Well, but Lear owes the
whole of this to those sufferings which made us doubt whether life were
not simply evil, and men like the flies which wanton boys torture for
their sport. Should we not be at least as near the truth if we called
this poem _The Redemption of King Lear_, and declared that the business
of 'the gods' with him was neither to torment him, nor to teach him a
'noble anger,' but to lead him to attain through apparently hopeless
failure the very end and aim of life? One can believe that Shakespeare
had been tempted at times to feel misanthropy and despair, but it is
quite impossible that he can have been mastered by such feelings at the
time when he produced this conception.
To dwell on the stages of this process of purification (the word is
Professor Dowden's) is impossible here; and there are scenes, such as
that of the meeting of Lear and Cordelia, which it seems almost a
profanity to touch.[159] But I will refer to two scenes which may remind
us more in detail of some of the points just mentioned. The third and
fourth scenes of Act III. present one of those contrasts which speak as
eloquently even as Shakespeare's words, and which were made possible in
his theatre by the absence of scenery and the consequent absence of
intervals between the scenes.
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