthly emotion.

Kent and Edgar each have a very decided physiognomy; the first of them is, like Cordelia, a victim to his duty; the second interests us at first only by his innocence. Having entered upon misfortune at the same time, so to speak, that he entered into life, and equally new to both conditions, Edgar gradually develops his faculties, learns their character at once, and discovers within himself, as need requires, the qualities with which he is gifted; in proportion as he advances, his duties, and his difficulties, and his importance increase; he grows up and becomes a man, but, at the same time, he learns how costly is this growth; and he finally discovers, when bearing it with nobleness and courage, the whole weight of that burden which he had hitherto borne almost with gayety. Kent, on the contrary, a wise and firm old man, has known all and foreseen all from the very outset; as soon as he enters upon action, his march is determined and his object defined. He is not, like Edgar, urged by necessity or met by chance; his will determines his conduct; nothing can change or disturb it; and the aspect of the misfortune to which he devotes himself, scarcely wrings from him an exclamation of grief or pain.

Lear and Gloster, in an analogous situation, receive from it an impression which corresponds to their different characters. Lear, impetuous and irritable, spoiled by power and by the habit and need of admiration, rebels both against his position and against his own conviction; he can not believe in what he knows; his reason offers no resistance; and he becomes mad. Gloster, naturally weak, yields to his misery, and is equally incapable of resistance to his joy; he dies on recognizing Edgar. If Cordelia were alive, Lear would still find strength to live; but he breaks down by the effort of his grief.