CHAPTER III.

KING LEAR.

IN 'King Lear,' love is once more made the fundamental motive of human life, but it is again a different, a new manifestation of the divine power; it is the third and last main form, in which love directly and actively influences the development of human existence, and in which it is revealed as the first and most natural bond of the great organism of humanity, as the basis and fundamental condition of all mental and moral culture. In • Romeo and Juliet' it is the devotion of betrothed persons and the passionate enthusiasm of youthful love; in Othello 'it is the manly strength and fulness of conjugal affection, esteem and fidelity; in 'King Lear,' on the other hand, it is parental love and filial reverence that are regarded as the centre of all human relations. Here the family bond, in its deep, historical significance, is the ground upon which the poet takes his stand. To represent the aspect of life presented by this point of view in a poetico-dramatic form, and from within the tragic conception of life is the intention, the leading thought, the fundamental idea of the tragedy.

✓ The high noon-day sun of love has sunk into the still glowing, but fast-fading tints of evening. Lear, in mind and body, is still a vigorous old man, but nevertheless an old man, but one who has not yet overcome the failings of his nature-obstinacy and love of dominion, quickness of temper, and want of consideration; his heart alone has retained the fulness and freshness of youth. Therefore the rich portion of love which has fallen to his lot he lavishes wholly upon his children; he gives them his all, hoping to find, in their love and gratitude, rest from the storms, anxieties, and troubles of life. But this love, which leads him to forget his position as king, in that of

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the father, and to neglect all other duties in his anxieties as head of the family, which confounds the inward inclination with outward affection-not merely erring momentarily, but in its obstinacy proving itself so prejudiced that Kent's endeavour to bring it to a true knowledge of itself fails completely, in spite of the pertinacity with which he urges it-this love, as in Othello' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' is here also involved in one-sidedness and contradiction. Here, too, it is of a passionate character, devoid of all self-control, which is manifested in Lear's over-hasty banishment of Cordelia and Kent. Nay, his love is not even altogether true in itself, and for this very reason forms a wrong estimate of truth, and rejects genuine pure love, and exchanges it for semblance, falsehood, and hypocrisy. In short, love here, at the same time, falls into contradiction with itself. The tragic conflict has increased, and from having been confined to external circumstances, has now sunk into the deepest depths of the heart; the question, in the present case, does not (as in Othello' and Romeo and Juliet') turn merely upon the contradiction between the inward justification of their love and the right of parents which stands externally opposed to it; it does not turn merely upon the conflict into which Lear falls by following the beautiful and perfectly-justified impulse of his paternal heart-thus neglecting his duties as king, whereby the right of his paternal love becomes a wrong to his kingdom-but in Lear's very paternal love, the substance stands in contradiction with the form, the father's right with the right of the lover. As father, as head of the family, whose will determines the outward life of the children, in what they do or leave undone, Lear cannot only have demanded, but, in accordance with his nature, must even have imperiously and inconsiderately required, that his love should be returned by his children's affection, even in the external actions of obedience and submission. However, Lear does not make this demand as a father but as a lover; he confounds the external, obligatory, legal relation subsisting between a father and children, with the internal, free, ethical relations of lovers, whose right consists in the very fact that all outward rights

and duties cease between them. He transfers the one relation to the other, and thereby places paternal and filial love in contradiction to one another, inasmuch as the child cannot perform what it perhaps ought and might do, because the demand is not addressed to its filial obedience, but to its free love, and thus opposes it. For love, in accordance with its very nature, lies in the deepest depths and freedom of the mind; it is itself this very depth and freedom expressed by communion of life, in which each seeks his inmost self and its ideal complement in that of another. The outward deed in itself is, therefore, of no consequence to it; as love, it is no outward action, but an inward, independent, and a self-sufficient life, which, owing to its very nature, expresses itself only in feelings and impulses. It may, therefore, be that love is the motive of actions, and that it speaks and acts itself, but it is not increased by this outward action; this outwardness is, in itself, of no value to it, but is the perfectly accidental, indifferent, unintentional expression of its want to seek its own happiness in the happiness of the beloved. Hence it does not act for its own sake, in order to show, and to prove itself, but purely for the sake of the beloved object. For the same reason also, it does not demand of the beloved any outward action, any palpable proof of love, but is merely concerned about the communion of souls, about their union in life and action. Nay, in its full strength and undimmed purity-such as we see in Cordelia, after her banishment-it does not even demand love in return, but rejoices in it only when it is a free gift.

