Page 56 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

I N T R O D U C T I O N li

I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that
I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last
scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an
editor.
The gods allow the totally innocent Cordelia to be done
to death. Does not this at least, it may be asked, spell a
final pessimism, even if nothing else does? I cannot
think so.
I have said that I think Mr Maxwell is right when he
says that ' King Lear is a Christian play about a pagan
world'. The author's viewpoint is Christian. Now the
Christian outlook is, of course, the reverse of pessimistic.
To the Christian, God is, paradoxically, at once just,
merciful, and in his dealings bewildering. Almost every
day the Christian has to take account of happenings
which seem to mean that God at least acquiesces in the
incomprehensible destruction of the pure and good. The
temptation is strong to cry out, 'Why does God allow
this kind of thing—or is there a God at all?'. But the
true Christian, if agonized by such things, is neverthe-
less unable to let them overturn his faith. God over-
throws the absolutely evil—he destroys the Cornwalls,
the Gonerils, the Regans: he is just. God chastens those
who err but who can be regenerated—the Lears, the
Gloucesters—and in mercy he redeems them: he is just,
and merciful. But again, God moves in a mysterious
way—he deals strangely with the Cordelias of this
world. His methods are inscrutable. Shakespeare
presents the whole picture—the mysterious as well as
that which is plain. This, however, can mean 'pessi-
mistic' drama only to. those who cannot agree that the
play is a Christian play.