Page 49 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

jdiv K I N G L E A R
co-existence, co-operation, loyalty, affection, self-
limitation in due degree. In 'Nature' in this sense
Cordelia believes, and Kent, and Edgar. Lear and
Gloucester believe in it too. In the opening scene,
admittedly, Lear's understanding of it is imperfect, as
is shown by Cordelia when she says
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all?

Part of Lear's initial folly is that he fails to understand all
the implications of the principle that he himself funda-
mentally values.
When, however, on his first appear ance, Edmund says
Thou, Nature, art my goddess j to thy law
My services are bound,
he is using 'Nature' in a quite different sense. To him
(and also to Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall) 'Nature' is
a force encouraging the individual to think only of the
fulfilment of his own desires—to work only for his own
success, even if that involves him in trampling others
(perhaps his own flesh and blood) under foot. The
antithesis is between a loving sense of right relationship
and a ruthless claim to spiritual isolationism—indivi-
dualism of a heartless kind.
Various critics in recent years, working indepen-
dently, have shown the cardinal importance in King
Lear of the conflict between 'the two Natures'.
Dr Edwin Muir and Professor R. C. Bald have made
contributions here, the former in a lecture delivered in
1
the University of Glasgow in 1946, the latter in an
essay published in the Adams Memorial Studies, 1948
(pp. 337 iF.). In Professor Heilman's book the chapter
entitled 'Hear, Nature, Hear' is illuminating. And a
1
'The Politics of King Lear'—The seventh W. P. Ker
Memorial Lecture (Glasgow, 1947), in pamphlet form.