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King Lear(William Shakespeare),.“Othello; MacBeth; Lear”by Edward Dowden, in Shakspere:A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1881)IntroductionIn his lengthy study of Shakespeare’s plays and Shakespeare’sdevelopment as an artist and thinker, Edward Dowden characterizesKing Lear as a tragedy in which “everything . . . [is]in motion, and the motion is that of a tempest.” The moralambiguity of the play’s cosmos constitutes, for Dowden, akind of verisimilitude where “the mysteries of human life” arerendered both sublime and grotesque. Remarking on Cordelia’sundeserved fate and Lear’s harsh punishment, Dowdenasserts that Shakespeare “does not attempt to answer thesequestions. . . . [because] the heart is purified not by dogma,but by pity and terror.” Thus, Dowden concludes that Shakespearepresents readers and audiences of King Lear with aStoic universe, one where “human existence is a vast pieceof unreason and grotesqueness” that can only be mitigatedby an indifferent “devotion to the moral idea, the law of thesoul, which is forever one with itself and with the highestreason.” By authoring a universe filled with “inexplicableDowden, Edward. “Othello; MacBeth; Lear.” Shakspere: A Critical Study of HisMind and Art. New York: Harper Brothers, 1881.131