King Lear as a Social Philosophical Tragedy. "Good is evil (" King Lear ")

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The one who decided piece by piece
Distribute your country
He joined the fools
He will match me.

Two round fools:
Alone in a stupid cap
The other is without a cap!
(Translated by S. Marshak.)

The tragedy of W. Shakespeare "King Lear": the problem of the meaning of life, the motive of the test... The image of Cordelia, its moral significance. The image of the jester.

Cordelia, Edgar, Kent, the jester of King Lear constitute the camp of those who have not a vile selfish, but a noble understanding of rights.

However, in his violent downfall, Lear is renewed. Having experienced himself need and deprivation, he began to understand much of what was previously inaccessible to him, began to look differently at his power and life.

Next to the story of Lear and his daughters, the second storyline of the tragedy unfolds - the story of Gloucester and his 2 sons. Like Goneril and Regan, Edmund also rejected all family and family ties, committing even worse atrocities out of ambition and self-interest. By this parallelism, Shakespeare wants to show that the case in the lyre family is common and typical.

"King Lear" is recognized along with "Hamlet" as the pinnacle of the tragic in Shakespeare. The measure of the hero's suffering here surpasses everything that fell to the lot of those whose tragedies were depicted by Shakespeare both before and after this work. But it is not only the strength of tragic tension that distinguishes this drama. She surpasses other Shakespeare's creations in her breadth and truly cosmic scale. Perhaps nowhere was Shakespeare's creative courage manifested with such power as in this creation of his genius. We sense this in the language of tragedy, in Lear's speeches, in poetic images that in boldness surpass everything that we have met so far in Shakespeare. But the boldness and originality of the poetic language is only one of the manifestations of the artist's genius. The image of a storm, a thunderstorm is dominant in the tragedy. Its action is a series of shocks, the strength and scope of which increases with each passing time. First we see a family palace drama, then a drama that engulfed the entire state, finally, the conflict spills over the borders of the country and the fate of the heroes is decided in the war of two powerful kingdoms.

Such upheavals should have been brewing for a long time. But we do not see how the clouds were gathering. A thunderstorm arises immediately, from the very first scene of the tragedy, when Lear curses the youngest daughter and expels her, and then the outbursts of a whirlwind - a whirlwind of human passions - engulf all the actors and a terrible picture of the world appears in death, and in it they spare neither father, nor brother, nor sister, nor husband, nor old gray hair, nor blooming youth.

The participants in the tragedy occupy a high position in the state hierarchy. The struggle between them could be limited to conflicts of a moral and political nature, as in the chronicles of Shakespeare. And this could all the more be so, for the plot about Lear was included by Holinshed in his chronicle of the historical fate of England. The criticism included attempts to interpret the tragedy from the point of view of political morality. The reason for Lear's misfortunes was explained by the fact that he wanted to turn the wheel of history back by dividing a single centralized state between two rulers. As proof, a parallel was drawn between "King Lear" and the first English Renaissance tragedy "Gorboduk", the political moral of which really consisted in the affirmation of the idea of \u200b\u200bstate unity.

There is this motive in Shakespeare's tragedy, but it is pushed aside. Shakespeare wrote not about the division of the country, but about the division of society. The state-political theme is subordinated to a broader concept. Nor is it a family drama like the anonymous pre-Shakespearean drama about King Lear and his daughters. The topic of the ingratitude of children plays an important role in Shakespeare as well. But it only serves as an impetus for the development of the plot. "King Lear" is a socio-philosophical tragedy. Its theme is not only family relations, not only state orders, but the nature of social relations in general. The essence of a person, his place of life and his value in society - that's what this tragedy is about.

In "King Lear" - the tragedy of chaos that engulfed an entire society.

Although all the characters in "King Lear" possess feudal titles and titles, nevertheless the society depicted in the tragedy is not medieval. The feudal guise hides an individualistic interior. At the same time, as in other works of Shakespeare, the new self-consciousness of the personality has two clearly expressed directions in the characters of the tragedy. One group of characters consists of those in whom individualism is combined with predatory egoism. First of all, these are Goneril, Regan, Cornwell and Edmond. Edmond acts as an exponent of the philosophy of life, which is guided by all people of this kind.

Events complicated the jester's behavior. Instead of palace halls, he found himself in the steppe; its once powerful master is now a beggar exile. But this did not change the attitude of the jester to Lear: he was sincerely attached to him and, despite all the changes in the life of the old king, continued to serve him just as honestly.

He tried to continue to fulfill his duties, and to serve was to amuse him. But knocked out of his usual life, exhausted by hardships, he joked in a new way: the smile imperceptibly for him became a grimace of grief, the fun was saturated with bitterness. But he didn't stop fooling around; like a military man who is no longer able to walk in a civilian gait, although he retired, the jester could not forget how to be a jester. His complaints turned into puns, his grief involuntarily manifested itself in clown antics.

The jester has his own life story, a human character. However, the content of the role is not limited to this.

Poetic generalization is inextricably linked with real features. It is associated with folk art dedicated to the satirical glorification of Folly and Madness. The jester is their plenipotentiary on stage, who accompanies what is happening with his notes. He looks around the events with the glance of a true sage: when everyone has their brains on one side, the only smart one who is considered the most stupid. The jester is not only the king's entertainer, but also the clown philosopher, the bitter sage of the age of universal madness.

Everyone is well aware of his cap and stupid rattle. As soon as he appears, we already know who he is and what he is. He is not only one of the participants in dramatic events, but also an image that exists outside the play, known to everyone from childhood. It has already been depicted many times how he pestered with his rattle to kings, the rich, even to death itself. The viewer is used to perceiving a familiar figure both as a person and as an allegory.

The jester is intricately connected with Lear not only through life relationships, but also through poetic interaction. The properties of one object are revealed by comparison with another: in externally dissimilar phenomena, an internal similarity is revealed.

The jester amuses the king and brings out the meaning of his actions. The fool accompanies the king if the king behaves like a fool. The court buffoon becomes like the shadow of the king. Only donkey ears have grown to the shadow. The clown follows the king, but also follows with him. evil memory of the absurdities committed by the king. None of this resembles immovable definitions of symbols. The poetic idea develops, new connections appear, new sides of reality are revealed.

A shadow is not only cast by the figure of a person, but also enters into a kind of relationship with it. The man laughs, listening to the jokes of his own shadow. Time passes, the person stops laughing. The shadow told him what he had already begun to guess, but what else he was afraid to admit, even to himself. This is no longer a shadow, but a conscience. The fool spoke with the king's secret thoughts.

The jester does not part with Lear, not only because he is devoted to him. The fool accompanies the king because the king acted like a fool:

The one who decided piece by piece
Distribute your country
He joined the fools
He will match me.
We stand with him hand to hand -
Two round fools:
Alone in a stupid cap
The other is without a cap!
(Translated by S. Marshak.)

The Jester smothers stage existence in the third act. He disappears without a trace, and neither his final words, nor the speeches of other characters make it possible to understand the reasons for the disappearance of one of the main characters in the middle of the play.

In King Lear, family relations are closely intertwined with social and political issues. In these three plans one and the same theme of the clash of pure humanity with heartlessness, self-interest and ambition takes place. Lear at the beginning of the tragedy is a king of the medieval type, like Richard II, intoxicated with the illusion of his omnipotence, blind to the needs of his people, disposing of the country as his personal estate, which he can divide and give away as he pleases. From everyone around him, even from his daughters, he demands only blind obedience instead of sincerity. His dogmatic and scholastic mind requires not a truthful and direct expression of feelings, but external, conventional signs of obedience. This is used by his two eldest daughters, hypocritically assuring him of their love. They are opposed by Cordelia, who knows only one law - the law of truth and naturalness. But Lear is deaf to the voice of truth, and for this he suffers severe punishment. His illusions of the king's father and man are dispelled. However, in his cruel downfall, Lear is renewed. Having experienced myself the need for deprivation, he began to understand much of what was previously inaccessible to him, and began to look differently at his power, life, humanity. He thought about the "unfortunate, naked poor", "homeless, with a hungry belly, in a leaky rags" who, like him, are forced to fight the storm on that terrible night (Act III, Scene 4). The monstrous injustice of the system that he supported became clear to him. In this reincarnation of Lear is the whole meaning of his fall and suffering.

Alongside the story of Lear and his daughters, the second storyline of the tragedy unfolds - the story of Gloucester and his two sons. Like Goneril and Regan, Edmund also rejected all family and family ties, committing even worse atrocities out of ambition and self-interest. With this parallelism, Shakespeare wants to show that the incident in the Lear family is not an isolated one, but a common one, typical of the “spirit of the times”, when, according to Gloucester, “love grows cold, friendship dies, mugs rise against one another, in cities and villages there are strife, in palaces - treason, and the bonds are broken between children and parents. " This is the disintegration of feudal ties, characteristic of the era of primitive accumulation. The dying world of feudalism and the emerging world of capitalism gurtrge "" "confront truth and humanity in this tragedy.

