The awkward message of Shakespeare for baby boomers
The awkward message of Shakespeare for baby boomers
The academic A.C. Bradley issued a magisterial trial in 1904: "King Lear" is Shakespeare's less popular work, but also his greatest.
I have taught Shakespeare to college students for many years, and I can attest that "Lear" is both hard to like and a deep work of genius. But unlike Bradley, who attributes the problem to technical performance problems, he said the play was "too big for the stage." I think his unpopularity is a function of demography. Viewers and readers can understand it only once they are over 60, and by that time they may not like what they have to say.
In the opening scene, Lear decides to renounce the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He only asks that each one tell him how much she loves him before he gives her his gift. For my students, this scene seems ridiculous. Why would a father make such a demand for his children? Why would you want them to express their love in such an artificial way?
But for someone older, the demand makes more sense. It reflects Lear's suspicion that his children no longer need him as they did before, and that his love, rooted in the weakness and dependence of his childhood, may have evaporated. His decision to give his daughters the kingdom could arise from a desire to recover the love he fears he has already lost.
It may seem stupid that Lear aggravates his vulnerability by giving away the only leverage he has left. However, I believe that most parents would find their actions understandable. It is precisely when we do not feel loved when we need more peace of mind and, therefore, are more likely to behave irrationally. This is also the reason why Lear believes the false expressions of love of his older daughters, Goneril and Regan, while he expels his youngest daughter, Cordelia, who really loves him but refuses to flatter him.
Few people are as gullible as Lear or have children as exploitative as Goneril and Regan. But Cordelia seems to me a relatable case. She was Lear's favorite, and he felt more confident in his devotion. However, when she was pushed by her father to express her love, she simply explains that she loves him "according to my bond, no more, no less," and that part of her affection will be directed to her husband once he marries her. This honest answer, perhaps excessively honest, makes Lear furious, and he scolds Cordelia: "You had better not have been born before I was better pleased."
The line must resonate for many parents who invest so much in their children just so they do not show enough gratitude or, even worse, respond with resentment. This is the great replica of fatherhood, and Lear is beaten by her on two fronts: first with Cordelia's silent response, and then with the cruelty of her other daughters once they no longer need him. In the first case, Lear is presumptuous and entitled; in the second it is, as he says, "more sin against sin".
If "King Lear" is a lesson about the unexpected results of parenting, it also dramatizes the vicissitudes of retirement. It captures the existential abyss that can be opened when an identity that was once solid begins to melt, and purpose gives way to lack of purpose. Lear is deprived of his retinue and thrown into a storm, reduced to his most elemental self: a "poor animal naked and forked". Baby boomers, aged in the middle of a technological landscape that changes at a dizzying speed, we must sympathize. We also face a storm that can make even the most successful among us feel lost and diminished.
Lear is enraged at the ingratitude of his daughters and the collapse of his real identity, but these are, ultimately, substitutes for a larger antagonist. Now on the descending curve of life, Lear confronts the reality of death. The spectators and readers of the play can understand this only when we reach the age when death, previously hidden by the disorder of ambition and the upbringing of children, is revealed.
At that time, "King Lear" advises us to moderate our expectations and our sense of right with respect to our children, to accept a diminished professional identity as we grow older and to be philosophical in the face of our inevitable mortality. These are deep but not joyful messages, so "Lear" is both a great job and an unpopular one.
Ms. Cohen is a senior and English teacher at Drexel University.
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