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"King Lear" and ChaosAuthor(s): L. M. STOROZYNSKYSource: Critical Survey, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1991), pp. 163-169Published by: Berghahn BooksStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41555577
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King
Lear and
Chaos
L. M.
STOROZYNSKY
Mythological
and biblical stories about the creation of the world from Chaos
provide
an
informing rinciple
in
King
Lear. Such narratives familiar to Elizabethans include
Hesiod's
Theogony,
Ovid's
Metamorphoses,
and the book of Genesis.1 A character-
istic feature of these narratives s a
cyclical
pattern
of creation followed
by
destruction
and the return to a state of chaos.
Moreover,
in classical and biblical accounts of
creation,
while
harmony among
the elements that make
up
the
world is the desired
end,
it s achieved
only through
their division or
separation.
King
Lear
has
been called
'a
play
about the end of the
world,'2
but it is also a
story
of creation and
destruction,
and
especially
of
separation
and division.
But,
whereas in the earlier
myths
the
very
world is born of Chaos- of the void- of
nothing-
central
to the
play
is Lear's
assertion that
'Nothing
can
come of
nothing' (1.82)
,3
an
expression
recognisable
to
Elizabethans
as
both
a
commonplace saying,
and a controversial
doctrine,
ex nihilo
nihil
fit,
denying
creation ex nihilo 4
King
Lear
is
often
praised
for
its double
plot:
the
parallel
stories of Lear and
Gloucester add complexity,while unifying heme and action. But a second double
structure,
onsisting
of the real and
imagined
worlds of the
play,
creates
a tension that
throws the action into disorder. The real world
consists of the
tangible,
physical
features of Lear's
kingdom:
man-made
objects,
and the world
of Nature. The
imagined
is Lear's idea of the
kingdom
and his
relationship
to it.
In this
respect
also,
Lear
is
paralleled
by
Gloucester. The old men inhabit worlds created
by
the
mind and
emotions,
but which share some of the features of their
actual
surroundings:
solation,
heights
and
depths,5
enclosures,
and
open, empty places.
However,
while the
imagined
is often manifest
n
the
external,
the
two are not as
consistently
parallel
as
are the two
plots.
Neither world is of a fixed character: what seems safe
and
sheltering
may turnhostile; what is hostile may prove safe. Real as their maginingsmay be to
the old
men,
ideas are
only
insubstantial
mages.
Here,
not true reflections
f
reality,
these
images
represent
nothing.
Lear's sententious
'Nothing
can come of
nothing,'
meant to be
a
practical
observation,
intended to
prevent,
not lead to
disorder,
turns
out to be
prophetic;
the fulfilment f this accidental
prophecy
is
what the
play
examines.
Like the
mythological
and biblical
stories,
King
Lear
begins
with
a kind of creation
defined
by separation,
a
search
for order in division. Lear deconstructs
his
kingdom
and
kingship,
believing
that
he
is
creating
a
new
order. His
reason,
'To shake all
cares
and business off our
state,/
Confirming
them on
younger years'
(1.40-1),
seems
©C.Q. &S. 1991
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164
Critical
Survey,
Volume
3,
Number 2
generous,
but
is
selfish. If
kingship
is such a
burden,
why
should he
impose
it
on
others? Lear
thoughtlessly
heads toward chaos
by initiating
a
process
of
inevitable
destruction. To those close to
Lear,
it s
apparent
that his mind is unstable and
that he
does not
fully
realise what he is
doing.
His
family and friends attempt either to
redirect
his
thinking
r to take
advantage
of it. GoneriPs insincere
expression
of love
for
Lear,
'Dearer
than
eyesight, space,
or
liberty' (1.51),
ironically
lists the
very
things
that
are
precious
in
the
play-
indeed,
that are
precious everywhere
and
always-
and that
by
comparison
devalue
commodities measured
by
'how
many'
or
'how much'. But Lear's
eyes
are on his
map,
a
sign
of the wealth and extent of
the
kingdom,
but
also
a
small, neat,
controllable microcosm. The
pleasant pastoral
land-
scapes
he describes are 'divided in three'
(1.38),
confined within bounds
even from
this line to this'
(1.58)-
space
without
liberty.
