Kent Flashcards
Samuel Coleridge - AO5 (Kent)
Complete works of Samuel Coleridge
“His passionate affection for and fidelity to Lear act on our feelings in Lear’s own favour: virtue itself seems to be in company with him”
Arnoid Kettle - AO5 (Kent)
Arnoid Kettle
“Kent has an ultimate failure to cope with the situation - he is unable to hole Lear within the bound of sanity”
“Royal Lear, …
whom I have ever honour’d as my King, Love’d as my father, as my master followe’d.” - Kent (1.1, 138-140)
AO2: Simile describing himself as a son to Lear, triplet. - shows affection and loyalty.
AO4: Lear’s megalopsychia
“The bow is…
bent and drawn; make from the shaft”
- Lear 1:1
“Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart” - Kent’s reply 1:1
AO2: Metaphor - Using a bent bow and shaft as a metaphor to warn off Kent from challenging his decision to Banish Cordelia. Lear tells the Earl that he is very angry and ready to snap. Kent replies that Lear should let his anger fall on him even if it’s sharpness pierces his heart. Kent, as always tries to be Lear’s honest and loyal advisor. Kent expresses his discontent in sharing Lear’s ignorance with him. He realizes that the arrow must fall or the truth must be unleashed but saying it still hurts him greatly.
There also seems to be another implied meaning in this exchange. Lear insists that Kent must get out of the way of the arrow, implying that Kent is shielding Lear from something he knows he does not want to hear, we begin to understand the extent of Kent’s loyalty. It is difficult for him to express his concerns to Lear because he wishes to protect him from his won ignorance. Kent decides that when Lear is mad or crazy he must disregard his manners.
AO4: recurring motif of “heart” has links to tragedy and human suffering
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.”
“And in thy best consideration, …
check this hideous rashness” - Kent (1:1, 149-150)
AO2 - ‘check’ = imperative, probable hyperbole, his words foreshadows Lear’s later lunacy. Voicing the audience.
“See better, Lear; and…
let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye.” - Kent (1:1, 153)
AO2: Kent’s metaphor of a ‘blank’ - meaning the centre of a target - asks us to imagine a weapon aimed at an eye, so this is foreshadowing Gloucester’s blinding.
AO4: Kent urges Lear to see better, since the king has been blinded (myopia) by stubbornness and pride (hubris).
“hundred-pound, filthy…
worsted-stocking knave” - Kent to Oswald (2:2, 14-15)
AO2: ‘worsted-stocking’ = wearing stockings made out of cheap woollen material; a gentleman’s stocking were made of silk.
AO3: Direct reference to James I “hundred-pound” = cheap. The expression can carry this meaning only because James I sold knighthoods for a hundred pounds.
People bought into position.
AO1: Kent = Relic?
“Such smiling rogues as…
these, Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain which are too intrince t’unloose” (2:2, 69 - 71)
AO2: Simile ‘like rats’ - aimed at many of the people in the audience.
AO3: ‘holy cords a-twain’ - Refers to the top of the chain i.e. Gods. People lower down on the chain of being are trying to break the natural bonds and move upwards. Kent is criticing them for this, syaing it is not possible and they belong at the bottom. Their place is fixed.
Kent = relic?
Kent is put in the stocks
2:2
AO2: Visual metaphor for decline in status
AO3: Punishment for common thieves
AO4: Lear’s fall in status
“Fortune, good night; smile…
once more; turn thy wheel!” - Kent (2:2, 168)
AO2: Metaphor + foreshadowing
AO4: Moment before Lear’s peripeteia, the unfolding of tragic events speed up after this line - the wheel has been turned, building momentum.
AO3: Medieval philosophy: everyone has their assigned place and even though it turns everyone should end up in the same place. Fortune: The goddess fortune was depicted with a wheel, whose turning brought good or bad luck.
“Break, heart;
I prithee, break!” - Kent (5:3, 312)
AO2: Recurring motif of heart. The metaphor and dramatization of the heart in central to KL
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.
Kent’s last line
“I have a journey sire, shortly to go; My master calls me, I must not say no.” (5:3)
AO2: “journey” is ambiguous but it can be inferred as a euphemism/metaphor for Kent following Lear into death. Rhyming couplet imitates the immediacy of his call/fate.
AO5:
- Marxist Criticism: Paul Delany suggests that the tragedy is that of a traditional feudal society (represented by Lear and his subjects) being challenged by a more modern outlook that is rational and individualistic (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.
- Kent is arguably a representative of the hierarchy that Lear has destroyed - a relic. The world has moved on and Kent now has no place in it, perhaps this is why Shakespeare kills him off.
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.
