Paradoxes and Truth in King Lear

P(論文)It has generally been agreed among the critics of Shakespeare that King Lear is a play of paradoxes. Kenneth Muir pointedly argued that "the parallel paradoxes-that Gloucester attains insight in blindness and Lear wisdom in madness-takes us to the heart of the play." Indeed, several of the central ideas of the play are expressed in various forms of paradox such as Gloucester's "I stumbled when I saw" (IV.i.19), the Fool's "I am better than thou art now, I am a fool, thou art nothing" (I.iv.193-94), and Edgar's "O, matter and impertinency mix'd, /Reason in madness!" (V.iv.174-75). In his study of the play paradoxically entitled "King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque," G. Wilson Knight described how paradoxically the element of comedy is tied with the whole texture of the tragedy. Brian Vickers, too, pointing out "the importance of the paradoxical, riddling, contradictory element in King Lear," suggested the possibility that before writing the play Shakespeare had read the manuscript of Thomas Miles's Treasure of Ancient and Modern Times (1603), a collection of paradoxes. However, in this play paradoxes are probably more meaningful and more inextricably interwoven in its structure than they are generally thought of. The aim of this paper is to try to exemplify the close relations between the structure of the play and paradoxes through a series of quotations. The main characters of the play are thrown into a number of almost intolerable cruelties. The playwright's primary concern is to describe how they think and behave in the extremities to which they are driven. Not merely do they find themselves thrown into such adverse circumstances, but they also actually make paradoxical remarks frequently. On the whole these paradoxes indicate that they are in the process of acquiring self-knowledge and the ability to recognize truth. In King Lear, truth is not what it appears to be, but is veiled by outward appearance in an unexpected manner. Sometimes a man's recognition of a truth reached at a certain stage cannot be his ultimate recognition of truth; in the face of some newly revealed fact, he is impelled to alter his view, consequently gaining a deeper understanding of life. It may safely be said that through Cordelia's last speech, also presented in paradox, "We are not the first/Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst" (V.iii.3-4), Shakespeare intended to convey his own message about his belief in the importance of patience in life, the greatest paradox in King Lear being her own death. If we take her above speech, Edgar's lines containing "Ripeness is all" and Lear's preaching on patience all together into consideration, it will become evident that the basic concept of this play cannot be that this world is dominated by absurdity, but that one must strive to do one's best for the good "with best meaning" and endure the worst.departmental bulletin pape