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The Slippery Slope of Villainy in King Lear
On the conflict between love and duty and the validity of competing truths
Shakespeare has often been accused of being amoral. His contemporary and friend Ben Jonson attacked him for it as did Samuel Johnson two centuries later, followed by George Bernard Shaw and Leo Tolstoy in the 20th century.
I’ve always thought that this is what has made his work endure. Shakespeare wrote about the age-old dilemma of one man’s freedom fighter being another man’s terrorist (Brutus in Julius Caesar), the idea that someone can be noble and courageous and yet be branded a villain if they are unable to sell themselves well (Coriolanus in Coriolanus) as well as the notion that truth matters little in a world that thrives on deception (Hamlet in Hamlet). These characters and their stories continue to move us because we are not instructed on how to think or feel about them. Without preaching, Shakespeare’s verse invites us to believe ‘that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our own philosophy’.
King Lear is one of my favourite Shakespearian plays when it comes to illustrating that sense of ambiguity.
The plot opens with the titular King Lear carving his kingdom in three, bent on giving his favourite daughter Cordelia the lion’s share…