28. The originality of Shakespeare's tragedies. Analysis of Macbeth.

Shakespeare rejects the idealization of man. The person is contradictory. No goodies (other than Kardelia). Time does not tolerate the best (the intrigues of low people reveal contradictions in good heroes). A person in a crazy world (a person in a mind - crazy actions; a crazy person - insight). Mannerism style - flashy contrasts, contradictions that cannot be resolved. Each of the heroes has a rich nature. The heroes of Shakespeare's tragedies are extraordinary people, endowed with titanic spiritual powers. They may be delusional, make mistakes, but they are always interesting. They have such human qualities that cannot fail to attract attention. Shakespeare tries not to make any moral assessments - Shakespeare urges us to come closer to understanding human nature. In most tragedies written in adulthood, evil triumphs. Outwardly, it can fail. Man is far from perfect. The gaze is always at people significant, interesting, energetic, strong-willed. Shakespeare's understanding of man: man, personality, in all its diversity. Macbeth understands the difference between good and evil. He realizes that by committing murder, he is violating the moral laws in which he believes. Having committed murder, Macbeth loses his peace forever: he ceases to believe others, suspicions take possession of him. He achieved power, but deprived himself of the opportunity to enjoy it. The tragedy of Macbeth is that he, once a wonderful and noble man, a true hero in his personal qualities, fell under the influence of bad passion and lust for power pushed him into many insidious crimes. But Macbeth does not fight to the end, does not give up, even when everyone is against him, for the hero's soul lives in him to the end, albeit stained by his bloody crimes. Macbeth is a talented commander, strong-willed and unbending man, fearless in battle, cruel and at the same time mentally subtle in everything that concerns himself. W. Shakespeare creates the tragedy Macbeth, the protagonist of which is such a person. The tragedy was written in 1606. "Macbeth" is the shortest of the tragedies of William Shakespeare - it contains only 1993 lines. Its plot is borrowed from History of Britain. But its brevity did not in the least affect the artistic and compositional merits of the tragedy. In this work, the author raises the question of the destructive influence of one-man power and, in particular, the struggle for power, which turns the brave Macbeth, a valiant and glorified hero, into a villain hated by all. Even stronger sounds in this tragedy W. Shakespeare's constant theme is the theme of just retribution. Just retribution falls upon criminals and villains - a mandatory law of Shakespeare's drama, a kind of manifestation of his optimism. His best heroes die often, but villains and criminals always die. In Macbeth, this law is especially evident. W. Shakespeare in all his works pays special attention to the analysis of both man and society - separately, and in their direct interaction. The conflict in Macbeth is that two worldviews fought in him. On the one hand, a person serves himself, but on the other, he and a member of society who serves him.

How was King Lear created by William Shakespeare? The great playwright borrowed the plot from the medieval epic. One of the stories tells about the king, who divided his possessions between the eldest daughters and left the youngest without an inheritance. Shakespeare put a simple story in a poetic form, added a few details, an original storyline, and introduced a couple of additional characters. It turned out to be one of the greatest tragedies of world literature.

History of creation

Shakespeare was inspired by a medieval legend to write King Lear. But the history of this legend begins in ancient times. Around the 14th century, the legend was translated from Latin into English. Shakespeare wrote his tragedy in 1606. It is known that at the end of the 16th century in one of the British theaters the premiere of the play "The Tragic Story of King Lear" took place. Some researchers believe that this is the work of Shakespeare, which he later renamed.

One way or another, the name of the author who wrote the tragedy at the end of the 16th century is unknown. However, according to some historical sources, Shakespeare completed work on King Lear in 1606. It was then that the first performance took place.

Section of inheritance.
In exile.
War.
Death of Lear.

Inheritance section

The main character is a king who is tired of ruling. He decided to retire, but first he should hand over the reins of government to the children. King Lear has three daughters. How do you divide ownership between them? The main character makes, as it seems to him, a wise decision. He is going to bequeath to each of his daughters a possession commensurate with her love, that is, the one who loves him the most, will get most of the kingdom.

The older daughters begin to compete in flattery. The youngest, Cordelia, refuses to be hypocritical and declares that love needs no proof. Foolish Lear is angry. He drives Cordelia out of the court, and divides the kingdom between the eldest daughters. Earl of Kent, who tried to intercede for his youngest daughter, also finds himself in disgrace.

Time passes, King Lear realizes that he made a terrible mistake. The daughters' attitude is changing dramatically. They are no longer as courteous to their father as they used to be. In addition, a political conflict is brewing in the kingdom, which also upsets Lear a lot.

In exile

The daughters drive away their father in the same way as he once drove away Cordelia. Accompanied by the jester, Lear sets out for the steppe. Here he meets Kent, Gloucester and Edgar. The last two characters are absent from British legend, they are characters created by Shakespeare. Meanwhile, the ungrateful daughters devise a plan to eliminate their father. In addition to the main storyline, there is another one in Shakespeare's tragedy - the story of Gloucester and his son Edgar, who diligently portrays himself as a madman.

War

Cordelia learns how cruel the sisters treated their father. She gathers an army and leads him to the kingdom of the sisters. The battle begins. King Lear and his youngest daughter are taken prisoner. Suddenly, Edmund appears - the illegitimate son of Gloucester, whom the author mentions at the beginning of the tragedy. He is trying to orchestrate the murder of Cordelia and her father. But he manages to carry out only part of the plan, namely, to kill the youngest daughter of Lear. Edmund then dies in a duel with his brother Edgar.

Death of Lear

All of King Lear's daughters die in the finale. The eldest kills the middle one and then commits suicide. Cordelia is strangled to death in prison. King Lear is released and dies of grief. By the way, Gloucester also dies. Edgar and Kent remain alive. The latter also does not feel love for life, but thanks to the persuasion of the Duke of Albania, he abandons the idea of \u200b\u200bstabbing himself with a dagger.

Shakespeare's tragedies. Features of the conflict in the tragedies of Shakespeare (King Lear, Macbeth). Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his literary career. One of his first plays was the Roman tragedy "Titus Andronicus", a few years later the play "Romeo and Juliet" appeared. However, the most famous tragedies of Shakespeare were written during the seven years of 1601-1608. During this period, four great tragedies were created - "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear" and "Macbeth", as well as "Antony and Cleopatra" and lesser-known plays - "Timon of Athens" and "Troilus and Cressida". Many researchers have associated these plays with the Aristotelian attitudes of the genre: the main character should be an outstanding, but not devoid of vice, person, and the audience should feel certain sympathy for him. All tragic protagonists in Shakespeare have the ability for both good and evil. The playwright follows the doctrine of free will: the (anti) hero is always given the opportunity to extricate himself from the situation and atone for sins. However, he does not notice this possibility and goes towards fate.

Features of the conflict in the tragedies of Shakespeare.

Tragedies are the creative core of Shakespeare's legacy. They express the power of his genius thought and the essence of his pores, it is precisely for this reason that subsequent eras, if they turned to W. Shakespeare for comparison, primarily through them interpreted their conflicts

The tragedy "King Lear" is one of the most profound socio-psychological works of world drama. It uses several sources: the legend about the fate of British King Lear, told by Holinshed in the Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, according to earlier sources, the story of old Gloucester and his two sons in the pastoral novel by Philip Sydney "Arcadia", some moments in the poem by Edmund Spencer's "Fairy Queen". The plot was known to the English audience, because there was a pre-Shakespearean play "The True Chronicle of King Leir and His Three Daughters," where everything ended happily. In Shakespeare's tragedy, the story of ungrateful and cruel children served as the basis for a psychological, social and philosophical tragedy, painting a picture of injustice, cruelty, and greed that prevail in society. The theme of the antihero (Lear) and the conflict are closely intertwined in this tragedy. A fictional text without conflict is boring and uninteresting to the reader, respectively, without an antihero and a hero is not a hero. Any work of art contains a conflict of "good" and "evil", where "good" is true. The same should be said about the significance of the antihero in the work. A feature of the conflict in this play is its scale. K. from the family develops into a state and already covers two kingdoms.

W. Shakespeare creates the tragedy Macbeth, the protagonist of which is such a person. The tragedy was written in 1606. "Macbeth" is the shortest of the tragedies of William Shakespeare - it contains only 1993 lines. Its plot is borrowed from History of Britain. But its brevity did not in the least affect the artistic and compositional merits of the tragedy. In this work, the author raises the question of the destructive influence of one-man power and, in particular, the struggle for power, which turns the brave Macbeth, a valiant and glorified hero, into a villain hated by all. Even stronger sounds in this tragedy of William Shakespeare, his constant theme - the theme of just retribution. Just retribution falls upon criminals and villains - an obligatory law of Shakespeare's drama, a peculiar manifestation of his optimism. His best heroes die often, but villains and criminals always die. In Macbeth this law is especially evident. W. Shakespeare in all his works pays special attention to the analysis of both man and society - separately, and in their direct interaction. “He analyzes the sensual and spiritual nature of a person, the interaction and struggle of feelings, the diverse mental states of a person in their movements and transitions, the emergence and development of affects and their destructive power. W. Shakespeare focuses on critical and crisis states of consciousness, on the causes of spiritual crisis, causes of external and internal, subjective and objective. And it is precisely this kind of inner conflict of man that constitutes the main theme of the tragedy of Macbeth.

