Is there divine justice in King Lear?

"A brilliant evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star" says Edmund in the first Act of the play. Edgar finishes the play by saying "speak what we feel not what we ought to say". But doesn't the play seem to support Edmund's view?

Lear seems to have realised through his suffering the value of the love of people like Cordelia and Kent. His preoccupation with showy displays of public adoration is replaced in his reconciliation with Cordelia by humility and love. But what do the gods so often referred to give Lear for his change? Cordelia is needlessly hanged and Lear dies lamenting over her dead body. How can Edgar say 'speak what we feel not what we ought to say' when the same fate befell Cordelia and Lear as did Regan and Goneril?

I have a paper to write on the representation of justice, I'm indecisive on whether there are more justices or injustices in the play. What do you think?

I have a paper to write on the representation of justice, I'm indecisive on whether there are more justices or injustices in the play. What do you think?

Greetings Saint Jack & All

I think the answer to this lies in Edgar's words to his father in Act V, Scene II.

"Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all"

I think this means that being pulled about by the gods and/or forces of nature is inevitable. What is important is whether you are ripe at the time of death, i.e, have you lived well and justly? It is only meaningless if there is no belief in continuance of the soul after death. I wonder about the interpretation of the final act where King Lear says of Cordelia:

"This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt."

This could be referring to the body still being alive, or the 'feather' could be alluding to the soul leaving the body.

Then he says:

"Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft"

I think all this is implying something subtler than the physical. He can't quite hear her but she still exists....?

What do you think?

Nick

no, your a whoremaster

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Originally Posted by Saint Jack

"A brilliant evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star" says Edmund in the first Act of the play. Edgar finishes the play by saying "speak what we feel not what we ought to say"

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Isn't Edmund merely saying that we all lack integrity and wisdom, blaming anything but ourselves? Edgar echoes the same sentiment with, 'Speak with integrity'. However, what we should do and do do, are often different: a major theme in the play.

The flawless Cordelia and Kent seem to have followed Edgar's injunction with mixed results. Life isn't fair!

As to Divine Justice, where in the play is it explicitly addressed?

It's not inconceivable that Lear and Cordelia would meet after death, at least not for those who look favorably on an afterlife. Shakespeare no doubt thought a great deal about that idea since he read the Bible. Although we see him expiring, Lear sees Cordelia alive.

Another character in another play, Talbot in Hen. VI, I, encounters his dead son on the battlefield, and rages at death before he, himself, dies of war wounds. But, he will not admit that "Death" is the winner over either his son or himself.

The play has strong nihilist themes. It is essentially everything we do not wish to see, yet everything that does exist. We don't picture kings like that, but they are. We don't think of justice like that, but it is. The only person who seems to win at all in the play is Edmund, who has that beautiful off-stage death where he finally realizes the meaning of everything. Unlike other tragedies, this one certainly ends lower than it began. There really is no catharsis, it simply must be endured. There is no justice, divine or man made. There simply is nothing.

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Originally Posted by JBI

There simply is nothing.

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I'm not so sure. The heroism of Cordelia and Kent shines like a beacon through the play and beyond, paying homage our vast capacity for humanity.

Likewise, I don't take such a glum view, but it is severe. A well acted Lear/plus Cordelia in his arms, can lead an audience to catharsis. There is extensive pity going on. Shakespeare pushed the envelope, held nothing back.

I can see how that would work, byquist. It seems like a plausible direction for the stage.

But I cannot help but to see that all parties have come full-circle. Edmund designates his coming death to be so in Act 5, that justice is served upon him. Yet it seems that everyone has come full-circle at certain points in the play, including Lear who becomes a sound man in his insanity after he is so mistreated by Goneril and Regan. He begins in his rage, probably already mad or on the edge of losing his wits (he's really old after all), making poor judgments by giving large chunks of his kingdom over to husbands he hardly knows (although Albany is part of the heroic/stoical/good-natured clique).

In the play there is combat between nihilism/the steady dissolving of morals and heroic and stoicism/heroics. And on and on there is a build-up of hopelessness in the gods. It begins with Gloucester where he says something along the lines of man being an object in a little game they play to amuse themselves, and from blissful believing in the righteousness of the gods, he turns to gradually to nothingness that encompasses the world. And like was said by an above poster, there is that emptiness left in the world of the play in Act 5.3.

The ending doesn't detach and restore order though; Kent retires, knowing his death is soon, Albany rejects the crown, and Edgar glumly takes it, knowing destruction and more suffering await. And, as the cycle goes, England is not left healthy, but rather wore-torn and disgusting. There was no purpose for the suffering, no change of powers, only a father trying to retire early, being forced to see the destruction of everything he believed, wished, and loved. The play is destructive, yet poniard to the mind. It doesn't, I would argue, entertain the way other Shakespeare plays do, but cuts deep into the reader/viewer with a destructive, gut wrenching truth that seems to laugh at the reader.

