Auden once stated that Shakespearean tragedy is necessarily parabolic, pertaining to the only myth Christianity possesses: that of the "unrepentant thief." We, as spectators, are therefore involved in the action since each of us "is in danger of reenacting [this story] in our own way."1 The hero's sufferings could be our sufferings, while in Greek tragedy, such suffering a notion is precluded precisely because the misfortunes of a character can be traced back to the discontent of the gods. Hippolytus is not a moral agent; Hamlet is. The aesthetics of Shakespearean tragedy is therefore dynamic, with an audience that, to a certain extent, also participates. Auden proposes a model of observation based on an Aristotelian conception of drama, which involves the spectator in an emotional relationship with the characters on stage. King Lear also offers the audience several very distinct paradigms of both observation and action and, crucially, it is on the different successes of these models that the tragedy is based. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay You don't have to look far in King Lear to find a figure who might fit Auden's mold. Kent certainly embodies what Schlegel called in the play the "science of compassion."2 He is publicly vilified and humiliated by Lear in Act I, scene 1, and yet, in the guise of Gaius, risks his life to serve his kings again. Kent observes Lear's "horrible recklessness" (Ii153) and is motivated to share in his master's suffering: I have a journey, sir, soon to go; I don't have to say no. (V.iii.323-324)The simple rhyme, metrical balance and monosyllabic simplicity of this couplet imbue the verses with a sense of tenderness. Kent's final, elegiac words are, like all his utterances, devoid of hyperbole and emotionally raw. Throughout the show his response to the action parallels that of the audience. Kent is the mouthpiece of the spectators when he implores Lear to "see better" (Ii159), and his dismay at Cordelia's death: "Is this the promised end?" (V.iii.264), speaks volumes. However, that shouldn't hide the fact that Kent as a character is ineffective. His last words do not embody an attempt to resolve or rectify, they are truly fatalistic. Kent, therefore, is the Aristotelian observer. He participates in the action only out of “pity” towards Lear, and the result is that he shares his master's fate. His observations lead him to emote events, and, just like Dr. Johnson, who found King Lear "too horrible to bear," he "sees with feeling."3 But King Lear is a play of antithesis, and one might find a second opposite model. of observation in the character of Edgar. In Act III, disguised as Poor Tom, he confronts his aberrant, rain-beaten godfather, and although he fears that his anguish may betray his "counterfeit" (III.vi.59-60), he maintains his composure . Likewise, in the next Act, faced with the even more harrowing image of a blinded Gloucester, Edgar refrains from revealing his identity. Physically he is a chameleon, but emotionally he is unshakable: GLOUCESTER Do you know the way to Dover? EDGAR Both the stile and the gate, the bridleway and the path. (IV.i.56-57) Edgar's matter-of-fact response contains six names in just nine words and could hardly be further from Lear's visceral utterances on the moor. His reaction to his father here is indicative of his detached response to suffering in general. Edgar is able to observe without getting emotionally involved in the situation. He is the Brechtian spectator, the one who "instead of sharing an experience, compares himself with itthings".4 Brecht's dramaturgy affirmed the belief that observation from a distance "excites the capacity for action", and Shakespeare seems to propose something remarkably similar through Edgar.5 Unlike Kent, who wallows in his own misery, Edgarcomes brought to fruition by what he witnesses, and is thus driven to action. He is the main redeeming force in King Lear, as he frees his father from suicidal despair and defeats the inverted bastard hegemony of his brother Edmund playwright encourages the audience to distance themselves from the tragedy, to observe rather than feel and to "see better", so that they too are forced to ask: "Is man nothing but this?" (III.iv.106) In the character of the Fool, however, there remains an additional observer in King Lear. His role is essentially that of a chorus, and is therefore immutable, just as the multitude of Corinthian women are incapable of responding to the cries of Jason's children kills in the Medea, so the Fool cannot, by definition, intervene in Lear's predicament.6 However, he is a substantially revised representation of this situation. classic device, as its function is not expository at all, as in the case of Euripides' choruses, or even that of Marlowe's Dr Faustus. His words are almost without exception sharp: FOOL Give me an egg, uncle, and I will give you two crowns. LEAR What crowns will they be? MANIAC Because, after I have cut the egg in the middle and eaten the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When you cut your crown down the middle and donated both parts, you brought your donkey on its back to the earth. (I.iv.161-168)Coleridge spoke of the character's 'inspired idiocy' and you can see what he meant here.7 The Fool plays with images of inversion and nothingness. The crown, a symbol of harmony, power and wealth, is reduced to a broken, hollow and worthless egg and, in