15th June 2018

King Lear essay

     We witness stories of tragedy to feel something challenging, new, or for some, familiar, which we find in Shakespeare’s play of King Lear. The theme of tragedy is intentional and we can see this through many different forms of expression in the play or King Lear, Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lear and the language features he uses to articulate the changes within Lear show that he must have had some if not lots of understanding of the classical tragic hero. Tragedy as a whole is a genre that provokes our natural human reactions to situations that we perceive as sad and emotionally trying to us. This play works as a tragedy because of the characters human reactions to the events in their lives, their hemartia; being a fatal flaw that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero. A tragic hero must have their own unique fatal flaw for the audience to have their own adverse opinions of what happens next in the text, if the hero has no flaws, only good within him then the audience has nothing to relate to him, he becomes unrealistic, and it therefore becomes harder to pity a hero who is perceived as perfect. The tragic hero must be a deeply rooted good person, save their fatal flaw, Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that in order for the viewers to feel pity they tragic hero must not truly deserve their suffering. Aristotle believed we watch tragedy to evoke those feelings that may not be present in our everyday lives, emotions that arise when we go through traumatic and very negative events and by experiencing them from an outside perspective it turns into a form of entertainment, to have pity instead of be pitied. An example of Aristotle’s hemartia of the tragic hero is King Lear in Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ is Lear’s fatal flaw; his pride, arrogance and ignorance. 

     Throughout history we have seen many try to and pinpoint what it is the tragic hero must have, but one who showed intense knowledge of the viewer and what it takes to connect to a text was ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle believed that any text which contained the tragic hero must have a plot line and story that made the audience feel sorrow, empathy and a connection to the characters in the play. To be connected to the text being experienced there must be a level of familiarity with the heroes life and all that contributes to the events illuminated within the text. Humans are not perfect, the things we do are not good and the people we hurt can be some of the closest to us, the things that lead us to do bad things, treat people wrongly, and make our mistakes in life are all individual flaws that we hold unconsciously within us. Our flaws can sometimes define us when they take over common sense, Aristotle relied heavily on the notion that the Tragic Hero must have a fatal flaw, a hemartia to hold them back in their journey. His criteria for a successful play was this: 1. plot 2. character 3. thought 4. diction 5. melody 6. spectacle. To break this down more: A plot line that focuses upon a singular problem to focus on, an easy to follow storyline, a character whose emotions we follow and ultimately feel pity and sorry for. An example of a play that holds true to these rules is King Lear written by Shakespeare, the play that tells a story of a king who divides his kingdom between his three daughters based off how much they express their love him, no matter how falsified or exaggerated, the story goes on to tell a story of deceit, mistrust and lies all at the expense of the King and his family as his only truly loving daughter Cordelia tells the truth and is banished for telling her father that she need not prove her love for it should be enough to only know of a daughters love for her father not a king as a truth not something more for the sake of personal benefit as her sister have done. King Lear is a character with many flaws to play upon and for his daughters to play against, creating an atmosphere within the play that is a brewery for drama and tragedy to breed freely. The plot-line is not boring, it has its audience holding their breath and waiting for justice for the victim ( being King Lear by the end of the play who looses all children and hope for reconciliation or redemption and goes on to die himself ), but that is not what he believed tragedy should end with. Aristotle liked the ultimate demise of the tragic hero, because it tied in with the ultimate goal of the genre of tragedy; and that is for the audience to feel the pain and sympathy towards the characters that although have made mistakes do not deserve their painful and unfair endings. Aristotle’s ideals of the tragic hero are executed nearly perfectly in the play King Lear, examples of every step from his Poetics are shown in the play that shows how useful and successful this method of storytelling was in the days of Greek plays onwards. 