And in
the division of his
kingdom,
Lear restricts
his own
liberty.
He does not
see that in
breaking up
his
kingdom,
delegating
responsibility
o
others,
and
divesting
himselfof all
save 'The
name and all
the additions to a king' (1.128), he reduces his own
authority
o
nothing
meaningful.
He himself
unwittingly
redicts:
'So be
my grave my
peace' (1.117), punning
on
the
tiny
piece
of the
kingdom
that
will,
in
fact,
be his. His
very
words to his
successors
unconsciously
predict
division: 'This crownet
part
betwixt
you'
(1.131).
The
boundaries on
the
map
are
intended
to
make the land secure and
manageable,
but
boundaries,
more often than
not,
inspire greed
for
expansion, leading
to dissension
and further
ivision.
Division
between
Albany
and Cornwall is
soon rumoured
(6.6-
13,
8.18-21),
and Kent will
lament 'this scattered
kingdom' (8.22).
It is
Lear's beloved and
sincere Cordelia who
unintentionally
puts
the
word
'nothing'
into Lear's
mind
and
on his
tongue.
He mistakes her
honesty
for ack of love
and in returngives her nothing. His new 'creation' begins to go wrong when Cor-
delia's refusal
to
cooperate
in his
charade
provokes
the
headstrong
Lear
into
giving
up
not
only
power
and
position,
but the
security
of her
love as well. The
faithfulKent
is the first o call him
mad
(1.139-41),
but Lear refuses to
listen,
threatening
o kill his
'physician' (Kent,
the
voice of
reason),
and
succumbing
to his
'disease'
(madness)
(1.153-4).
Kent's
words are harsh but
true,
and so
he,
like
Cordelia,
is
'banished,
his
offence
honesty' (2.111).
Lear
orders Kent: 'turn
thy
hated
back/
Upon
our
kingdom'
(1.165);
yet
this s what he
himselfhas
done,
and the
kingdom
is no
longer
his.
Kent's
reply, Friendship
lives
hence,
and
banishment s here'
(1.171),
will
also
shortly
pply
to
Lear.
Goneril's
conversation with
Regan
demonstrates that
they
know their
father
only
too
well,
better than he knows
himself:
GONORiL You see
how fullof
changes
his
age
is. . . . He
always
oved our sister
most,
and withwhat
poor udgement
he hath
now cast her off
ppears
too
gross.
Regan
'Tis the
nfirmity
f his
age; yet
he hath
ever but
slenderly,
nownhimself.
(1.279-84)
But their
concern about Lear's
'unruly
waywardness' (1.288)
derives
only
from
worry
about
how
it
may
affect hem.
Using
their
knowledge
of
their
father,
he two
conspire
to
aggravate
his
irrational behaviour to turn t
to their
advantage.
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King
Lear and
Chaos
165
Lear's
warning
that
'Nothing
can come of
nothing'
returns to haunt him in the
Fool's
taunting
words: 'Can
you
make no use of
nothing,
uncle? . . . Thou has
pared
thy
wit o' both sides and left
nothing
'th' middle. . . . Now thou
art an
О
without a
figure. . . . thou art nothing' (4.126-88). Allowed the privilege of audacity- and
honesty-
the Fool
points
out
why
Lear's
plans
miscarried: 'thou madest
thy
daughters thy
mother'
(4.165),
and warns
him,
through
the
parable
of the
hedge-
sparrow
and the
cuckoo,
of
the
inevitable
consequences
(4.210-11).
Lear still
will
not
accept
truth,
but the Fool's words
are as
predictive
as Lear's own.
While Lear
gives
away
his
kingdom,
Gloucester announces
his own
willingness
to
'unstate' himself
(2.99), although
for
a differentreason. As
short-sighted
as
Lear,
Gloucester is
easy prey
to the
power
of
suggestion,
and
Edmund
easily
plants
an idea
in his father's
mind. While Lear's mind is on
land,
Gloucester's
is on the sun and the
moon.
