Page 36 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

INTRODUCTIO N xxxi
plex character is also, paradoxically, a virtual child who,
in a world that he sees as hostile to him and with which he
cannot grapple By himself, is afraid to be left alone by
'nuncle'. There is a pathetic urgency in his cry, 'Nuncle
Lear, nuncle Lear! Tarry; take the fool with thee*
(i. 4. 316). He does not want to be left alone in the
dark. Like a child, he depends entirely on the trusted
guardian who loves him but sometimes punishes him.
What a remarkable character this Fool is!—at once
acutely sane and pathetically childish. He is, of course,
a Shakespearian development of a well-enough known
character-type in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature—'
the 'licensed' court fool. But what a transformation
Shakespeare makes here! And if it is difficult for us,
thinking naturalistically, to accept the notion of a
childish half-wit teaching a king true values, may we not
think that Shakespeare wants us to remember the song of
the Psalmist, who, addressing his God, says 'Out of the
mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still
the enemy and the avenger'?
He is a 'wise fool'; but we are not necessarily meant
to take everything he says as right. It is risky, as Pro-
fessor Danby does, to speak of the limitations of the
1
Fool's wisdom. Thus when, on his first appearance, he
gibes at Kent as foolish 'for taking one's part that's out
of favour', he is using worldly wisdom to point o.ut to
Lear how dangerous it has now become to lend him any
service. Again: when, in the midst of the storm, he
begs Lear to go back indoors and ask blessing of his
daughters, he is offering common-sense advice: but at
the same time emphasizing the hopelessness of Lear's
position, since to take the advice is now not only out of
the question but wrong, since it would mean submitting
1
See his Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature: a Study of
'King Lear' (1949), pp. 102-13, especially pp. 109-10.