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"?

Taming Beatrice's Wild Heart

In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero and Ursula trick Beatrice into thinking that Benedick is in love with her.  In this scene Beatrice is described as a "lapwing" (3.1.25) and a "haggards of the rock"(3.1.37), both wild birds, but she is also described as being "limed"(3.1.109) and killed "with traps"(3.1.112).  Once she is convinced of Benedick's love, she instructs herself:

Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand (3.1.115-18)

Compare this speech with Portia's profession of love to Bassanio once he has mastered the secret of the casks:

But the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn, happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed
As from her lord, her governor, her king.  (3.2.161-9)

What are these plays telling us about a woman's place in love and marriage?  Is this a traditional, patriarchal view of marriage in which the man is dominant?  Is this a realistic view of marriage in which compromise is essential for happiness?  What future is in store for such headstrong and independent women as Beatrice and Portia in the institution of marriage?

Courtly Love Under the Microscope

Sir Philip Sydney, a contemporary of Shakespeare, composed a series of love sonnets dedicated to his beloved Stella.  Sonnet 12 begins with this description of his beloved:

Cupid, because thous shin'st in Stella's eyes,
That from her locks, thy day-nets, none 'scapes free,
'That those lips swell, so full of thee they be,
That her sweet breath makes oft they flames to rise,
That in her breast thy pap sugared lies,

In the conventions of courtly love, the poet immortalizes his beloved by praising her ideal beauty.  Compare this description to the interchange between Claudio and Benedick in Much Ado:

Claudio: In my eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Benedick: I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter.

Later in the play Benedick reflects on the qualities of a woman necessary to "transform [him] to an oyster": One woman is fair, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace"(2.3.28-30).

What is this play telling us about courtly love?  Does it embrace or criticize this tradition?  How does it relate to the bawdy jokes and fears about cuckoldry that is found through out the play? What is the relationship between courtly and "real" love?  How do the ideals of courtly love aid or impede the pursuit of the beloved (of finding a suitable marriage partner)?