The theme of power and the mirror image of evil. Power is the most attractive thing in an era when the power of gold is not yet fully realized. Power is what, in the era of social cataclysms, which marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, can give a consciousness of confidence and strength, prevent a person from becoming a toy in the hands of capricious fate. For the sake of power, a person then took a risk, an adventure, a crime.

Based on the experience of his era, Shakespeare came to the realization that the terrible power of power destroys people no less than the power of gold. He penetrated into all the bends of the soul of a person who is seized by this passion, which makes him stop at nothing to fulfill his desires. Shakespeare shows how lust for power disfigures a person. If before his hero knew no limit in his courage, now he knows no limit in his ambitious aspirations, which turn the great commander into a criminal tyrant, into a murderer.

Shakespeare gave in Macbeth a philosophical interpretation of the problem of power. The scene is full of deep symbolism where Lady Macbeth notices her bloody hands, from which traces of blood cannot be erased. Here the ideological and artistic design of the tragedy is exposed.

The blood on Lady Macbeth's fingers is the culmination of the development of the main theme of the tragedy. Power is obtained at the cost of blood. The throne of Macbeth is on the blood of the slain king, and it cannot be washed off from his conscience, as well as from the hands of Lady Macbeth. But this particular fact turns into a generalized solution to the problem of power. All power rests on the suffering of the people, Shakespeare wanted to say, referring to the social relations of his era. Knowing the historical experience of the following centuries, these words can be attributed to the proprietary society of all eras. This is the deep meaning of Shakespeare's tragedy. The path to power in bourgeois society is a bloody path. It is not for nothing that commentators and textual critics pointed out that the word "bloody" is used so many times in Macbeth. It, as it were, colors all the events taking place in the tragedy and creates its gloomy atmosphere. And although this tragedy ends with the victory of the forces of light, the triumph of the patriots who raised the people to a bloody despot, the character of the depiction of the era is such that it makes us ask the question: will history repeat itself? Are there any other Macbets? Shakespeare assesses the new bourgeois relations in such a way that there can be only one answer: no political changes will guarantee that the country will not again be surrendered to the rule of despotism.

The real theme of tragedy is the theme of power, not the theme of boundless, unbridled passions. The question of the nature of power is significant in other works as well - in Hamlet, in King Lear, not to mention the chronicles. But there it is woven into a complex system of other social and philosophical problems and was not posed as a cardinal theme of the era. In Macbeth, the problem of power rises to its full extent. It determines the development of an action in a tragedy.

The tragedy of Macbeth is perhaps the only Shakespeare play where evil is all-encompassing. Evil prevails over good. Good seems to be deprived of its all-conquering function, while evil loses its relativity and approaches the absolute. Evil in Shakespeare's tragedy is represented not only and not so much by dark forces, although they are also present in the play in the form of three witches. Evil gradually becomes all-consuming and absolute only when it takes up residence in the soul of Macbeth. It eats away at his mind and soul and destroys his personality. The cause of his death is, first of all, this self-destruction and, secondly, the efforts of Malcolm, Macduff and Siward. Shakespeare examines the anatomy of evil in tragedy, showing the various sides of this phenomenon. First, evil appears to be a phenomenon that is contrary to human nature, which reflects the views on the problem of good and evil of the people of the Renaissance. Evil also appears in tragedy as a force that destroys the natural world order, a person's connection with God, the state and the family. Another property of evil, shown in Macbeth, as well as in Othello, is its ability to influence a person through deception. Thus, evil is all-encompassing in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. It loses its relativity and, prevailing over good - its mirror image, approaches the absolute. The mechanism of the influence of the forces of evil on people in the tragedies of Shakespeare "Othello" and "Macbeth" is deception. “Macbeth” this theme sounds in the main leitmotif of the tragedy: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Evil is all-embracing in the figurative sphere of tragedy, as evidenced by the development of the main leitmotif of the play “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”, the prevalence in tragedies of gloomy, ominous images such as night and darkness, blood, images of nocturnal animals that are symbols of death (raven, owl), images of plants and repulsive animals associated with witchcraft and magic, as well as the presence of visual and auditory images-effects in the play that create an atmosphere of mystery, fear and death. The interaction of images of light and darkness, day and night, as well as natural images reflects the struggle between good and evil in tragedy.

The problem of the Renaissance man or the problem of time in Hamlet. Conflict and the system of images."The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke" or simply "Hamlet" is a five-act tragedy of William Shakespeare, one of his most famous plays, and one of the most famous plays in the world. drama. Written in 1600-1601. It is the longest play by Shakespeare, with 4,042 lines and 29,551 words.

The tragedy is based on the legend of a Danish ruler named Amletus, recorded by the Danish chronicler Saxon Grammaticus in the third book of the Acts of the Danes and is devoted primarily to revenge - in it the protagonist seeks revenge for the death of his father. Some researchers associate the Latin name Amletus with the Icelandic word Amloði (amlóð | i m -a, -ar 1) poor man, unhappy; 2) a hack; 3) fool, fool.

Researchers believe that the plot of the play was borrowed by Shakespeare from the play Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kid.

The most likely date for compositions and first production is 1600-01 (Globe Theater, London). The first performer of the title role is Richard Burbage; Shakespeare played the shadow of Hamlet's father.

The tragedy "Hamlet" was written by Shakespeare during the Renaissance. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe Renaissance was the idea of \u200b\u200bhumanism, humanity, that is, the value of each person, each human life in itself. The Renaissance (Renaissance) era first affirmed the idea that a person has the right to personal choice and personal freedom of will. After all, only the will of God was previously recognized. Another very important idea of \u200b\u200bthe Renaissance was the belief in the great possibilities of the human mind.

Art and literature in the era of the Renaissance emerge from under the unlimited power of the church, its dogmas and censorship, and begin to reflect on the "eternal themes of being": over the mysteries of life and death. For the first time, the problem of choice arises: how to behave in certain situations, what is correct from the point of view of human reason and morality? After all, people are no longer content with ready-made answers to religion.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, became a literary hero of a new generation during the Renaissance. In his person, Shakespeare affirms the Renaissance ideal of a man of a mighty mind, a strong will. Hamlet is able to single-handedly go out to fight evil. The Renaissance hero seeks to change the world, to influence it, and he feels the strength to do it. Before Shakespeare, there were no heroes of this magnitude in literature. Therefore, the story of Hamlet became a "breakthrough" in the ideological content of European literature.

The conflict in the tragedy "Hamlet" occurred between Hamlet and Claudius. The reason for this conflict was that Hamlet was superfluous in society, and Claudius wanted to get rid of him. Hamlet loved the truth too much, and the people around him were liars. This is one of the reasons for Claudius's hatred of Hamlet. After Hamlet learned that Claudius had killed his father, he decided to take revenge. The conflict between Hamlet and Claudius is so strong that it could end only with the death of one of them, but Hamlet is the only just person, and power was on the side of Claudius.

But the desire for justice and grief for the deceased father helped Hamlet gain the upper hand. The cunning and deceitful king was killed.

The central image in Shakespeare's tragedy is the image of Hamlet. From the very beginning of the play, the main goal of Hamlet is clear - revenge for the brutal murder of his father. In accordance with medieval views, this is the duty of a prince, but Hamlet is a humanist, he is a man of modern times and his refined nature does not accept cruel revenge and violence.

The image of Ophelia evokes different emotions in different readers: from indignation through the girl's meekness to sincere sympathy. But fate is also unfavorable to Ophelia: her father Polonius is on the side of Claudius, who is guilty of the death of Hamlet's father and is his desperate enemy. After the death of Hypnoigius, who was killed by Hamlet, a tragic break occurs in the girl's soul, and she is sick. Almost all heroes fall into such a whirlwind: Laert, Claudius (who, seeing his obvious "negativity", still suffers from the reproaches of conscience ...).

Each of the heroes of the work of William Shakespeare is perceived by the reader ambiguously. Even the image of Hamlet can be perceived as a weak person (is it possible that in our modern world, partially brought up on comics and films of dubious quality, does he who does not look like a superhero in the fight against evil seem weak?), But it is possible - as a person of extraordinary intelligence and wisdom in life ... It is impossible to give an unambiguous assessment of Shakespeare's images, but I hope that their understanding is formed over time in the minds of everyone who has read this magnificent work, and will help to give their own answer to the eternal Shakespearean "to be or not to be?"

The book of palace amusements records that on December 26, 1606, "His Majesty's servants," that is, Shakespeare's troupe, "played the tragedy" King Lear "in Whitehall on the night of St. Stephen's before his royal majesty. E.C. Chambers dates the play 1605-1606 years.

A lifetime edition of the tragedy was published in 1608, posthumously printed in 1619 and in the folio of 1623.

Shakespeare, undoubtedly, knew an anonymous play on this subject, which, as early as 1594, was performed at the Rose Theater by the entrepreneur F. Hensloh. At the same time, the play was registered for publication, but was published only in 1605. While reworking the play of his predecessor, whose name remained unknown, Shakespeare not only rewrote the entire text, but significantly changed the plot. Shakespeare replaced the happy ending of the old play with a tragic ending, introduced the image of a jester, which was not in the old play, and complicated the plot by introducing a parallel line of action - the story of Gloucester and his sons. This last Shakespeare borrowed from F. Sidney's novel Arcadia (1590).

