'The Redemption of King Lear'

Abstract

The title of paper is a quotation from A. C. Bradley's lecture on Lear: Should we, he asked, call this poem The Redemption of Lean! Bradley was not alone in detecting an underlying thread of Christian imagery in a play which Shakespeare, working largely from a Christian version of old story, seemed resolute to express in overtly pagan terms. J. C. Maxwell wrote: King Lear is a Christian play about a pagan world.2 Shakespeare's principal source, The True Chronicle Historie of Leir and his three daughters, was a play set in Britain, ruled by a Christian king. In Lear, there is no direct indication that king and his entourage are Christians; on contrary, king swears by Jupiter, and there are several references to the gods. But Shakespeare appears to have made a double move, first reverting from Christian Leir of The True Chronicle to pagan king of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Holinshed, and then underpinning his paganized court with both Christian accretions on Arthurian romance legends (which I have examined elsewhere3) and scenic forms from mystery plays. This last line of imagery, combined with biblical references, formed a pattern used by Shakespeare in two previous tragedies, Hamlet and Othello; in Lear Shakespeare's characters are not Christians, but as action of play intensifies, they find themselves acting in scenic forms from Christian story, whether or not they are supposed to be living before that time, as they are before Merlin's. The scene of division of kingdom goes far back in legend and leaves way open for multiple parallels. The