King Lear Critical Essays
Grace, Consequences, and Christianity in King Lear
• Cordelia’s death casts such a dark shadow over the plays ending some critics refuse to accept her death as
having any final redemption purposes. It is difficult to understand how a story so dark can have Christian
themes
• Cordelia is innocent but her unconditional love prompted her to pay for her father’s sin. The idea that an
innocent person dies for a guilty person is fundamentally unfair yet it is also the foundation of Christianity
• Shakespeare uses Cordelia’s death as a lesson for the reality of sin. Despite his salvation and forgiveness from
the eternal effects of sin, Lear still suffers the earthly effects
• ‘Christian truths offer meaningful reasons for an otherwise meaningless death’
Lear, Cordelia, and the Cross
• Cordelia embodies truth, Lear embodies power. Truth and power as Jesus learned in the wilderness, are
mutually exclusive and hostile kingdoms
• A key theme is seeing, eyes and vision. This has biblical connotations as Jesus healed the blind
• Edgar’s loyalty, his persistence in returning good for evil, his preachments to his father against the sin of
despair are resonate with Christian themes
• King Lear is a story of redemptive suffering – it is only through purgatorial suffering that ear comes to
understand the nature of struggle
• When the banished Kent returns, there are parallels with the resurrection and ‘I have a journey sir, shortly to
go, my master calls me, I must not say no’ reflects the Ascension
Sin, Punishment, and Redemption in King Lear
• The sin: Lear is an arrogant and self-centered king who welcomes poisoned flattery but interprets well-
intended criticism as treason. Gloucester wronged his virtuous son
• The punishment: Regan is poisoned, Goneril commits suicide, Lear suffers in the storm and Gloucester is
blinded
• The redemption: Lear learns the truth and discovers himself through his suffering. He begins to pray for the
poor and sympathise with the Fool. He attempts to kneel before Cordelia – a sign of true repentance.
Gloucester achieves spiritual vision despite being blind. Cordelia dies for justice like Jesus. Edgar is rescued
by God for his universal love. Edmund repents just as the criminal on the cross did – he will be saved and go to
heaven
King Lear and the Problem of the Word
• The emphasis upon speech and the importance of language is evident from the beginning of the play when
Lear’s daughters are forced to speak their love for him
• Cordelia’s decision is based not on a lack of verbal skill but more because she values truth and honesty of
feeling more than the eloquence of language
• The individual is required to have control over the speech because using it wrong can cause punishment,
banishment or torture
• Cordelia’s tears express more genuine emotion that the long complex speech of her sisters. Lear’s language
deteriorated in the play, this is symbolic of the collapse of his kingdom, family, and sanity
• In the course of the play, true emotion, communication, and truth are forced underground by false words
• ‘failure of speech is intimately linked to strong emotion’
• ‘words can never bear the true weight of love’
Sovereignty and Subversion in King Lear
• James I set out the doctrine of the divine right of kings
• Madness paradoxically empowers Lear to understand things as they really are. Gloucester’s blindness allows
him to see with profound compassion the victims of poverty and oppression
Grace, Consequences, and Christianity in King Lear
• Cordelia’s death casts such a dark shadow over the plays ending some critics refuse to accept her death as
having any final redemption purposes. It is difficult to understand how a story so dark can have Christian
themes
• Cordelia is innocent but her unconditional love prompted her to pay for her father’s sin. The idea that an
innocent person dies for a guilty person is fundamentally unfair yet it is also the foundation of Christianity
• Shakespeare uses Cordelia’s death as a lesson for the reality of sin. Despite his salvation and forgiveness from
the eternal effects of sin, Lear still suffers the earthly effects
• ‘Christian truths offer meaningful reasons for an otherwise meaningless death’
Lear, Cordelia, and the Cross
• Cordelia embodies truth, Lear embodies power. Truth and power as Jesus learned in the wilderness, are
mutually exclusive and hostile kingdoms
• A key theme is seeing, eyes and vision. This has biblical connotations as Jesus healed the blind
• Edgar’s loyalty, his persistence in returning good for evil, his preachments to his father against the sin of
despair are resonate with Christian themes
• King Lear is a story of redemptive suffering – it is only through purgatorial suffering that ear comes to
understand the nature of struggle
• When the banished Kent returns, there are parallels with the resurrection and ‘I have a journey sir, shortly to
go, my master calls me, I must not say no’ reflects the Ascension
Sin, Punishment, and Redemption in King Lear
• The sin: Lear is an arrogant and self-centered king who welcomes poisoned flattery but interprets well-
intended criticism as treason. Gloucester wronged his virtuous son
• The punishment: Regan is poisoned, Goneril commits suicide, Lear suffers in the storm and Gloucester is
blinded
• The redemption: Lear learns the truth and discovers himself through his suffering. He begins to pray for the
poor and sympathise with the Fool. He attempts to kneel before Cordelia – a sign of true repentance.
Gloucester achieves spiritual vision despite being blind. Cordelia dies for justice like Jesus. Edgar is rescued
by God for his universal love. Edmund repents just as the criminal on the cross did – he will be saved and go to
heaven
King Lear and the Problem of the Word
• The emphasis upon speech and the importance of language is evident from the beginning of the play when
Lear’s daughters are forced to speak their love for him
• Cordelia’s decision is based not on a lack of verbal skill but more because she values truth and honesty of
feeling more than the eloquence of language
• The individual is required to have control over the speech because using it wrong can cause punishment,
banishment or torture
• Cordelia’s tears express more genuine emotion that the long complex speech of her sisters. Lear’s language
deteriorated in the play, this is symbolic of the collapse of his kingdom, family, and sanity
• In the course of the play, true emotion, communication, and truth are forced underground by false words
• ‘failure of speech is intimately linked to strong emotion’
• ‘words can never bear the true weight of love’
Sovereignty and Subversion in King Lear
• James I set out the doctrine of the divine right of kings
• Madness paradoxically empowers Lear to understand things as they really are. Gloucester’s blindness allows
him to see with profound compassion the victims of poverty and oppression