"King Lear" is recognized, along with "Hamlet", the pinnacle of the tragic in Shakespeare. The measure of the hero's suffering here surpasses everything that fell to the lot of those whose tragedies were depicted by Shakespeare both before and after this work. But it is not only the strength of tragic tension that distinguishes this drama. She surpasses other Shakespeare's creations in her breadth and truly cosmic scale.

Perhaps nowhere was Shakespeare's creative courage manifested with such power as in this creation of his genius. We sense this in the language of tragedy, in Lear's speeches, in poetic images that in boldness surpass everything that we have met so far in Shakespeare.

While people experience mental storms, terrible thunderstorms also occur in nature. All life is uplifted, the whole world is shaking, everything has lost its stability, there is nothing solid, unshakable. The characters of the tragedy live and act on this land, shaken by terrible shocks, under the sky, which brings down streams of abyss. They are caught up in the whirlwind of the elements, raging in themselves and outside.

The image of a storm, a thunderstorm is dominant in the tragedy. Its action is a series of shocks, the strength and scope of which are increasing every time. First we see a family palace drama, then a drama that engulfed the entire state, finally, the conflict spills over the borders of the country, and the fate of the heroes is decided in the war of two powerful kingdoms.

Such upheavals should have been brewing for a long time. But we do not see how the clouds were gathering. A thunderstorm arises immediately, from the very first scene of the tragedy, when Lear curses the youngest daughter and expels her, and then gusts of a whirlwind-whirlwind of human passions capture all the actors, and we have a terrible picture of the world in which there is a war not for life, but to death, and in her they do not spare either father, brother, sister, husband, old gray hair, or blooming youth.

If we perceive the tragedy of the king of ancient Britain as a majestic drama of a socio-philosophical nature, interpreting issues that are not tied to one era and have universal significance, then for contemporaries this play was a historical drama. In any case, they believed in the true existence of Lear, and in this they were convinced by the main historical authority of the era, R. Holinshed, whose "Chronicles" included in their early part an exposition of Lear's "history" (Holinshed, like other historians of his time, willingly used legends, if they had a poetic character and moral and instructive value). It is no coincidence that the first edition of the tragedy was titled: "A true chronicle of the life and death of King Lear ..." Only in the folio was the play entitled "The Tragedy of King Lear".

The closeness of the tragedy to the chronicles lies in the identity of the motives of the struggle within the dynasty, and "King Lear" includes a number of episodes of undoubtedly political significance. There have been attempts to interpret the tragedy in terms of politics. The reason for Lear's misfortunes was explained by the fact that he wanted to turn the wheel of history back by dividing a single centralized state between two rulers. To prove this, a parallel was drawn between King Lear and the first English Renaissance tragedy, Gorboduk, whose political morality really consisted in affirming the idea of \u200b\u200bstate unity *.

Nor is it a family drama like the anonymous pre-Shakespearean play about King Lear and his daughters. The theme of the ingratitude of children plays an important role in Shakespeare as well. But it only serves as an impetus for the development of the plot.

"King Lear" is a socio-philosophical tragedy. Its theme is not only family relations, not only state orders, but the nature of social relations in general. The essence of a person, his place in life and his value in society - that's what this tragedy is about.

In our use of words, "nature", as a rule, denotes something opposed to society, and by this our speech, as it were, consolidates the distance between man and nature, which occurred in the course of the development of class society. People of Shakespeare's era (in particular, Shakespeare himself) were immeasurably closer to nature, and with this word they covered all life, including social relations. Therefore, when Shakespeare's characters say "nature," they do not always mean fields, forests, rivers, seas, mountains; nature for them is the whole world and, first of all, the most interesting creature of this world for them - a person in all the various manifestations and relationships that make up his life.

Belonging to the kingdom of nature meant for man an inextricable connection with the entire system of life, including nature in the proper sense of the word and "natural" society. Social relationships were also part of this system of universal ties. There were family, estate, and state ties. The subordination of children to their parents, subjects to the sovereign, the care of the parent for the children and the sovereign to the subjects were forms of natural connection between people. This was seen as a universal law of nature that ensures harmonious relationships in all human groups from family to state.

This understanding of nature is one of the central motives that run through the entire tragedy of Shakespeare *. Such is the ideological form in which its socio-philosophical content is clothed **.

* (In King Lear, the word nature and its derivatives are found over forty times.)

In King Lear we see from the very beginning that the laws of nature have been violated. The key to what happens in the tragedy is given in the following words of Gloucester: "... These recent eclipses are solar and lunar! They do not bode well. Whatever scientists say about it, nature feels their consequences. Love cools down, friendship is weakening, fratricidal strife is everywhere. In the cities, riots, in the villages, strife, in the palaces of treason, and the family bond between parents and children breaks down. Either this is a case, as with me, when a son rebel against his father. Or as with a king. This is another example. . Here the father goes against his own brainchild. Our best time has passed. Violence, betrayal, disastrous riots will accompany us to the grave "(I, 2. Translation by B. Pasternak).

"Nature" suffers severely, and we see confirmation of this in the picture of the complete disintegration of all natural and social ties between people. King Lear drives out his daughter, Gloucester drives out his son; Goneril and Regan rebel against their father, Edmond condemns his father to a terrible execution; the sisters of Goneril and Regan are each ready to betray their husband, and in a fit of jealous rivalry in the fight for Edmond's love, Goneril poisons Regan; subjects are at war against the king, Cordelia is at war against her homeland.

In "Othello" we saw the tragedy of chaos in the soul of one person, in "King Lear" - the tragedy of chaos that engulfed an entire society.

Human nature has rebelled against itself, and is it any wonder that the nature surrounding man has rebelled? The tragedy, therefore, cannot be reduced to the topic of the ingratitude of children, although this occupies a significant place in the plot.

There is an opinion that "King Lear" represents a society living according to patriarchal laws that are just beginning to collapse. In fact, already at the beginning we have a world in which only the outward signs of patriarchy have survived. None of the actors live according to the laws of the patriarchal system. None of them are interested in the general, no one cares about the state, each thinks only of himself. This is clearly seen in the example of Lear's eldest daughters Goneril and Regan, ready for any deception, just to get their share of royal lands and power. Selfishness, combined with cruel cunning, is immediately discovered by Gloucester's illegitimate son, Edmond. But not only these people, possessed by predatory aspirations, are deprived of the patriarchal virtues of obedience and obedience. The noble Earl of Kent, for all his completely feudal devotion to his overlord, displays no less independence when he boldly rebukes the king for his unreasonable anger against Cordelia. And Cordelia herself is wayward and stubborn, which is manifested in her unwillingness to humiliate her personal dignity not only by flattery, but also by public recognition of feelings that she considers deeply intimate. She does not want to participate in the ritual of flattery started by King Lear, even if it will cost her not only her inheritance, but also Lear's love.

Although all the characters in "King Lear" possess feudal titles and titles, nevertheless the society depicted in the tragedy is not medieval. The feudal guise hides individualism. Therefore, as in other works of Shakespeare, the new self-awareness of the personality in the characters of the tragedy is expressed in different ways. One group of characters consists of those in whom individualism is combined with predatory egoism. First of all, these are Goneril, Regan, Cornwall and Edmond. Of these, Edmond acts as an exponent of the philosophy of life, which guides all people of this kind.

Edmond is an illegitimate son, and, therefore, he does not have to rely on the fact that the benefits of life and an honorable position in society will inherit him, like his brother Edgar, the legitimate son of Gloucester. He is outraged by this injustice. He rebelles against customs because they do not provide him with the place in life that he would like to achieve. He begins his speech, expressing his view of life, with significant words:

Nature, you are my goddess. In life, I only obey you. I rejected the Curse of prejudice and rights I will not compromise, even if I am younger than my brother.

An ordered nature, a harmonious world order, resting on natural connections, that is, everything that is so dear to Gloucester, is rejected by Edmond. For him it is (I translate literally) "the plague of custom." The nature that he worships is different: it is a source of strength, energy, passions that defy obedience to one or another "nature". He laughs at those who, like his father, believe in the medieval teaching about the influence of heavenly bodies on the character and fate of people. “When we ourselves spoil and distort our lives, having devoured our well-being,” says Edmond, “we attribute our misfortunes to the sun, moon and stars. It is true, you might think that we are fools by the will of heaven, swindlers, drunkards, liars and libertines under the irresistible To justify everything bad, we have supernatural explanations. A magnificent evasion of human licentiousness - to blame all your guilt on the stars ... What nonsense! I am what I am, and I would be the same if the most chaste star twinkled over my cradle "(I, 2).