     We see Shakespeare as a classical playwright whose education may or may not have included those learning of Aristotle and his lectures or poetics but the evidence may be within the text of King Lear. Aristotle’s criteria included a change in the character from the events that occur in the play, may this be positive or negative i ha a noticeable effect upon the tragic hero. We can see this extremely clearly in King Lear’s mental state as the play progresses, now Shakespeare usually writes his lines in verse which has a metrical rhythm and often rhymes this type of structuring sentences is how we define wealthy and educated from poor and highly uneducated. As the play progresses and Lear’s mental state dissipates there is a visible, verbal change in Lear’s speech for when he was sound and good in mind with his daughters he spoke in even tones and tongues, this changes from Verse to Prose when he begins to notice all of the things in his life that have been false or hidden from him because of his own arrogance and pride. The switch to prose really shows the switch that flips in Lear’s brain because it is so necessary for someone of royalty, especially the King, to be even toned and educated, so for the King to be speaking like a commoner shows how much he has changed. The physicality of this from Shakespeare’s writing comes from the point in the play where Lear is cast out into the cold wet storm in nothing but rags, he begins to remove his clothes and yell to the wind for Lear cannot fathom a reason for any of mankind’s formality or treatment of one another. This change in heart of Lear’s is parallel to Aristotle’s criteria for a tragic hero whom must have a realisation because of their hemartia and what that fatal flaw brings upon them, Lear’s flaws being that he held far too much trust in his daughters to treat him as he believed he deserved.  This always comes too late to make amends with who or what the tragic hero and their change of fortune has effected, the deliberate downfall of the tragic hero, this time being Lear, is to make the audience make that connection to the character for it is hard to have pity for them if they do not face a major downfall. Lear’s madness is a key staple in the idea that Shakespeare had knowledge of Aristotle’s criteria, because the madness and deterioration of his mind is so clearly laid out in his speech and actions in the play it is hard not to see the connections between spectacle and character.

     Lear speaks of the storms in his head and the clouds in his judgement, a clear connection to the real storm outside the castle in the play where the brewing clouds hold promise of an explosion, one that we later see from Lear and he ‘looses his mind’. Some do say that Lear’s change from verse to prose is an indication of madness, but to listen to the things that Lear is explaining about divine right to rule, poverty in his kingdom, backstabbing court members, injustice in the system are all problems that we have faced for hundreds of years with people of power identical to King Lear in a position to change the fate of hundreds but choose not to because of blinding flaws like arrogance, pride and ignorance to a world happening outside of the warmly sheltered palace walls. This awakening within Lear is a clear indicator that his madness was not after the storm but after it when he had to go through the deceit of his two daughters who then cast him out therefore throwing away all that they knew of the chain of being, throwing askew the natural order of their world. By combining problems of the time and the criteria that may or may not have been from Aristotle, Shakespeare brings together feuds and fatal flaws to show the current problems of the time in an entertaining context, which was the overall meaning of plays in the 15th century, to connect and feel someone else pain. 

     It would be hard for Shakespeare to claim he had no knowledge of the classical position of the tragic hero whom we observe from Aristotle’s poetics and lectures, for the similarity and accuracy of the play King Lear is too close to Aristotle ideas to not be connected. We can observe the plays development from civilised and political to philosophical and reflective of the world and its problems that plague even the most privileged. King Lear is a play that tackles questions of divine rights to rule, natural order and how privilege does not guarantee happiness nor love from your family. Tragedy plagues the play along with the distinct character of the tragic hero, mirroring so accurately the criteria from Aristotle.

Publication information

Website: 

 

Book: 

Aristotle, Oxford 1920, Poetics. 

Shakespeare, William, 26 Dec 1606, ‘King Lear’ 

Journal:

Stig Abell, Nov 23 2016, ‘Lear Turns Us All To Fools And Madmen’, TLS. 

 

 

 

 

 

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. Hey Leilana,

    You are dealing with some strong ideas in this piece.

    However, at times I have to go back and re-read a sentence to actually make sense of what you are saying. Look carefully at your word choices (consider not only the meaning of each word but also the connotations it carries) and your use of punctuation. Reading your work out loud to yourself will help you with this.

    You need to begin developing the deliberate language devices that Shakespeare uses to communicate to us (the reader) that Lear displays the qualities of a tragic hero.

    Mrs. P

    Reply

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