Edmund,
like Goneril and
Regan,
wants his father's
land,
and
Gloucester,
once
turned
against
his favourite
son,
automatically
promises
it to
his bastard
(6.83-
5).
Gloucester reacts
exactly
like Lear,
displacing
his favour onto an
unworthy
recipient,
and
significantly
he word
'nothing'
is
heard
again
here,
in
an echo
of the
earlier circumstances. Like
Cordelia,
Edmund introduces
the
word;
like
Lear,
Glou-
cester defines
it: 'The
quality
of
nothing
hath not such need to
hide itself
(2.33-4).
Edmund's
'proof'
of
Edgar's 'conspiracy'
amounts to
nothing,
in so much
as it is
false,
but
this
'nothing'
becomes
something
in Gloucester's
mind. His
superstitious
understanding
of events
triggered
by
the iate
eclipses
in the sun and moon'
suggests
a
world view
as unrealistic as Lear's
(2.103-9),
where he can
believe the incredible
about
his own child.
Edmund at firstmakes a show of
ridiculing
his father's
way
of
thinking, criticising
the
complacency,
the 'admirable evasion'
of
responsibility
of
those who 'make guilty . . . the sun, the moon, and the stars' (2.113-28). But
Edmund,
like Goneril and
Regan,
knows how to work
upon
his father's
superstitions,
offering
Gloucester
further
proof
of
Edgar's
treachery 6.37-9)
in the
language
and
imagery
that Gloucester
understands.
Addressing
his brother
in the same
vein,
Edmund is
met
with
ndifference,
f
not disbelief:
'How
long
have
you
been
a
sectary
astronomical?'
(2.145).
But
ironically
Edmund's
'predictions'
(2.138-44),
made
in
mocking
imitation of
his
father's
prophecy,
will
be fulfilled.
Again,
words
are
destined to become
action, and,
whenever this
occurs,
the
speaker
loses
control of
events he himself
puts
into
motion;
it is
only
too true
that Edmund knows not what
will
happen
(2.144)-
no more than Gloucester or Lear.
Lear soon suffers he consequences of his conduct. 'Idle old man,/That still would
manage
those authorities/ hat he hath
given away'
(3.16-18),
Lear
upsets
Goneril's
household
with
demands, criticism,
and orders:
a
great display
of
activity, highly
reminiscent of the
first
cene of the
play,
and all
to
no
purpose.
Lear now
begins
to
realise
his
self-imposed
restrictions: hat name' and 'addition of
a
king'
are no
longer
kingship.
In the face of Goneril's lack of
hospitality
and
respect,
and the Fool's
truthful
mocking,
Lear's frustration ntensifies.
As
he
begins
to
comprehend-
'O
Lear,
Lear / Beat at this
gate
that let
thy folly
in/ And
thy
dear
judgement
out '
(4.264-6)-
he
theatrically
and
embarrassingly questions
his
very identity:
Doth
any
here know me? . . . Who is it that can tell me who
I
am?'
(4.220-5);
only
the Fool
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166 Critical
Survey,
Volume
3,
Number 2
replies
seriously-
'Thou wouldst make
a
good
fool'
(5.38).
Lear fears real madness
and
glimpses
the chaos of the mind:
'O,
let me not be mad ... I would not
be mad
(5.45-7).
Regan matches her sister's skill in reinforcing
and
taking advantage
of
Lear's
doubts and
growing
disillusion:
О
sir,
you
are
old
Nature
n
you
standson the
veryverge
Of his confine.You should be ruled and led
By
some discretion hatdiscerns
your
tate
Better han
you
yourself.
(7.304-8)
The sisters'
calculated
cruelty
pushes
Lear toward the
'very verge'
of
sanity. Angered
and
confused to the
point
of
incoherence,
Lear
begins
to understand
himself: I shall
go mad ' (7.445). And as he graduallydoes go mad, he is keenly aware of his state of
mind:
'My
wits
begin
to
turn'
9.68);
'O,
that
way
madness lies.