The words about the violation of the laws of nature, cited above, characterize Gloucester as an exponent of the traditional worldview. In contrast, in Edmond's understanding, nature means the right of man to rebel against the existing order of things. It seems to Gloucester that the eternal law is on his side and that all its violations are the consequences of individual arbitrariness, but he is mistaken. Here, as in a drop of water, the world-historical process of the change of two social formations is reflected, about which K. Marx wrote, explaining the social essence of the tragic: “The history of the old order was tragic, while it was the power of the world that has existed from time immemorial, freedom, on the contrary, was an idea that overshadowed individuals - in other words, while the old order itself believed, and had to believe, in its legitimacy "*. Gloucester believes in the legitimacy of the old order, and its violation seems to him a violation of the laws of nature. Edmond no longer recognizes what this order was based on - the old patriarchal ties. In his denial of them, he goes so far that not only becomes the enemy of the former king, but fights against his brother and betrays his father, thus breaking the most sacred blood bond of kinship.

* (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 1, p. 418.)

What happens in the Gloucester family is repeated in the Lear family.

The main destructive force is the desire to possess those property rights that give a person independence, and in other cases, and power over others.

Goneril, Regan and Edmond were deprived of the opportunity to gain independence so long as they depended on Lear and Gloucester. It was important for them to get their hands on what the royal and paternal power of their parents was based on at any cost. All three resort to deception for this. It is interesting that they all play on what is dear to Lear and Gloucester - on loyalty and a sense of duty, although they themselves do not value them. When they get their hands on lands, titles and even crowns, they shake off the duty of obedience to their parents like a dilapidated dress.

The second group of characters in the tragedy are also people with a clear consciousness of their personality, but alien to egoism. Cordelia, Edgar, Kent, King Lear's jester have not a basely selfish, but a noble understanding of human rights. For them there are concepts of loyalty, devotion, and in their behavior they are selfless. They also follow "nature", but they have noble ideas about the nature and dignity of man. Not the instinct of obedience, but the free choice of the object of service determines their behavior. They serve Lear not as subjects, but as friends, maintaining spiritual independence, including the jester, the most harsh of them and ruthlessly direct in expressing their opinions.

In the course of the tragedy, two polar worlds are formed. On one side is the world of wealth and power. There is an eternal squabble here, and everyone in this world is ready to gnaw the throat of another. This is the world that Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, Edmond built for themselves. We have more than once met Shakespeare's picture of this world in his dramas.

The other world is the world of all outcast. It is first Kent and Cordelia, then Edgar, King Lear, the Fool, and finally Gloucester. Of these, Cordelia, expelled by her father, became the wife of the French king and bears the burden of moral suffering alone. The rest are thrown to the bottom of life in the most literal sense of the word. They are also destitute, thrown out of their former habitual way of life, deprived of shelter, means of subsistence and left to fend for themselves.

The picture of these two worlds reflects the state of society in Shakespeare's time. At one extreme, those who won in the shameless pursuit of wealth and power, at the other, those who lost this game because they were honest and this honesty made them defenseless against the cunning of predatory money-grubbing. But honest people did not remain submissive to their ill-fated fate. First of all, none of them recognized the superiority of the world of the minions of fortune. They are full of hatred and contempt for those who are so stingy in their wealth and so cruel in their imperious omnipotence. We sense this contempt in Kent's proud demeanor and in the jester's sarcastic sarcasm. Kent even uses force, but what can he do alone with his honest indignation in this world of dishonor and injustice? The only thing he wants is to be put in stocks. Gloucester, for his sympathy, is subjected to terrible torture and his eyes are ripped out. Cordelia, who interceded for her father, loses her life.

The world of the strong and the rich takes revenge on those who rebel against it, but this does not stop the champions of justice. Even though evil is stronger than them, they will still fight against it, and not even because they count on victory, but simply because they cannot live by submitting to evil. If at the end of the tragedy the villains receive retribution, it is not so much because they are overcome by honest people, but because they are destroyed by enmity among themselves. Just as they are merciless towards others, they are also merciless in rivalry with each other.

What place does Lear occupy in this struggle, the one who laid the foundation for it and around whom it is constantly being conducted?

First we see Lyre the despot. But in his autocracy, reaching the point of tyranny. Lear relies not only on the impersonal power of his royal prerogative, which gives him the right to decide the fate of all his subjects. An extraordinary man, surrounded by universal admiration, he imagined that his royal dignity rests on personal superiority over others. Like everyone around him, Lear possesses a highly developed consciousness of his personality, and this is a feature of the new psychology in him. However, the consciousness of personal dignity takes on a one-sided, egoistic character in Lear. It consists in an unreasonably high assessment of one's personality, reaching an extreme degree of self-adoration. Everyone praises his greatness, and he is imbued with the conviction that he is great not only as a king, but also as a man. This was perfectly defined by N. A. Dobrolyubov, who wrote that Lear is a "victim of the ugly development" of a society based on inequality and privileges. Lear's fatal mistake, manifested in the refusal of power and the division of the kingdom, was by no means a whim of the feudal lord, and Dobrolyubov expressed the very essence of the matter, explaining the plot of the tragedy as follows: Lear refuses power, "full of the proud consciousness that he himself is great , and not according to the power that he holds in his hands "*.

* (N. Dobrolyubov, Sobr. op. in three volumes, vol. 2, M. 1952, p. 197.)

Describing the main character of the tragedy, Dobrolyubov wrote: “There is really a strong nature in Lear, and general subservience to him only develops it in a one-sided way - not for great deeds of love and common good, but solely for satisfying his own, personal whims. who used to consider himself the source of all joy and sorrow, the beginning and end of all life in his kingdom. Here, with the outward scope of actions, with the ease of fulfilling all desires, there is nothing to express his spiritual strength. But his self-adoration goes beyond all limits of common sense : he transfers directly to his personality all that brilliance, all the respect that he enjoyed for his rank, he decides to throw off the power, confident that even after that people will not stop trembling him. This insane conviction makes him give his kingdom to his daughters and through that, from his barbarously meaningless position, to pass into the simple title of an ordinary person and experience all the sorrows, united with human life "*.

* (N. Dobrolyubov, Sobr. op. in three volumes, vol. 2, M. 1952, p. 198.)

Throughout all subsequent events, Lear continues to cling to his feudal dignity. The consciousness that he is a king is firmly rooted in him. The habit of commanding others does not leave him even when he is rejected and a homeless person wanders the steppe. We see him appear, fancifully decorated with wildflowers, and in a delirium shouts: "No, they cannot forbid me to mint money. This is my right. I am the king myself."

King, and to the end of the nails - the king! I should take a look - everything is trembling around.

His madness lies precisely in the fact that he continues to consider himself a king - a person standing above everyone else, and enlightenment will manifest itself in the fact that he will understand the madness of this and feel like just a person who does not need power, honor, or universal admiration. ...

The path to this enlightenment of the mind is associated for Lear with the deepest suffering. At first we see his proud conceit. He is truly convinced that he is worthy of the extreme adoration expressed by Goneril and Regan. What they say is consistent with his self-esteem. Cordelia's silence and her reluctance to join this chorus of praise irritate Lear so much because he is convinced of his royal human greatness. At the same time, he measures his daughters not so much by their attitude towards him as by his attitude towards them. Loving Cordelia more than others, he believes that by giving her his feelings, thereby obliging her to the highest praise his persona... In all other people, Lear values \u200b\u200bnot their true feelings, but the reflection in their feelings of themselves and their relationship to them. Such is the extreme degree of egocentrism and self-love that he has reached. This reveals the ugly development of individuality in a world based on social inequality. The paradox, the unnatural nature of such a personality development is manifested in the fact that a person who really possesses virtues belittles them and becomes smaller, as Lear is creepy here, because by placing his personality at the center of the world, he made himself the only measure of all human values. Even the punishment he inflicts on the obstinate Kent and the rebellious Cordelia reflects Lear's self-admiration in its own way. Expelling them, he with truly regal naivete thinks that the greatest punishment is the excommunication from his person, as if he alone gave light and warmth in life.

Lear is convinced that power will also belong to him when he abandons its external signs. He even thinks that the royalty of his personality will appear even clearer and clearer when he renounces the material basis of his power, the ownership of lands. This reveals both a naive overestimation of the significance of one's personality and Lear's noble idealism. It is necessary to pay special attention to this second side of his error, because it reveals the best side of Lear, and this will lead us to what constitutes the central socio-philosophical theme of tragedy - to the question of the value of the human person.

From the universal worship, which he was surrounded by, Lear concluded that the main value of a person is determined not by his social position, but by his personal merits. This is what he wants to prove when he refuses real power, for he is convinced that even without all its attributes, he will retain the love and respect of others. This is no longer the tyranny of a feudal lord, but naive, but basically noble idealism, which ascribes a significance to the personal merits of a person that they really cannot have in a class society. We can call this pride in its purest form, for Lear is proud not of his royal title, but of human greatness, which, however, he overestimates beyond measure.

Having given up power, Lear retains a large retinue for himself. One hundred people must serve him alone, catch his every word, fulfill every whim, entertain, announce his arrival with their noise. He gave up power, but still wants everyone to obey him and that outward signs of greatness and court splendor accompany his every step.

Therefore, he reacts so painfully to the fact that his daughters demand the reduction of his retinue. He needs it for the parade, as a frame for his greatness, and they see in his retinue a feudal squad, powerful enough to force him to fulfill any will of Lear. Goneril and Regan want to deprive Lear of the last real power that he still left for himself in the form of this small army.

