page_title: Characters of Shakespear's Plays
section_title: King Lear
hierarchical_section_title: Characters of Shakespear's Plays / Essays / King Lear
context_page_description: Characters of Shakespear's Plays is an 1817 book of criticism of Shakespeare's plays, written by early nineteenth century English essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt. Composed in reaction to the neoclassical approach to Shakespeare's plays typified by Samuel Johnson, it was among the first English-language studies of Shakespeare's plays to follow the manner of German critic August Wilhelm Schlegel, and, with the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, paved the way for the increased appreciation of Shakespeare's genius that was characteristic of later nineteenth-century criticism. It was also the first book to cover all of Shakespeare's plays, intended as a guide for the general reader.
  Then becoming known as a theatre critic, Hazlitt had been focusing increasingly on drama as literature, contributing miscellaneous literary criticism to various journals, including the prestigious Edinburgh Review. This was the first of his book-length literary studies. The plays, the thirty-five that Hazlitt considered to be genuine, are covered in thirty-two chapters, with new material added to passages reworked from periodical articles and reviews.
context_section_description: In the essay on King Lear, which he entitled simply "Lear", Hazlitt makes no references to the performances of any actors. In fact, here he fully agrees with Lamb that King Lear, like Hamlet, cannot be adequately presented on stage. No actors, he felt, could do justice to the overwhelming imaginative power of this play.
  Hazlitt was so deeply affected by this tragedy that he begins the chapter with a regret that he had to write about it at all. "To attempt to give a description of the play itself or its effect upon the mind, is mere impertinence". Yet what he did write turned out to be a major piece of literary criticism that contributed to his general concepts about tragedy and poetry, and made a powerful impression on the poet John Keats.
  "The greatest strength of genius", Hazlitt writes, "is shewn in describing the strongest passions". This play takes as its subject the strongest passions, and Shakespeare's genius rose to the occasion. Here, Shakespeare was more "in earnest" than in any of his other creations, and "he was fairly caught in the web of his own imagination". The result was his best tragedy, and therefore his best play.
  Of King Lear in general, Hazlitt writes:
  The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart [...] This depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the elements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and the giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding this prop failing it, the contrast between the fixed, immovable basis of natural affection, and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-places in the soul, this is what Shakespear has given, and what nobody else but he could give.
  Some space is devoted to the psychological scrutiny of the principal characters, but with consideration, also, of their function in the dramatic construct. "The character of Lear" is perfectly conceived for its place in the play, "the only ground on which such a story could be built with the greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, his violent impetuosity, his blindness to every thing but the dictates of his passions or affection, that produces all his misfortunes, that aggravates his impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him."
  Hazlitt then comments on some of the other characters seen not in isolation but as they interact with and affect one another, comparing and contrasting them to highlight subtle differences. For example, the characters of Goneril and Regan, the comparison of which he begins with a note of personal distaste ("they are so thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat their names"), are shown, he points out, partly in their reaction to their sister Cordelia's desire that they treat their father well—"'Prescribe not to us our duties'"—and partly by the contrast of their hypocrisy with the candour of the otherwise evil Edmund.
  Hazlitt lingers briefly on the character of Lear's third daughter, Cordelia, observing, in one of his psychological asides, that "the indiscreet simplicity of her love [...] has a little of her father's obstinacy in it".
  Going beyond specific characters, or even specific interactions among them, Hazlitt delineates what he calls the "logic of passion", the rhythm of emotions in the drama, and its effect on the mind of the reader or viewer. "We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of opposition, its accumulating force when it has had time to recollect itself, the manner in which it avails itself of every passing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, the alternate contraction and dilatation of the soul, and all 'the dazzling fence of controversy' in this mortal combat with poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal." He observes, too, in explaining an instance of what later came to be called comic relief, how when the reader's feelings are strained to the utmost, "just as [...] the fibres of the heart [...] are growing rig
caption: 18th-century depiction of King Lear mourning over his daughter Cordelia
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