The Gods Are Just- King Lear
The Gods are just” – Discuss – King Lear
The malignant ferocity and human cruelty found in ‘King Lear’ has lead some contemporary critics such as Stephen Greenblatt to deem Shakespeare “a decisively secular dramatist”. The play is often viewed as the most tragic and disaster ridden of all of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The tragic events that prevail throughout the play create the impression that there can be no form of justice or providence. At the conclusion of the play Cordelia is hung and King Lear dies in a delusional state of mind. Samuel Johnson considered this ending to be a violation of poetic justice. Virtuous ‘good’ characters traditionally survive in such tragedies. Shakespeare created an apparently clear division between the good characters that the audience should empathise with, and those who are “evil”. The character of the king merges the ideas of good and evil in the play. Tragedy resonates throughout ‘King Lear’, affecting all of the characters; both the “evil” and the “good”. Edgar’s assertion that “ The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us” raises a principal question from a modern audience’s perspective of whether the cruel painfully pernicious treatment of King Lear, and in parallel of Gloucester, can be justified.
To a Jacobean audience the harrowing events that take place in ‘King Lear’ are likely perceived as a punishment from God. Shakespeare wrote ‘King Lear’ in 1606 but it is set in England before it became Christian. There is conflict between Christian values and pagan ideas in the play: the use of the word ‘gods’ implies a pagan understanding of the world, contrasting pagan emphasis on gods’ whim with the Christian concept of justice and retribution. Some critics, such as G. Wilson and Roy Battenhouse interpret it as a theodicy, projecting Christian values on to the Pagan world. The king chooses the course of action that the play does take. He puts himself in the role of God. Lear subverts
The malignant ferocity and human cruelty found in ‘King Lear’ has lead some contemporary critics such as Stephen Greenblatt to deem Shakespeare “a decisively secular dramatist”. The play is often viewed as the most tragic and disaster ridden of all of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The tragic events that prevail throughout the play create the impression that there can be no form of justice or providence. At the conclusion of the play Cordelia is hung and King Lear dies in a delusional state of mind. Samuel Johnson considered this ending to be a violation of poetic justice. Virtuous ‘good’ characters traditionally survive in such tragedies. Shakespeare created an apparently clear division between the good characters that the audience should empathise with, and those who are “evil”. The character of the king merges the ideas of good and evil in the play. Tragedy resonates throughout ‘King Lear’, affecting all of the characters; both the “evil” and the “good”. Edgar’s assertion that “ The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us” raises a principal question from a modern audience’s perspective of whether the cruel painfully pernicious treatment of King Lear, and in parallel of Gloucester, can be justified.
To a Jacobean audience the harrowing events that take place in ‘King Lear’ are likely perceived as a punishment from God. Shakespeare wrote ‘King Lear’ in 1606 but it is set in England before it became Christian. There is conflict between Christian values and pagan ideas in the play: the use of the word ‘gods’ implies a pagan understanding of the world, contrasting pagan emphasis on gods’ whim with the Christian concept of justice and retribution. Some critics, such as G. Wilson and Roy Battenhouse interpret it as a theodicy, projecting Christian values on to the Pagan world. The king chooses the course of action that the play does take. He puts himself in the role of God. Lear subverts
Bibliography: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1124951 http://king-lear.org/samuel_johnson A. C Bradley, “Shakespearean Tragedy fourth edition”