Lear may well 'beat at the gate which let his folly
in', after, as the Fool says, 'he has made his daughters his
mothers'. The character is dropped in the third act to make room for
the entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well accords with the
increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can be
more complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar's
assumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of their
distresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural
affection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakespeare's mastery over
his subject, if it was not art, was owing to a knowledge of the
connecting links of the passions, and their effect upon the mind,
still more wonderful than any systematic adherence to rules, and
that anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art,
not inspired and rendered instinctive by genius.
One of the most perfect displays of dramatic power is the first
interview between Lear and his daughter, after the designed affronts
upon him, which till one of his knights reminds him of them, his
sanguine temperament had led him to overlook. He returns with his
train from hunting, and his usual impatience breaks out in his first
words, 'Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready.' He then
encounters the faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his
service; and the first trial of his honest duty is to trip up the
heels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent and despicable
a figure through the piece.
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