Madness

Madness

1. The Fool

   • He that has and a little wit/ With hey, ho, the wind and the rain/ Must make content with his fortunes fit/ Though the rain it raineth everyday'
     • In other words Lear must resign himself to a world which is always against him whilst giving him a different perspective
   • 'A cart draws the horse'
     • Used to clarify that the world of Lear is nothing but a dystopian upside down world
   • Insanity occupies a central place in the play and is associated with both disorder and hidden wisdom. The Fool, who offers Lear insight in the early sections of the play, offers his counsel in a seemingly mad babble. Later, when Lear himself goes mad, the turmoil in his mind mirrors the chaos that has descended upon his kingdom. .
     • At the same time, however, it also provides him with important wisdom by reducing him to his bare humanity, stripped of all royal pretensions. Lear thus learns humility.

2. Madness is a personal journey; a road to redemption

3. Edgar

   • Feigned madness
   • 'Bedlam Beggar'
     • 'Tom O'Bedlam'
       • Bedlam was an aslym from the early fifth century for the insane and mad
   • Lear is joined in his real madness by Edgar’s feigned insanity, which also contains nuggets of wisdom for the king to mine. Meanwhile, Edgar’s time as a supposedly insane beggar hardens him and prepares him to defeat Edmund at the close of the play.
   • 'Poor Tom'
     • Shakespeare uses him as a social commentator on poverty
   • 'Edgar I nothing am'
     • Paradoxical
   • 'the basest and most poorest shape'
     • Contrast with Edmund
       • Base
       • My mind as generous and my shape as true
       • When my dimensions are as well compact
     • Lack of sanity
   • Solliloquy
     • An element of renunciation
     • Crazed pain
     • Visceral thoughts
     • Wheel of fortune is reversed

4. King Lear

   • The Storm
     • Dramatised with wind and rain
     • Lear's Re-birth
       • Externally represents his mad subconscience
     • In one production Lear is shown to be ripping off his clothes
       • Portrays his new emancipation
       • Superfluous
       • Resurrection
         • Lear as a Christ-Like figure
     • Moment of Anagnoris
     • Moment of Catharsis
     • Peripeteia
   • Adopts Edgar's mannerisms/ visceral thought process
     • Treats him as a philosopher despite his pretence

5. Shakespeare presents madness in King Lear as an essentially enabling phenomenon- one which offers illuminating perspectives on the world.

   • A03 Critic ' a drama of meaningful suffering and redemption, within a just universe ruled by providential higher powers
   • The mood of madness permeates the play
     • Clear transformation from power to mental unrest
     • Beneficial change
       • Natural Imagery of the naked human body
         • Escape the trapping of clothes/society
           • Moment of Anagnorisis
     • Universal enlightenment in the characters' though process