His sufferings, like Lear's, are partly
traceable to his own extreme folly and injustice, and, it may be added,
to a selfish pursuit of his own pleasure.[164] His sufferings, again,
like Lear's, purify and enlighten him: he dies a better and wiser man
than he showed himself at first. They even learn the same lesson, and
Gloster's repetition (noticed and blamed by Johnson) of the thought in a
famous speech of Lear's is surely intentional.[165] And, finally,
Gloster dies almost as Lear dies. Edgar reveals himself to him and asks
his blessing (as Cordelia asks Lear's):
but his flaw'd heart--
Alack, too weak the conflict to support--
'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.
So far, the resemblance of the two stories, and also of the ways in
which their painful effect is modified, is curiously close. And in
character too Gloster is, like his master, affectionate,[166] credulous
and hasty. But otherwise he is sharply contrasted with the tragic Lear,
who is a towering figure, every inch a king,[167] while Gloster is built
on a much smaller scale, and has infinitely less force and fire. He is,
indeed, a decidedly weak though good-hearted man; and, failing wholly to
support Kent in resisting Lear's original folly and injustice,[168] he
only gradually takes the better part.
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