When I am
feeling that it is greater than any of these, and the fullest revelation
of Shakespeare's power, I find I am not regarding it simply as a drama,
but am grouping it in my mind with works like the _Prometheus Vinctus_
and the _Divine Comedy_, and even with the greatest symphonies of
Beethoven and the statues in the Medici Chapel.
This two-fold character of the play is to some extent illustrated by the
affinities and the probable chronological position of _King Lear_. It is
allied with two tragedies, _Othello_ and _Timon of Athens_; and these
two tragedies are utterly unlike.[123] _Othello_ was probably composed
about 1604, and _King Lear_ about 1605; and though there is a somewhat
marked change in style and versification, there are obvious resemblances
between the two. The most important have been touched on already: these
are the most painful and the most pathetic of the four tragedies, those
in which evil appears in its coldest and most inhuman forms, and those
which exclude the supernatural from the action. But there is also in
_King Lear_ a good deal which sounds like an echo of _Othello_,--a fact
which should not surprise us, since there are other instances where the
matter of a play seems to go on working in Shakespeare's mind and
re-appears, generally in a weaker form, in his next play.
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