Let me shun that./No
more of that'
(11.20-1).
The
rapid disintegration
of Lear's unrealistic
(and
improvised) arrangement
of his
kingdom
forces
him
to
recognise
the
failure of
his
'creation'. Lear leaves
behind the
comfortsof
court,
renouncing
all roofs to take his
chances
with
Nature
(7.366-9):
the
final
rejection
of
the hated
kingdom.
Lear leaves of his
own
accord,
with the final
humiliation of
having
doors
slammed
shut
behind
him
(7.461-6),
a
gesture
which in
itself demarcates
space
or
place,
and reinforces division.
Gloucester,
believing
that he and Lear
suffer he abuse of
ungrateful
offspring,
s
sympathetically fflicted: I am almost mad myself. . . The griefhath crazed mywits'
(11.153-7).
Here,
at his
most
vulnerable,
he is
further
etrayed by
Edmund.
Prisoner
in his own
home,
Gloucester,
blind
to
reality
ike
Lear,
is now
physically
blinded. The
two
plots converge
at this
point:
although they
do not
perform
the task
themselves,
Goneril and
Regan
are
responsible
for Gloucester's
blinding,
and it is
Regan
who has
him thrust
ut of the
gates
of his own
home
(14.91):
the same
gates
that
closed behind
Lear.
Lear and Gloucester turn
to Nature to learn what
they
would not learn in
the
sophisticated
court
environment. Nature in
King
Lear is harsh and
indifferent,
iolent
and chaotic. In
such a
landscape
there is little to calm the
tempests
of the
mind,
and
when Lear
turns to it at its
most
hostile,
he
meets storm with
storm.
Contending
with
the fretful
lement'
(8.3),
he invokes the
storm to do his
bidding (9.1-9).
But
it is
'eyeless',
and
Lear cannot
help feeling
that in
their
cruelty,
the elements 'have
with
two
pernicious daughters .joined'
(9.22)
against
him.
Similarly,
Lear assumes
that
Edgar
suffers
because he has
evil
daughters.
But little
by
little,
n
the new
environ-
ment,
Lear's
mind rids itself
of this
self-centred
vision.
Feeling
'more sinned
against
than
sinning',
Lear finds
strength
to face the
storm,
whereas
those
with
'pent-up
guilts'
cannot
(9.58-60);
indeed,
his
daughters
have shut
themselves
indoors,
away
from the storm.
Lear
acknowledges
the
tempest
in his
mind,
considering
it
'the
greater
malady',
the storm
around
him,
'the lesser'
(11.6-14),
and it
seems that Lear
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King
Lear
and
Chaos
167
would do better to remain without. He
agrees only reluctantly
o enter
Edgar's
hovel,
preferring
the wildness
of the storm which
prevents
him from
pondering
more
unpleasant
thoughts (11.23-5).
And
although
Lear makes an effort to
adapt
to
'necessities . . . That can make vile thingsprecious' (9.71-2), it is when faced withthe
hovel,
which should
provide
shelter,
that he feels
his wits
really begin
to turn. But
Lear does learn fromthe vision of
what he thinks
Edgar
to
be,
in the storm. He
grasps
from
Edgar
the selfishness and
folly
of
divesting
himself of too
much,
and of the
wrong things.
He should
have
given
away only
the
superfluous,
and
given only
to
the
right
people
for
the
right
reasons. Lear envies
Edgar's apparent affinity
ith
Nature,
comparing Edgar's
freedom and lack of debt to himself and his
sophisticated
court
companions. Finally,
he follows
Edgar's
example
and
attempts
to remove his own
clothing,
the last
trappings
of
court,
to
approach
nearer still
to Nature. But Lear can
no
longer
know that the
great
differencebetween himself and
Edgar
is that
Edgar
is,
and
always
has
been,
in
control of his own mind and actions.
Edgar
is
playing
a
role,
his nakedness is a
disguise,
his madness
deliberately
assumed.
Edgar
knows that The
low'st
and
most
dejected thing
of
fortune,/
tands still n
esperance,
lives not in fear'
(15.3-4).
