Gloucester Flashcards
Arnold Kettle - AO5
“Gloucester himself is a conventional and blind old man.” He is “hideously punished for his moral laxity”
“His breeding, sir, (…)
(…) hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am braz’d to ‘t” - Gloucester (1:1, 8-10)
AO2: ‘charge’ = Edmunds upbringing has been at Gloucester’s expense.
‘blushed’ shows shame
‘braz’d’ he has gotten used to the shame
AO2: Shows Gloucester’s hamartia and hubris. Takes no responsibility for his own mistakes and provide Edmund with motiavtion.
AO3: This is a legally correct answer - implies Gloucester has done the right thing by Edmund. Suggests he has provided for Edmund at the very least financially and perhaps provided education. During 17th century, illegitimate sons were expected to be provided for financially by the father otherwise they would be provided for and a burden for the parish to carry.
“Though this knave(…)
came something saucily to the world… there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged”
AO2: - “knave + “whoreson” could be used playfully respectively however they also contemptuously evoke Edmund’s condition as inferior and a bastard. “good sport” degrades Edmund’s mum. Gloucester appears insensitive and morally questionable, he openly jokes about Edmund’s precarious situation, which is a result of his own moral failings. Edmund is present in this scene - motivation for malcontent villain?
AO3: ‘good sport’ women were seen as objects rather than people in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Unfaithful women were looked down upon by society and especially if she gave birth to an illegitimate child. The men, however, never seemed to get the blame of impregnating a woman.
AO4: Elements of myopia, hubris and hamartia. Gloucester’s hubris (arrogance) blinds him to own moral failings, instead he feels he has done society a favour by providing for Edmund. He shames Edmund, who is a result of his own mistakes - Does this motivates Edmund to do what he does later on in the play? (hamartia)
“O villain, villain! (…)
Abhorred villain! … unnatural, detested, brutish villain! (…) Abominable villain!” - Gloucester (1;2, 71)
AO2: Gloucester’s burlesque rage parallel’s Lear’s own thoughtless fury. “brutish” foreshadows the fact that Edgar will soon have to live as a brut animal. Dramatic irony as he is speaking to the villain. ‘unnatural’ is significant.
AO4: He asked “where is he?” but he is right in front of him. Gloucester cannot see that Edmund is the villain - myopia.
“O, madam, my old…
heart is crack’d, it’s crack’d!” - Gloucester (2:1, 89 - 95)
AO2: ecphonesis = distress
metaphor +repetition - Shows the extent of his hurt and how much Edgar meant to him.
AO4: Pity
AO5: Reccuring heart motif. In ‘the emotional landscape of King Lear,’ Arthur Kirsch writes “Like Hamlet, King Lear is essentially concerned with the anguish of living in the face of death. It does not look beyond the grave. It focuses instead upon the shattering of the heart and human deterioration.”
AO3: Renaissance Humanism was an intellectual movement of the 15th century when there was a new interest in the classical world and studies which focussed less on religion and more on what it is to be human. Through the recurring motif and metaphor of the shattering of the heart Shakespeare is exploring what it means to be human and to suffer as part of the human experience.
“what! hath your grace…
no better company?” - Gloucester (3:4)
AO2: Dramatic Irony as it’s his son
AO4: Gloucester’s myopia and hubris
Gloucester = relic? part of the old world?
AO5: Arnold Kettle in general - he sums up King Lear a conflict between “those who accept the old order (Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Albany)” and “the new people, the individualists (Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Cornwall).
Paul Delany - MARXIST CRITICISM
Arnold Kettle - “Gloucester himself is a conventional and blind old man.” He is “hideously punished for his moral laxity”
“I’th’last night’s storm I such a fellow saw, …
which made me think a man a worm.” - Gloucester (4:1)
AO2: Animal imagery. Men are metaphorically the lowest of all creatures.
AO3: Links to the great chain of being
AO4: Anagnorisis - parallels Lear
“As flies to wanton boys, …
are we to th’gods: They kill us for their sport.” - Gloucester (4:1, 87)
AO2: Animal imagery + simile comparing humans to the smallest most insignificant creatures, and Gods to undisciplined boys. ‘Sport’ and ‘kill’ - human suffering is just a fun, cruel game to them, encourages us to pity Gloucester and Lear. “kill” foreshadows the death that is to come.
AO3: Juxtaposition: here Gloucester compares the very lowest in the Great Chain of being (flies) to the very highest (gods). This emphasises the gap between Gods and humans and signifies the consequences of defying the natural order.
“Tis times plague when…
madmen lead the blind.” - Gloucester (4:1, 46)
AO2: Ironically when Gloucester was blind he didn’t trust Edgar, but now that he is blind he does.
Metaphorically a social comment by Shakespeare: suggests that the audience is being told that one of the problems of the time is tht those who must trust others to provide them with safe passage in the world are being led by those who do not see the world clearly on iys own state or reality, evene for themselves.
AO3: It means that trouble lies ahead when the blind - who rely on, and trust in, others to lead them - are steered by those who themselves are misguided in their own thoughts and beliefs.
When speaking of politics, it can allune to the general populace blindly putting its faith in a government that is pursuing imprudent or harmful policies. It resonates with modern readers regarding the nature of politics. They may assure the commo
“I see it feelingly”
- Gloucester (4:6, 145)
AO2: Polysemic: Gloucester means both ‘by my sense of touch’ and ‘keenly’.
Irony - Gloucester is more exposed to and understanding of the world without his eyes
AO4: Anagnorisis
Gloucester’s death
Edgar about Gloucester: “his flawed heart… Burst smilingly.” (5:£, 195-198)
AO2: “Burst smilingly” - euphemism/metaphor for a heart attack.
AO4: Pity + Gloucester’s anagnorisis
AO5: In ‘the emotional landscape of King Lear,’ Arthur Kirsch writes “Like Hamlet, King Lear is essentially concerned with the anguish of living in the face of death. It does not look beyond the grave. It focuses instead upon the shattering of the heart and human deterioration.”
Links to Hamlet: In his most famous soliloquy, Hamlet speaks of the ‘heartache’ of human existence: “and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”
AO4: Human suffering links to the tragedy genre.
AO3: Links to the rise of humanism - Humanism is a worldview that does not believe in a divine plan or a cosmic justice for suffering. Humanists think that suffering is a natural part of an evolved world, and that it has logical causes that can be understood and addressed.
Arnold Kettle on Gloucester
“Gloucester himself is a conventional and blind old man.” He is “hideously punished for his moral laxity”
Arnold Kettle in general
he sums up King Lear a conflict between “those who accept the old order (Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Albany)” and “the new people, the individualists (Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Cornwall)
Paul Delany
MARXIST CRITICISM
Paul Delany offers a Marxist approach to King Lear in his essay ‘King Lear and the Decline of Feudalism’ . He suggests that the tragedy is that of a traditional feudal society (represented by Lear and his subjects, who put great store in their beliefs and ceremonies) being challenged by a more modern outlook that is rational and individualistic and has no respect for their values (represented by Edmund, Goneril and Regan). In a sense this social change represents progress, but it also entails the destruction of much that is valuable.
Human experience and state of society
A.C. Bradley
‘Gloucester’s subplot highlights that Lear’s experience is universal’
