Page 34 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

I N T R O D U C T I O N xxix
The Fool was not present in r. i. By making him
nevertheless echo i. i. 180, Shakespeare shows us right
away that the Fool and Kent are to be grouped together
as wise where Lear is foolish. And the Christian theme
is relevant again, for, as Professor Heilman reminds us, 1
Miss Welsford, in her book The Fool, 'stresses the
Christian quality of fool literature, and in her discussion
of the Fool in Lear she constantly refers to Christianity'.
Like Cordelia and Kent, the Fool realizes the double
nature of Lear's error. Again and again he directs
attention to both aspects of it in riddling utterances
pregnant with meaning. There are so many passages
which could be quoted to illustrate this that one hardly
knows which to choose.
On the practical level Lear has endangered his own
welfare:
He that keeps nor crust nor crumb,
Weary of all, shall want some.. (r. 4. 198-9)
Lear has given away the 'crumb' of his loaf (the bread
inside the crust), that is, the government of the kingdom
and the material resources connected with it. He wants
to keep the 'crust'—'the name and all th'addition to a
king'. But the Fool sees that, having given away the one,
Lear cannot keep the other, his daughters being what
they are. Lear has really given away both crust and
crumb, and he will starve.
Over and over again the Fool utters his wisdom with
brilliant virtuosity. His criticism of the king's folly is
sometimes hard and biting; he can be contemptuous and
derisive. Yet we always know that affectionate loyalty to
Lear is the mainspring of his being. If here, or there, he
mocks Lear in a way that may seem cruel, he is neverthe-
less always trying to teach a beloved master who has
erred and thus endangered both body and soul. And we
1
Op. cit. p. 331,