turn, Lear's title is little more than a shell. The image of the "two crowns," a veiled prophecy of civil war, increases the political implications of Lear's actions in the opening scene. Likewise, the absurd image of the man who carries the butt mocks Lear as dull (note the parallel with Ovid's Midas), and yet, embedded in the role reversal is the notion of an inverted hierarchy: the daughters they are mothers; kings are children; bastards are oligarchs. The Fool's language is extremely parsimonious, anti-poetic, but also pregnant. It evokes motifs that, on the one hand, are sardonic jokes and, on the other, clarify many of the work's pervasive themes. Although he is unable to act, his observations have a forensic precision intended to compel others, Lear in particular, to do what he cannot. In this sense, the Fool's expressions are active and bring both the protagonist and, as Kiernan Ryan notes, the audience to a state of realization.8 For Lear this realization comes at the end of Act III, with the words: Make no noise , don't make any noise; draw the curtains; like this, like this, like this. We'll go to dinner tomorrow morning. So, so, so. (III.vi.83-85) Lear's unnecessary use of epizeuxis seems a parody of rhetoric here. He understands the destructive nature of the “easy, oily art” (Ii226) of words, hence his appeal to “make no noise,” and, importantly, he also shows awareness of his own hamartia – the topsy-turvy comment about dinner in the morning. he recognizes the reversed order that his actions helped shape. The Fool's function has thus been fulfilled and, after a final half-stanza, "And I will go to bed at noon" (III.vi.86), he promptly vanishes. Lear, however, has changed since the epiphany, and this scene marks a period of transition for his character, from blind spectator to active observer, and in Act IV he becomes the Fool of Gloucester. Yesbreak; arm him with rags, a pygmy's straw pierces him. (IV.vi.169-170)The king, as Edgar knows, speaks 'Reason in madness' (IV.vi.179). Lear presents justice as socially protean. The rich and powerful, such as Goneril and Regan, transcend the applicability of law and morality, an idea that manifests itself visually on stage in the blinded figure of Gloucester. Yet, for all of Lear's lucid observations, he remains essentially passive. Bradley called him "a hero more acted than acted," and in this respect he is almost unique among Shakespeare's tragic protagonists.9 Only Othello resembles Lear in passivity, controlled by the arch-actor Iago. But he too is an agent of action and it is Othello, not Iago, who suffocates Desdemona. Lear, however, actively participates in his own story only until the first scene, and therefore cannot be considered a true model of action. So if the eponymous hero is not such a role model, who is in King Lear? Certainly not Cordelia. Auden notes that dramatically she is a "bore" and her character appears in only four of the play's twenty-six scenes and is given fewer than ninety lines out of three thousand three hundred.10 Cordelia and her "heavenly eyes" (IV .iii.31) fail to adapt to the redemptive role established for her by Kent and the Gentleman. Gloucester, as a parallel to Lear, is equally inactive, while Burgundy is truly a "milk-livered man" (IV.ii.50). There therefore remains a triumvirate, namely Goneril, Regan and Edmund, who can be considered agents of the action. If you consider the most striking images of King Lear Kent in the stocks, Lear on the moor, Gloucester blinded and the death of Cordelia, all are instigated by these three characters, separately or in collusion. Regan's imperious and surprisingly remorseless comment that Gloucester should "sniff / His way to Dover" (III.vii.94-95) encapsulates the relentless and emphatic way in which she and her sister act and speak throughout the 'work. However, as models of action, they are weakened by mutual dependence and self-destructive passion for Edmund. Only He is a paradigm of truly effective action: You, nature, are my goddess; to your law my services are bound. Why should I remain in the plague of custom, and allow the curiosity of nations to deprive me, (I.ii.1-5) Edmund's words are resoundingly strong in both content and tone, and the emphasis on dental plosives in words like 'art', 'position', 'permission' and 'curiosity' imply that discourse can be spat rather than spoken. Edmund's emphasis is firmly on the self and his language is uniquely subversive: custom and law are a "plague" and to succeed he must forge a morality based on his own nature. He is the existentialist antihero who wanders freely through the play, relying on no one and enjoying the role of lover, never truly loving his self-mutilation in Act II, scene 1, he proves that he is as brilliant an improviser as a planner: Fly, brother, torches! arm) of my fiercest effort (II.i.34-36)Edmund is the opportunist par excellence, constantly aware of what is unfolding around him. His brother Edgar procrastinates, but Edmund is able to assimilate the situation at the speed of light and react in the same way. Nor could any action be more decidedly cold and disinterested than the drawing of one's own blood to incriminate another. His character is both a bitter actor and a bitter observer, and he plays both parts equally. Edgar may be the last man standing, but his closing line, "We that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long," (V.iii.326-327)"..181