Lear,
on the other
hand,
is
entirely
out of control. Even what he learns
amounts to
nothing
because he cannot
apply
it;
he cannot turn
back.
Completely
disassociated from
the
past,
no
longer appreciative
of 'lines and
bounds',
he now
prefers space
and
liberty'.
But his
well-meaning companions
lead
him
to
yet
another
'shelter' from the
storm,
and here his world turns
upside-down. Going
back
inside,
Lear remembers his
daughters
and loses all sense of
time
and
place:
'Make no
noise,
make no noise. Draw the curtains.
So, so,
so.
We'll
go
to
supper
i'th'
morning.
So,
so,
so'
(13.77-8).
Gloucester, like Lear, learns more fromEdgar than from Nature. He immediately
realises
his
own
folly
and former
'blindness',
and learns what Lear learns about
prosperity
and
adversity:
I have
no
way,
and therefore ant no
eyes.
I
stumbledwhen saw. Full oft tis
seen
Our means secure
us,
and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.
(15.16-19)
But Gloucester's initial
response
to
suffering
nd
misfortune
s
despair
and
defeat. He
makes no effortto confrontadversity as Lear does, still believing that the human
condition is out of human
control:
'As
flies to wanton
boys
are we to th'
gods;/ They
kill
us for their
sport'
(15.35-6).
Desiring only
death,
Gloucester asks to be led to
the
cliffs
f Dover
(15.71-6).
Edgar,
like
Edmund,
plays
upon
Gloucester's beliefs to
put
ideas
into his
head,
but
Edgar
hopes
to
cure
his
despair
(20.33). Painting
a verbal
picture
of an
imagined
landscape, Edgar brings
Gloucester to 'th'extreme
verge'
(20.26),
not of the
cliffs,
but
of
sanity,
n a
beneficent mitation of
Regan's
mistreat-
ment of Lear. When
Gloucester's life
is
'saved'
by
a
'miracle',
Edgar
speaks
again
within
the
scope
of the old man's
understanding:
'Think
that the clearest
gods
. . .
have
preserved
thee'
(20.73-4).
In this
argument
Gloucester finds reason
enough
to
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168 Critical
Survey,
Volume
3,
Number 2
bear
affliction,
ut
his new-found comfort
s
disrupted
by
the mad Lear who
appears
'crowned
with weeds and flowers'
(20.80).
Even
Edgar
is
dismayed by
his
appearance,
'The
safer sense will ne'er accommodate/
His
master
thus'
(20.81-2),
not
recognising that Lear
has accommodated himself to suit his
circumstances, just
as
Edgar
did when he first urned to Nature
and madness. Gloucester
perceives
the ruin
of Lear as a
portent
of the
ruin
of
the world
(20.129-30).
Because
Lear,
as
king,
is
symbolic
of the world and its
ordering,
his
apparently
finaldownfall causes
Gloucester
once more
to
give
up hope,
and
Edgar's encouragement
is in vain. The tension
between
his
multiple
sorrows
and
the
oy
of
finding
himself
reunited
with
Edgar
is
too
much for
Gloucester,
and his
heart,
'Twixt two extremes of
passion,
joy
and
grief,/
Burst
smilingly'
24.193-6).
Lear meets his own end within the bounds
of the French and British
army camps,
оцсе
more
attired n his own
garments, again seeking
his
grave (21.43).
He has come
full circle and in his
remaining
moments of
lucidity
Lear
is
ready
to make
prison
his
home, looking again to enclosure for securityand peace (24.8-19). Although Lear
and
Cordelia
are
reconciled,
their reunion is so
very
brief,
and at her
death,
the
tension of
conflicting
and extreme emotions overwhelms
Lear,
as Gloucester was
overwhelmed. Over
Cordelia's
body
one last storm breaks
forth,
when
Lear
fully
realises that
nothing
has come of
nothing 24.253-7).
The
play
also comes full
circle,
Lear's final cries of 'no'
and
'never'
(24.300-4)
poignantly
echoing
the
'nothing's
of
the first cene.