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Originally Posted by JBI

The ending doesn't detach and restore order though; Kent retires, knowing his death is soon, Albany rejects the crown, and Edgar glumly takes it, knowing destruction and more suffering await.

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Your interpretation surprises.

To KENT and EDGAR
Friends of my soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.

Kent, I thought, would merely make arrangements for Lear's funeral. I can see your point, but is Kent faithful beyond death? Is there even an afterlife in pagan 'King Lear'? Or is brave Kent suicidal?

Albany says, 'for us we will resign, | During the life of this old majesty, | To him our absolute power'. With Lear dead, I see little to suggest Albany will not resume this 'absolute power'. Does 'you twain | Rule in this realm' necessarily exclude Albany? Why would Albany reject the crown? And is Albany empowered to anoint the next king?

Is Edgar to be sole monarch? Could not Kent (after Lear's funeral) rule jointly with Edgar and Albany? Since 'The oldest hath borne most', why do you say Edgar takes it 'glumly'?

I think 'the gods are just', however unpalatable is their justice.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

Is Edgar to be sole monarch? Could not Kent (after Lear's funeral) rule jointly with Edgar and Albany? Since 'The oldest hath borne most', why do you say , Edgar takes it 'glumly'?

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Kent and Albany are old - their way is finished. When Lear passed down his kingdom to his daughters there was a shift from Lear and Kent's generation to Edgar's (the two elder daughters hanging in the middle).

With the majority of the cast dead, and two of the remaining near death - or just plain beaten and tired - Edgar is the future.

Edgar excepting it "glumly", as JBI put it, is not hard to believe. Everyone he knows is dead, the structure of his world has been destroyed, and now he must restore order and assume an identity as king? Is Edgar ready for this?

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

Kent and Albany are old - their way is finished.

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Thanks Mayneverhave - I now better understand the post from JBI. But a serious objection still remains.

Is their any evidence, aside from the closing lines mentioned earlier, that Kent and Albany are either old or lacking in staying power? Kent's vigour in tackling Oswald and the play's last words suggest otherwise:

Duke of Albany. The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest have borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

The 'we' in 'we that are young' must include Albany and likely includes Kent, given that he was the last person Albany addressed.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

Duke of Albany. The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest have borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

The 'we' in 'we that are young' must include Albany and likely includes Kent, given that he was the last person Albany addressed.

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Ah but look at the lines directly preceding this:

ALBANY
Friends of my soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.

KENT
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.


Kent clearly declines Albany's request that he should rule with Edgar. Kent is obviously in no disposition to take the throne. His extreme vivacity, throughout the play, has always been in defence, or in service, to Lear. With Lear dead, Kent must soon follow his master into the afterlife.

As for Albany's closing lines:

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

These are hardly lines spoken in optimism - they are a grim admittance of the reality that Albany and Edgar face. The acknowledgement that the next generation will not "live so long" is last note - the completion of the nihilistic themes that are pervasive throughout the play.

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

With Lear dead, Kent must soon follow his master into the afterlife.

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So Kent is faithful even beyond death. A fable indeed!

I don't think this means anything, but the last lines are spoken by Edgar, not Albany.

There seem to be conflicting views in the play itself: Gloucester says "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport." (IV.i.37-38) However Edmund's soliloquy at the start does, in my opinion, deliver Shakespeare's own view, despite the "bad" nature of Edmund — who does in the end see what he has done.
To me, Cordelia's death acts as a reminder of virtue, and can be seen as a direct consequence of Lear's pride and foolishness. The last lines reinforce hope and perhaps an assurance of such events, "this sad time", never to repeat themselves, since they "obey" it and "speak what we feel, not what we ought to say".

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Originally Posted by zomgmouse

...the last lines are spoken by Edgar, not Albany

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From www.observer.com/node/45138

Professor Tiffany spoke as well of the cryptic final quatrain of King Lear . It's a kind of coda to the tragedy, one delivered by Albany (the highest civil authority) in the 1608 Quarto of Lear and by Edgar (the highest moral authority) in the 1623 Folio text version. It's the one that begins, in both versions:

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

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Originally Posted by zomgmouse

To me, Cordelia's death acts as a reminder of virtue

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The gods aside, her death also poses the imponderable question, "Why do the good suffer in this world?"

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

Kent and Albany are old - their way is finished. ... ... With the majority of the cast dead, and two of the remaining near death - or just plain beaten and tired - Edgar is the future.

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I can now appreciate your position if, as in my previous post, Edgar rather than Albany has delivered the closing lines of the play.