We who know the happy ingenuousness of his youth
undimmed by doubts of man or suspicions of woman, cannot help
sympathizing with him when we see him cheated and betrayed, drinking the
bitter cup of disillusion to the dregs. In "Lear" the angry brooding
leads to madness; and it is only fitting that the keynote of the
tragedy, struck again and again, should be the cry.
"O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven!
Keep me in temper: I would not be mad."
"Lear" is the first attempt in all literature to paint madness, and not
the worst attempt.
In "Lear," Shakespeare was intent on expressing his own disillusion and
naked misery. How blind Lear must have been, says Tolstoi; how
incredibly foolish not to know his daughters better after living with
them for twenty years; but this is just what Shakespeare wishes to
express: How blind I was, he cries to us, how inconceivably trusting and
foolish! How could I have imagined that a young noble would be grateful,
or a wanton true? "Lear" is a page of Shakespeare's autobiography, and
the faults of it are the stains of his blistering tears.
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