This true form of love is, indeed, active in Lear, the substance is there, but it stands in contradiction with its form, and thereby with itself. In consequence of his confounding filial piety with free filial love, Lear not merely demands the love of his children as his due right, but also demands its outward confirmation in word and deed, corresponding with the way and manner in which his own love manifests itself. He values love according to its outward actions, and hence forms a wrong estimate of its entirely inward nature, which, in fact, cannot be estimated. But this apparent fault of the understanding, this confusion of

ideas, is, at the same time, the result of a defect of the heart in wishing not only to be loved, but also to appear to be loved, in order that in the measure of his children's love, and in the greatness of their affection he may, as in a mirror, behold and enjoy the greatness and worth of his own person. His love, consequently, is not pure and unconditional, for it is conferred conditionally only, that is, on condition of love in return and its outward testimony; it is not free and spontaneous, for it is not merely a direct feeling, but is reflected in itself, places the value on itself. Thus it becomes, either weakly, sensitive to every rude touch, and unable to bear frankness and truth, or it becomes pretentious, and as virtue becomes a vice through pride of virtue, so Lear's love, owing to its demands is, at the same time, egotism; in giving itself up, it at the same time withholds itself; thirsting for and greedy of love, it is, at the same time, selfish, and filled with hate. This inner contradiction, this unconscious and yet actual cause of the discord in the nature of Lear's paternal love, is the ethical foundation upon which the action is raised. The object and aim of the dramatic action is to solve this contradiction, to conciliate the old man's love with itself, to purify and to restore his disturbed state as a father and king, in an ideal form.

A firm, a sincerely affectionate family bond, embracing equally all members, is a matter of impossibility with such a species of paternal love. A love like this, which demands love and external proofs of love, calls forth a contradiction in the love on the other side, while it bears and fosters a contradiction within itself. In its selfishness it either produces egotism, and, in its untruth, calls forth hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness, or it drives the true love on the other side, back into its inmost self, and leads it to resist all external proofs, in sharp opposition to the false and unreal love. The contradiction in Lear's paternal love, therefore, produces in his children also an external separation; in Regan and Goneril we find selfishness and falsehood, in Cordelia a pure, frank, sincero, but silent and retiring love, sharply and distinctly prominent. Thus Lear's paternal love, in place of calling forth the uniting bond of family life, rather

itself produces the discord. The relation between father and daughters is not broken for the first time on the occasion of the division of the kingdom, it had already been internally destroyed by Lear's own conduct, by the peculiar nature of his love; it is he who has not fastened the bond in its right place, it is tied merely by external relations and considerations; when these break down it unavoidably falls to pieces. This not only points to, but actually determines the tragic fate of the hero and the complication of the main action; for all that follows is but the necessary consequence of the destruction of the family bond. Thereby, however, Lear himself appears the first cause of the whole tragic complication, he himself is to blame for his fate, himself to blame for his children's doings and sufferings; he falls owing to the one-sidedness, the errors and contradictions in his own loving heart.

But as Shakspeare is fond of conceiving and working out his theme from different points, in order to exhaust it as completely as possible, so, in the present case, he is not satisfied with. exhibiting the leading thought merely in the fortunes of the king and his family. He takes the same subject again from another point of view. In the same way as the poetical, passionate ardour of Romeo which hurries all before it, is placed in contrast with the cool, prosaic affection of Count Paris, as the pure and genuine marriage of Othello and Desdemona is contrasted with the ill-conditioned union of Iago and Emilia, so the story of King Lear and his daughters proceeds hand in hand with the similar, and yet very different story of Gloster and his sons. The poet wishes to show us that the moral corruption is not only a single case, but that it has affected the noblest families, the representatives of all the others, and hence, to judge from its nature and origin, a universal state of corruption; that, moreover, for this very reason the idea of the drama, the tragic view of life which it is intended to represent, is a generally applicable onei.e., that unsteadiness and disorder in family life, in whichever form it may appear, is invariably followed by misfortune and ruin. While in the case of King Lear this perverse and in itself unreal affection avenges itself