The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 21

'Ib.' sc. 3. The Steward should be placed in exact ant.i.thesis to Kent, as the only character of utter irredeemable baseness in Shakspeare. Even in this the judgment and invention of the poet are very observable;--for what else could the willing tool of a Goneril be? Not a vice but this of baseness was left open to him.

'Ib.' sc. 4. In Lear old age is itself a character,--its natural imperfections being increased by life-long habits of receiving a prompt obedience. Any addition of individuality would have been unnecessary and painful; for the relations of others to him, of wondrous fidelity and of frightful ingrat.i.tude, alone sufficiently distinguish him. Thus Lear becomes the open and ample play-room of nature's pa.s.sions.

Ib.

'Knight'. Since my young lady's going into France, Sir; the fool hath much pin'd away.

The Fool is no comic buffoon to make the groundlings laugh,--no forced condescension of Shakspeare's genius to the taste of his audience.

Accordingly the poet prepares for his introduction, which he never does with any of his common clowns and fools, by bringing him into living connection with the pathos of the play. He is as wonderful a creation as Caliban;--his wild babblings, and inspired idiocy, articulate and gauge the horrors of the scene.

The monster Goneril prepares what is necessary, while the character of Albany renders a still more maddening grievance possible, namely, Regan and Cornwall in perfect sympathy of monstrosity. Not a sentiment, not an image, which can give pleasure on its own account, is admitted; whenever these creatures are introduced, and they are brought forward as little as possible, pure horror reigns throughout. In this scene and in all the early speeches of Lear, the one general sentiment of filial ingrat.i.tude prevails as the main spring of the feelings;--in this early stage the outward object causing the pressure on the mind, which is not yet sufficiently familiarized with the anguish for the imagination to work upon it.

Ib.

'Gon.' Do you mark that, my lord?

'Alb.' I cannot be so partial, Goneril, To the great love I bear you.

'Gon'. Pray you content, &c.

Observe the baffled endeavour of Goneril to act on the fears of Albany, and yet his pa.s.siveness, his 'inertia'; he is not convinced, and yet he is afraid of looking into the thing. Such characters always yield to those who will take the trouble of governing them, or for them. Perhaps, the influence of a princess, whose choice of him had royalized his state, may be some little excuse for Albany's weakness. 'Ib.' sc. 5.

'Lear'. O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!

Keep me in temper! I would not be mad!--

The mind's own antic.i.p.ation of madness! The deepest tragic notes are often struck by a half sense of an impending blow. The Fool's conclusion of this act by a grotesque prattling seems to indicate the dislocation of feeling that has begun and is to be continued. Act ii. sc. 1.

Edmund's speech:-

He replied, Thou unpossessing b.a.s.t.a.r.d! &c.

Thus the secret poison in Edmund's own heart steals forth; and then observe poor Gloster's--

Loyal and _natural_ boy!

as if praising the crime of Edmund's birth!

'Ib.' Compare Regan's--

What, did _my father's_ G.o.dson seek your life?

He whom _my father_ named?

with the unfeminine violence of her--

All vengeance comes too short, &c.

and yet no reference to the guilt, but only to the accident, which she uses as an occasion for sneering at her father. Regan is not, in fact, a greater monster than Goneril, but she has the power of casting more venom. 'Ib.' sc. 2. Cornwall's speech:--

This is some fellow, Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, &c.

In thus placing these profound general truths in the mouths of such men as Cornwall, Edmund, Iago, &c. Shakspeare at once gives them utterance, and yet shews how indefinite their application is.

'Ib.' sc. 3. Edgar's a.s.sumed madness serves the great purpose of taking off part of the shock which would otherwise be caused by the true madness of Lear, and further displays the profound difference between the two. In every attempt at representing madness throughout the whole range of dramatic literature, with the single exception of Lear, it is mere light-headedness, as especially in Otway. In Edgar's ravings Shakspeare all the while lets you see a fixed purpose, a practical end in view;--

in Lear's, there is only the brooding of the one anguish, an eddy without progression. 'Ib.' sc. 4. Lear's speech:--

The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, &c.

No, but not yet: may be he is not well, &c.

The strong interest now felt by Lear to try to find excuses for his daughter is most pathetic. 'Ib.' Lear's speech:--

--Beloved Regan, Thy sister's naught;--O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here.

I can scarce speak to thee;--thou'lt not believe Of how deprav'd a quality--O Regan!

'Reg'. I pray you, Sir, take patience; I have hope, You less know how to value her desert, Than she to scant her duty.

'Lear' Say, how is that?

Nothing is so heart-cutting as a cold unexpected defence or palliation of a cruelty pa.s.sionately complained of, or so expressive of thorough hard-heartedness. And feel the excessive horror of Regan's 'O, Sir, you are old!'--and then her drawing from that universal object of reverence and indulgence the very reason for her frightful conclusion--

Say, you have wrong'd her!

All Lear's faults increase our pity for him. We refuse to know them otherwise than as means of his sufferings, and aggravations of his daughters' ingrat.i.tude.

'Ib.' Lear's speech:--

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous, &c.

Observe that the tranquillity which follows the first stunning of the blow permits Lear to reason.

Act iii. sc. 4. O, what a world's convention of agonies is here! All external nature in a storm, all moral nature convulsed,--the real madness of Lear, the feigned madness of Edgar, the babbling of the Fool, the desperate fidelity of Kent--surely such a scene was never conceived before or since! Take it but as a picture for the eye only, it is more terrific than any which a Michel Angelo, inspired by a Dante, could have conceived, and which none but a Michel Angelo could have executed. Or let it have been uttered to the blind, the howlings of nature would seem converted into the voice of conscious humanity. This scene ends with the first symptoms of positive derangement; and the intervention of the fifth scene is particularly judicious,--the interruption allowing an interval for Lear to appear in full madness in the sixth scene.

'Ib.' sc. 7. Gloster's blinding:--

What can I say of this scene?--There is my reluctance to think Shakspeare wrong, and yet--

Act iv. sc. 6. Lear's speech:--