Apr 23: Just a fun evening with King Lear

Nothing chases the taste of Kant from your mouth like King Lear! One thing I notice about Shakespeare, when you haven't been spending much time with him, is that he's not afraid of being so over-the-top that the top looks like a little tiny ant. As a modern comedy writer, of course, I lack this lack of fear. When someone is at, or over, the top, my instinct is to say, "Ah, come off it." So, not having this boldness, I do admire it. Lear goes crazy, and Shakespeare takes the time to tell some political truths about The Way It Is:

Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sins with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

Take that, Wall Street Journal editorial page! But, unlike a lesser writer, he gets off it right away (not before having one of his other characters mention how reasonable Lear is, all of a sudden.)

And, of course, Lear kind of has to be that over-the-top, because how otherwise is he worthy of Cordelia? The Lear we see in the play is stupid and shitty, yet, because he goes wrong greatly, we understand that he had, or has, greatness in him; and Cordelia loves him for that. Cordelia is immensely appealing because, underneath our own robes and furr'd gowns, we understand ourselves to be pretty shitty and stupid also; yet, under that, we hope we have some goodness, and a Cordelia to believe in it. No wonder it was hard to take that (SPOILER ALERT!) they both wind up dead.