The first of these is much the less important; it is the
scene of the blinding of Gloster. The blinding of Gloster on the stage
has been condemned almost universally; and surely with justice, because
the mere physical horror of such a spectacle would in the theatre be a
sensation so violent as to overpower the purely tragic emotions, and
therefore the spectacle would seem revolting or shocking. But it is
otherwise in reading. For mere imagination the physical horror, though
not lost, is so far deadened that it can do its duty as a stimulus to
pity, and to that appalled dismay at the extremity of human cruelty
which it is of the essence of the tragedy to excite. Thus the blinding
of Gloster belongs rightly to _King Lear_ in its proper world of
imagination; it is a blot upon _King Lear_ as a stage-play.
But what are we to say of the second and far more important passage, the
conclusion of the tragedy, the 'unhappy ending,' as it is called, though
the word 'unhappy' sounds almost ironical in its weakness? Is this too a
blot upon _King Lear_ as a stage-play? The question is not so easily
answered as might appear. Doubtless we are right when we turn with
disgust from Tate's sentimental alterations, from his marriage of Edgar
and Cordelia, and from that cheap moral which every one of Shakespeare's
tragedies contradicts, 'that Truth and Virtue shall at last succeed.
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