Lear desperately clings to the last vestige of his power. He was shocked by the ingratitude of his daughters; he gave them everything, and now they want to deprive him of the only thing that he left for himself. In desperation, he rushes from one daughter to another. He is no less tormented by the consciousness of his own powerlessness. For the first time in his life, Lear felt that his will ran into resistance, which he not only could not break (he could no longer break the resistance of Kent and Cordelia), but also could not punish. Lear's first sensation of falling arises precisely as a consciousness of his own powerlessness.

The question of the retinue develops for Lear into a problem of philosophical significance: what does a person need in order to feel like a person? When Regan says that he doesn't need a single servant, Lear counters:

Do not refer to what is needed. Beggars and those in need have something in abundance. Reduce all life to necessities, And man will be equal to the animal. You're a woman. Why are you wearing silks? After all, the purpose of clothes is just not to chill, And this fabric does not warm, so thin.

Lear himself was still warmed by pomp. He measured humanity precisely by the excess over what is needed. And the taller a person is, the more he has of all that is not necessary. In the fight with his daughters, Lear defends his right to this unnecessary, because he still thinks that it is the first sign of human significance and greatness. In other words, Lear is still at the mercy of the conviction that the measure of a person's dignity is determined by how great a surplus of material wealth he has.

All his life Lear has been building up his omnipotence. It seemed to him that he had reached its top. In fact, he rushed into the abyss. Without knowing it, he destroyed everything he was building with one gesture. He wanted to be the person who possesses the greatest power - the power of personal superiority, but it turned out that this is the most dear to him - a pitiful illusion. The daughters made him understand this. From the lips of Lear, terrible curses burst, and there is no such misfortune that he would not call on the heads of the children who betrayed him. He threatens them with terrible revenge, but his anger is powerless. The world no longer obeys him. He was denied obedience by those who, according to all the laws of life - according to the laws of nature, family, society, state - are most obliged to obey: their own children, his flesh and blood, his subjects, vassals - those whom he himself endowed with power. All the foundations on which Lear's life had been held collapsed, and the old king's mind could not stand it. When Lear saw what the world really is, he went mad.

The distraught Lear leaves for the steppe at night. He leaves not only from his daughters. He leaves the world in which he wanted to dominate and be above everyone. He leaves people, from society and goes into the natural world, as the heroes of Shakespeare's comedies went there when human malice and cruelty deprived them of their rightful place in life. But nature met the heroes of comedies with the gentle shadow of the forests, the murmur of pure streams, gave peace and consolation.

Lear goes into the bare steppe. He has nowhere to hide. There is no shelter over his gray hair. Nature meets him not with gentle silence, but with the roar of the elements, the heavens opened, thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, but, no matter how terrible this storm in nature, it is not as terrible as the storm that occurs in Lear's soul. He is not afraid of a storm in nature, she cannot do him more harm than that which his own daughters caused him.

The inhuman essence of selfishness is revealed to Lyra first in the ingratitude of his daughters, who owe him everything and nevertheless rejected him. His wrath is turned against them, and mad Lear judges his daughters. It is not enough for him to condemn them. He wants to know the cause of human cruelty: "Explore what is in her heart, why is it stone?" (III, 6).

There is a deep symbolic meaning in the fact that these hard-hearted people who reign in the world of power and wealth, Lear brings to justice the outcasts - the exile Kent, Tom of Bedlam and the jester. He himself has now moved from the world of omnipotence to the world of the powerless and powerless.

Lear's madness is genuine, not imaginary, like Hamlet's. But everything that he says and does in a state of insanity is by no means meaningless. We can rightfully say about him what Polonius says about Hamlet: "Although this is insanity, it has a consistency." Edgar says the same about Lear's insane delirium: "What a mixture! Nonsense and meaning are all together" (IV, 6). In his madness, Lear rethinks all previous life experience. It would be more correct to call his madness a stormy and painful mental shock, as a result of which Lear estimates life in a completely new way. One of the best performers of the role of King Lear in the history of the theater said it perfectly. His madness is "a chaos of old views on life and a whirlwind of the formation of some new ideas about life" *.

* (SM Mikhoels, Modern stage disclosure of Shakespeare's tragic images (From the experience of working on the role of King Lear), in the book: "Shakespeare Collection 1958", p. 470; see also S. M. Mikhoels, Articles, conversations and speeches, M. 1960. pp. 97-138 and Yu. Yuzovsky, Image and the era, M. 1947, pp. 27-29.)

The first sign of a mental upheaval that has taken place in him is that he begins to think about others. The storm whips him mercilessly, but Lear - for the first time in his life! - thinks not of the suffering that she causes him, but of other outcasts.

Homeless naked wretches Where are you now? How will you reflect The blows of this fierce weather In rags, with an uncovered head And a skinny belly. How little I thought about it before!

"How little I thought about it before!" The old Lear would never have said that, for he thought only of himself. The transformed Lear, whom we see now, begins to realize that, in addition to human greatness, there are human hardships and poverty. No true greatness has the right to ignore the suffering of those who are not arranged and provided. Lear exclaims:

Here's a lesson for you, arrogant rich man! Take the place of the poor, Feel what they feel, And give them a part of your excess As a sign of the highest justice of heaven.

This is the lesson Lear teaches not to anyone else, but to himself. Now that he knew misery and suffering, a feeling was born in him that was not there before. He feels the suffering of others.

In the steppe, during a storm, Lear meets Edgar, hiding under the guise of Tom of Bedlam. In this unfortunate, destitute creature, he sees a person. Previously, as we know, he defined the measure of human greatness by "excess" and thought that if a person was limited to only what was needed, then he would become equal to an animal. But here is Tom from Bedlam, who does not even have the essentials. Pointing at him, he exclaims: "Is this really, in fact, a man? Look at him. He has everything his own, nothing alien. No silk from a silk worm, no cowhide, no sheep's wool, no fragrant jet from a musky cat ! All of us are fake, and he is a real, unadorned person, and there is this poor, naked, two-legged animal, and nothing else. Down with, down with everything unnecessary! Come on, unfasten me here "(III, 4). Lear strips off his clothes. He, who used to think that it was impossible to live without a retinue of a hundred people, now realized that he was just a poor, naked, two-legged animal.

This shedding of clothes has a profound meaning. Lear strips off all that alien and superficial, external and superfluous, that prevented him from being what he really is. He doesn't want to remain "fake" as he used to be.

Mad Lear understands life better than that Lear who thought he was a great sage. He realizes that he lived entangled in a lie, which he readily believed, for it was pleasant to him: "They caressed me like a dog, and they lied that I was smart beyond my years. They answered everything:" yes "and" no ". All the time "yes" and "no" - this is also little joy. But when I was soaked to the bone, when I did not get a tooth in my teeth from the cold, when the thunder did not stop, no matter how much I begged it, then I saw their true essence, then I saw through them. These are notorious deceivers. Listen to them, so I - anything. But this is a lie. I am not spellbound from fever "(IV, 6).

Lear is experiencing a rebirth. Childbirth is always associated with anguish, and Lear tells Gloucester about this:

We were born in tears; And in the first moment, as soon as we breathed in air, We began to complain and scream.

Lear's second birth takes place in terrible agony. He also suffers from the collapse of all false ideas. which he used to live, but even more because the life that he sees around him is meaningless and cruel.

This soul-renewed Lear does not put up with the injustice that reigns in the world. He, who himself used to be one of the perpetrators of injustice, now condemns it. He is obsessed with a mania to judge - and not only his daughters, but everyone who is cruel to others.

One of the most heartfelt scenes of the tragedy is the episode of the meeting between the mad Lear and the blinded Gloucester. Lear now sees that injustice reigns everywhere, the root of which is inequality. The power of which he had previously so prided himself upon injustice. “Have you seen,” asks Lear of Gloucester, “how a chain dog barks at a beggar? .. And does a tramp run away from him? Note, this is a symbol of power. It demands obedience. This dog represents an official in an office” (IV, 6).

Power, the right to dispose of people's lives always seemed to Lear the highest good. Nothing gave him such a sense of his own greatness as the fact that he could punish and have mercy. Now he sees power in a different light. She is an evil that cripples the souls of those who possess her, and a source of calamity for those who depend on her. Another illusion, the collapse of which Lear is experiencing, is that the holders of power are just because they have it. Now he understands that those who hold the life and death of people in their hands are no better than those whom they punish as criminals; they have no moral right to judge others. “Do you see,” says Lear to Gloucester, “how the judge mocks the pathetic thief? Now I’ll show you a trick: I will mix everything up. The trouble is that the very "surplus" that gives people the appearance of decency actually covers up their vicious nature; power and wealth make such people unpunished, while the poor are defenseless.

An insignificant sin is visible through the rags; But the velvet robes cover everything. Gilding vice - about gilding the Judge will break the spear, but dress Him in rags - you will pierce it with reeds.