Is
King
Lear 'a
play
about the end of the
world'?
Certainly
it is
about the end
of
Lear's
world,
and as
Gloucester
suggests,
Lear is a
symbol
of the world. And:
The cease ofmajesty
Dies not
alone,
but ike a
gulf
doth draw
What's
near
it
with t. It is a
massy
wheel
Fixed on
the summit f the
highest
mount,
To
whose
huge
spokes
ten thousand
esser
things
Are mortised nd
adjoined,
which
when t falls
Each small
annexment,
etty onsequence,
Attends he
boist'rousruin.
Never alone
Did
the
King sigh,
but
with
general
groan.
(
Hamlet
3.3.15-23)
Rosencrantz's
speech
illustrates the
way
events in
King Lear, once set intomotion by
Lear,
gather
momentum to
reach a
destructive,
all-encompassing
climax: a
state of
chaos. The
'massy
wheel' is
more than
made
way
for
by
the
lesser
things'
or
'Human-
ity
[which]
must
perforce
prey
on itself
(16.48).
Harry
Levin
has an
optimistic
view of
King
Lear:
'just
as
growth yields
to
decay,
so
decay
fosters
growth
. . Man
must
reconcile himself
to the fact
that
nature will
take
its
course'
(p. 183),
and
notes that
n the
play,
'Man
takes his
questionings
directly
o
nature'
(p. 181).
But is
there an
answer?
Edgar,
who
understands
Nature
better than
anyone,
is
philosophic:
'Men
must
endure/ Their
going
hence
even as
their
coming
hither'
(23.9-10).
But
he
adds,
'Ripeness
is all'
(5.2.11),
which
is not
so
optimistic,
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King
Lear and
Chaos
169
for,
as
Sonnet
15 reminds
us,
'everything
that
grows/
Holds in
perfection
but a little
moment'.
If that s the best one can
hope
for,
then the
kingdom
at the end of the
play
holds little
promise
of a new and better world.
A
new
cycle
of
events,
characterised
by
division in its very beginnings, seems destined to follow the patternof the last cycle
which ended in
nothing.
And the
pattern
was
readily
at hand in the
mythological
and
biblical accounts of creation in which the
world,
born of
Chaos,
is
readily
turned
upside-down,
destroyed,
and reduced once more to
nothing.
1
T. W.
Baldwin,
n
William
hakespeare's
mall
atine
LesseGreeke
Urbana,
11.,
944)
as stablished
hat
Hesiod,
n
the
riginal,
as n the chool
urriculum
n
Shakespeare's
ay,
ndArthur
olding's
nglish
erse
translation
fOvid's
Metamorphoses
as vailable
n
1567
Baldwin
otes hatalmost
ny
nnotatedditionf
Ovid's
Metamorphoses
ould
ave alled ttention
oHesiod'sccountf
reation'
Vol.
,
652
n.
88)).
2
Frank
ermode,ntroduction,
ing
ear
TheRiverside
hakespeare,
d.
G. Blakemore
vans
Boston,
974),
p.
1,249.
3
All
Shakespeare
uotations
refrom illiam
hakespeare:
he
Complete
orks
Compact
dition,
d.
Stanley
Wells
nd
Gary aylor
Oxford,
988).
uotations
rom
ing
ear
re
romhe
Quarto
ext.
4
The
rigins
f he
ommonplace
re
iven
n
Morns
almer
illey
A
Dictionaryf
he
roverbsn
LnglandAnnArbor, i., 950). he octrineas enouncedy alvinnd thersecauset ontradictedhe otionf reationx
nihilo.
he ullestiscussionf x
nihiloihil
it
ith
pecific
eferenceo
King
ear s nWilliam
. Elton's
ing
ear
and
TheGods
San
Marino,
a.,
1966).
5
Harry
evin iscusses
everal
indsf
heights
nd
epths'
n The
Heights
nd
he
epths:
Scene
rom
ing
Lear'
Shakespeare
nd he
evolution
f
he
imes:
erspectives
ndCommentaries
New
ork,
976),
p.
162-86.
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