Having comprehended the injustice that reigns in the world, Lear becomes the defender of the disadvantaged, those who are victims of power and cruel unjust law. All whom the world of wealth and power condemns, Lear justifies: "There are no guilty ones, believe me, there are no guilty ones" (IV, 6). But there are people who see their purpose in supporting and justifying an unfair way of life. Lear's wrathful irony is turned against them when he says to the blind Gloucester:

Buy yourself glass eyes And pretend like a scoundrel politician That you see what you do not see.

These speeches by Lear are among the most striking denunciations through which Shakespeare expressed his deepest protest against social injustice.

At the beginning of the tragedy, we saw Lear towering over all people and confident that he was destined to rule over others. It was him, a man who had been lifted so high, that fate threw to the very bottom of life, and then the misfortune of this exceptional person merged with the troubles and sufferings of thousands and thousands of disadvantaged people. Human destiny and people's destiny have merged. Lear now appears before us not as a person full of pride, not as a king, but as a suffering person, and his torment is the torment of all who, like him, are deprived of the first conditions of normal existence, suffer from the cruel injustice of power and inequality of states. Let Lear doom himself to this fate. But he realized that others were doomed to her by the will of those who, like him, possessed power and, happy with their power, did not want to notice other people's suffering.

Now we see, together with Lear, what is the root of the evil and calamities of life. It is in the people themselves, in the order of life they have created, where each seeks to rise above the rest and for the sake of his own well-being dooms everyone, even the people closest in blood, to misfortune.

There is no humanity in the world of wealth and power. She did not remain there after Kent, Cordelia, Edgar, Gloucester were expelled from it. If sympathy for suffering is still preserved, it is only in the world of the disadvantaged.

I am a poor man, Taught by blows of fate and personal grief to sympathize with others.

These words are spoken by Edgar. He, too, passed the difficult path of knowing life. At first he, like everyone to whom wealth gives the opportunity for unrestrained pleasures: "was a proud and windy man. He curled up. He wore gloves on his hat. He pleased his lady of the heart. He hung around with her. He swore vows. He broke them in broad daylight. thought about pleasures and woke up in order to deliver them. Drank and played dice. In terms of the female sex was worse than the Turkish sultan. " But besides the vices of voluptuousness and gluttony, he condemns himself for something more evil: "I was lying in my heart, easy on words, cruel on my hand, lazy like a pig, cunning like a fox, insatiable like a wolf, mad like a dog, greedy, like a lion "(III, 4). It would be naive to think that this really corresponds to the character and previous behavior of Edgar. He only wants to say that he was a wealthy courtier who belonged to the very top of society, and he characterizes not himself, but the environment to which he belonged.

Shakespeare's tragic irony is inexhaustible. It was when Edgar, as it seems to him, found consolation even in his sorrowful fate ("It is better to be outcast than to shine" (IV, 1) - Edgar is now sure), life prepares him a new test: he meets his blinded father.

Gloucester also goes on the way of the cross of knowing life through suffering.

At first we see him not yet lost the memory of the pleasures of youth. He tells Kent with frivolous playfulness that he and his wife had "great pleasure" in "making" Edmond (I, 1). He also sinned with gullibility when he obeyed Edmond's slander against Edgar. Lear's misfortune was the first blow that forced Gloucester to take a fresh look at what was happening around him. He warned Lear's associates that the distraught king should be sent to Dover. For this he paid. His own son betrayed him - the one he loved most and for whose sake he expelled another son. Cornwall and Regan, whom he had served faithfully after Lear's abdication, tore out his eyes and pushed him blind onto the high road.

Lear, in his madness, began to understand everything, but the blind Gloucester received his sight. Yes, now he too has received his sight. But how differently Lear, Edgar and Gloucester react to the world after their epiphany! Lear judges those who were unjust, wants to go to war with them. Edgar - for a while, only for a while! - turned into an embittered and melancholy philosopher of "happy" poverty. He hid and did nothing while the injustice concerned only him, but when he saw what they had done with Lear and his father, Edgar was filled with the determination to fight. Gloucester is seized with despair and has lost faith in the meaning of life. People seem to him to be pitiful worms. Gloucester also owns the most epigrammatically sharp judgment about his time. When he, blind, meets Edgar, who continues to impersonate a mad beggar, Gloucester takes him as a guide. He himself points out the symbolic meaning of this:

This is our age: the blind are led by madmen.

(IV, 1. Translation by T. Shchepkina-Kupernik)

Gloucester, like Lear, having experienced suffering, is imbued with sympathy for the poor. He also speaks of the "excess" that the rich should share with the needy (IV, 1).

It is profoundly significant that suffering leads Lear and Gloucester to the same conclusion about the need for mercy towards the disadvantaged.

While some rise, others fall, and all the participants in the drama live in full heat of passion and torment, one of the witnesses of the unfolding tragedy laughs. So he is supposed to, because he is a jester, and everything that happens gives him a reason for witticisms, jokes and songs.

Fools had a long-standing privilege: they had the right to speak the truth in the face of the most powerful rulers. It is this role that the jester plays in the tragedy. Even before Lear realized that he had made a mistake, the jester tells him about it (I, 4).

His jokes are evil, not because he is angry, but because life is evil. He expresses the ruthlessness of her laws, telling Lyra the harsh truth to his face. The Jester has a kind heart - kind to those who suffer. He loves Lear, instinctively feeling the nobility of spirit inherent in a king. And in the fact that the jester follows Lear when he has lost everything, the nobility of a man from the people is manifested, whose attitude towards people is determined not by their social status, but by human qualities.

The jester himself belongs to the most disadvantaged and powerless part of society. His jokes express the thought of the people, wounded by the bitter experience of centuries of social injustice. Lear wanted to live according to other laws in his old age, but the jester knows that this is impossible.

The meaning of the satirical "prophecy" that he utters in the steppe is that relations based on humanity are impossible in a society where deception, money-grubbing and oppression prevail ("When the priests will be forced to plow ...", etc.- III, 2). The Jester was born with such an understanding of life. Lyre had to be born a second time to understand the same thing.

The role of the jester in the tragedy lies in the fact that with his bitter jokes, like a scourge, he whips up Lear's consciousness. In England, jesters have long been called fools, for it was assumed that a clever owner takes a jester for his amusement, at whose stupidity he laughs. King Lear's jester is called "Fool" in the play. But in the tragedy, the roles have changed, and the jester, punningly, more than once tells Lear, who divided the kingdom between his two daughters, that "a good jester would have come out of him," in other words, a fool (I, 5). The jester speeds up the old king's epiphany, and then suddenly disappears.

The mysterious disappearance of the jester from among the characters is one of those unsolvable mysteries that are in the works of Shakespeare. What became of him after he helped carry Lear to a farm near the castle of Gloucester, where the old king fell asleep, we do not know. It is useless to guess and look for external plot justifications for the disappearance of the jester. His fate is determined not by the laws of everyday reality, but by the laws of poetry. He came to tragedy (I, 4) when he was needed so that Lear, who had given up the kingdom, would quickly understand the tragic consequences of his fateful act. He leaves her (III, 6) when Lear has reached this understanding *. Lear now knows everything he could say. At the same time, Lear understands everything even deeper than a jester, because although the latter's sorrowful remarks are the result of a centuries-old habit, Lear's perception of the vices of life is aggravated by the terrible tragedy of the fall through which he passed. The contradictions of life are inevitable and inevitable for the jester. Him

* (There is one more - professional and theatrical - explanation for the disappearance of the jester from the tragedy: the same actor may have played two roles - jester and Cordelia. The jester disappeared because the actor was needed in order to play Cordelia, who returned to her father. See about this "Voprosy literatury", 1962, No. 4, pp. 117-118.)

consciousness therefore does not rise above bitter sarcasms. For Lear, these same contradictions are exposed as the greatest tragedy of life. His vision of evil is deeper and more powerful. If the jester in the fate of Lear saw only one more confirmation of his skeptical outlook on life, then in Lear the misfortune ill experienced aroused indignation at the tragic imperfection of life.

We left Lear in a state of extraordinary madness, which, contrary to the usual course of things, manifested itself not in a darkening, but in a clarification of the mind. But Lear is still insane. His brain is clouded with sorrow, like clouds in the sky. Only occasionally, in this darkness of madness, lightning flashes of reason flash and burning thoughts illuminate the field of life's disasters with their flashes. In their light, we see the terrible face of truth, and the injustice that reigns in the world is revealed to us with all intolerance. Lear's anger and suffering express not only his pain, but also the pain of all suffering humanity. He was wrong when he thought that all the good forces of life were embodied in the greatness of his personality. His true greatness was manifested in the fact that he was able to rise above his own grief and experience in his soul the grief of all the unjustly offended. This Lear is truly great. He discovers qualities that he did not have when he was at the height of power. After the tragedy he experienced, as Dobrolyubov writes, “all the best sides of his soul are revealed; then we see that he is available to generosity, tenderness, compassion for the unfortunate, and the most humane justice. The strength of his character is expressed not only in curses to his daughters, but also in the consciousness of his guilt before Cordelia, and in regret for his cool temper, and in remorse that he thought so little about the unfortunate poor, loved true honesty so little ... Looking at him, we first feel hatred for to this dissolute despot; but, following the development of the drama, we are more and more reconciled with him as with a human being and we end up being filled with indignation and burning anger no longer towards him, but for him and for the whole world - towards that wild, inhuman situation which can drive even people like Lear to such dissipation "*.

* (N.A. Dobrolyubov, Sobr. op. in three volumes, vol. 2, M. 1952, p. 198.)

Lear, who at first was the extreme embodiment of despotism, then turned into a victim of despotism. Seeing his inhuman suffering, we are imbued with hatred for the order of life, which condemns people to such disasters.

We want a force in the world to end Lear's torment. There is such a force - this is Cordelia. Not remembering the offense, driven only by the desire to save his father and restore his rights, Cordelia hurries from France. She is at the head of the army. Before us is no longer a lonely defenseless girl. Now we see Cordelia - the warrior.

Cordelia is one of the most beautiful images created by Shakespeare. She combines femininity, beauty, mental strength and resilience, unyielding will and the ability to fight for what she believes in. Like other women who are Shakespeare's heroines, Cordelia is a free person. There is not a grain of stupid and wordless submission in her. She is the living embodiment of the humanistic ideal. She did not compromise the truth even when her own well-being depended on how much she could coax her father, who had reached the extreme of unreason in his self-adoration. She appears before us as a bright image of pure humanity at the beginning of the tragedy, then Cordelia disappears from the action for a long time. She is the first victim of injustice and despotism that appears before us in the tragedy. The injustice that Lear committed towards her symbolically embodies the essence of all injustice in general. She is a symbol of suffering for the truth. And Lear knows that his greatest guilt is the guilt before Cordelia.

And now Cordelia appears to save her father, who suffered from injustice. The fact that she is above personal grievances makes her appearance even more beautiful. Cordelia's physician undertakes to heal Lear. He puts him into a deep sleep. While Lear sleeps, music plays, which, with its harmony, restores the disturbed harmony of his spirit. When Lear awakens, his madness has passed. But a new change came to him. He is no longer a naked two-legged creature, not a homeless person who rushes homeless across the steppe. He is wearing rich royal clothes, he is surrounded by many people, and again, as once, they all catch his eyes in order to guess his desires and immediately fulfill them. He cannot understand whether this is a dream, or whether he has ended up in heaven, because he is no longer able to believe that there can be life without torment and suffering: "You must not take me out of the grave ..." (IV, 7).

Of all that he sees around him, the most striking is Cordelia, whom he takes for a "paradise spirit". It seems impossible to him that she would forgive him and return to him. But it is so! And then proud Lear, that Lear, who thought that the whole world should lie flat at his feet, kneels before his daughter. He realizes his guilt before her and cannot understand why she is crying.

Cordelia, who forgave her father and came to his aid, expresses the principle of mercy dear to the humanist Shakespeare. But this is not Christian mercy, as some of the newest interpreters of the tragedy assure, for Cordelia is not one of those who responds to evil with uncomplaining submission. She came to restore justice, trampled by her older sisters, with arms in hand. Not Christian submission to evil, but militant humanism is embodied in Cordelia.

However - and this is one of the most tragic motives of the play - Cordelia was not destined to win. Her army is defeated. But courage does not leave her. When Lyra and her are taken prisoner, she says to her father with stoic courage:

No, we are not the first in the human race, Who thirsted for good and got into trouble. Because of you, father, I lost heart, I myself would have taken the blow, perhaps.

(V, 2. Translation by B. Pasternak)

She is even capable of joking, and with obvious irony asks Lear: "Should we see my sisters?" In doing so, she means that one could ask them for leniency. She asks this not because she believes in their kindness - their treatment of Lear leaves her in no doubt about their ability to mercy - she checks Lear: whether he still has the ability to resist the world of injustice and evil. Yes, Lear still has it. He replies four times "No, no, no, no!"

Cordelia does not yet know what her father is now. This new Lear, having passed through the crucible of suffering, understood what was most necessary for a person. It is not in that "excess" without which he had not previously imagined his life. The most important thing for a person is not power over other people, not wealth, which makes it possible to satisfy any whims and whims of sensuality, the main thing is in peace of mind and not in imaginary love, expressed in loud words, but in the feeling of inseparable closeness of people standing above all petty vain interests. Lyra is not afraid of a dungeon if he is in it with Cordelia. She, her love, her purity, her mercy, her boundless humanity - that is what he needs, that is the highest happiness of life. And this conviction permeates the words with which he addresses Cordelia:

Let them take us to the dungeon as soon as possible: There we, like birds in a cage, will sing ...

Once Lear renounced power, without actually thinking of renouncing it. He was indignant for a long time and was deeply worried that power over others was no longer available to him. He was not immediately able to get used to his new position. But now that world was forever alien to him. He will not return to it, his soul is full of contempt for those in power, for their inhuman strife. Let them think that by taking Lear and Cordelia prisoners, they won a victory over them. He is happy with her and without a throne and without power (VI, 2). Cordelia cries, listening to his speech, but these are not tears of grief and powerlessness, but tears of emotion at the sight of the transformed Lear. However, he does not seem to understand the reason for her tears. It seems to him that this is a manifestation of her weakness, and he consoles her.

Terrible were the ordeals that Lear went through, at a dear price he bought a stoic calm in relation to the troubles that befall him. It seems to him that there is nothing left that could now destroy that new harmony of spirit, which he found when Cordelia returned to him. But Lear awaits yet another most terrible, most tragic test, because the previous tests shattered his delusions, and the test that will come now will be a blow to the truth that he acquired at the cost of so many torments.

Here, the evil spirit of tragedy - Edmond - interferes in the fate of Lear and Cordelia. He knows that even prisoners are dangerous, and decides to destroy them. He gives the order to end them in prison. Then, when his brother wins in a duel and Edmond realizes that his life is leaving, at the last moment, "contrary to his nature", he wants to do good and save Cordelia and Lear, whom he had ordered to kill before. But his remorse comes too late: they managed to hang Cordelia. She is taken out of the loop, and Lear appears in front of us, carrying the dead Cordelia in his arms. We remember how his angry voice thundered when he thought that with the loss of the kingdom he had lost everything. Then he learned that he had not lost anything that time. He was lost now that Cordelia was dead. Again grief and madness envelop him:

Howl, howl, howl! You are made of stone! I would have your eyes and tongues - The firmament has collapsed! .. She is gone forever ...

Why is life necessary if such a beautiful creature like Cordelia is dead:

The poor thing was strangled! No, it doesn't breathe! A horse, a dog, a rat can live, But not for you! You are gone forever ...

Lear's chalice of suffering overflowed. To come at the cost of so many trials to the knowledge of what a person needs, and then to lose what he has gained - there is no greater torment than this. This is the worst of the tragedies. Until the last breath, Lear still thinks that maybe Cordelia is not dead, he still hopes that life has been preserved in her. Shocked, he looks at her lips to see if a sigh will escape. But Cordelia's lips do not move. He looks at them like that, because from these lips, for the first time in his life, he heard the truth, which he did not want to believe in his arrogant delusion, and now he again waits for the lips of truth to answer him. But they are dumb. Life is gone from them. And with this life leaves the long-suffering Lear.

Edgar thinks that Lear has fainted, and tries to bring him to his senses, but Kent stops him:

Don't torment. Leave alone his spirit. Let him walk away. Who do you have to be in order to pull Him out again on the rack of life for torment?

The tragedy is over. The bloody chaos is over. There were many victims in it. All who, despising humanity in pursuit of the imaginary blessings of life, perished, caused suffering and destroyed those who stood in their way. Cornwall, Goneril, Regan, Edmond fell, but Gloucester, Cordelia and Lear also perished. This is the highest measure of justice available to tragedy. The innocent and the guilty die. But does the death of thousands of Gonerils and Regan balance the death of Cordelia alone? And why should a man suffer so much and so much as Lear suffered, if in the end he still loses all the best for which it was worth enduring the torture of life?

These are the tragic questions with which the drama ends. She does not give an answer to them. But Shakespeare, who cognized and revealed to us the deepest depths of suffering, does not want to part with us, leaving us without a glimmer of hope. The last words of the tragedy are imbued with deep sorrow, but courage also resounds in them:

No matter how longing the soul is struck, Times make us persistent. Old, firm and unbending endured everything. We young people will not experience it.

Again, not Christian patience, but stoic courage blows over us. We have joined the spirit of tragedy. It seems to others that in the name of the moral ideal Shakespeare must also attribute here the conviction that life is not meaningless, just as suffering is not meaningless. Therefore, they seek guilt not only from Lear, but even from Cordelia. Lyra certainly has guilt, but isn't his guilt overlapped by the measure of suffering that befell him? In any case, Cordelia is dying innocent, and nothing in the world will justify her death.

Tragedies are not created for consolation. They arise from the consciousness of life's deepest contradictions. The artist wants not to reconcile with them, but to realize them. And he puts us before them with all mercilessness, revealing the truth about the terrible sides of life. It takes great courage to face this truth the way Shakespeare did. He did not want to reconcile with the tragedy of life, but to cause indignation with evil and injustice, which condemn people to suffering.