Navigating a Wheel of Nature: Shakespeare’s Reflections on Nature in King Lear
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This article investigates William Shakespeare’s figuration of the two versions of nature in King Lear—nature as an ordered cosmos and nature as autonomous, each of which loosely represents the old, medieval world’s and the emerging Enlightenment world’s views of nature. Its primary purpose is to offer a systematic understanding of the play’s complex and often ambiguous engagement with nature, as well as its depiction of the ideological hybridity of Shakespeare’s time, through meticulous character analysis, while adding one possible approach to the established discourses on the dramatist’s views of nature. Specifically, the article studies nature’s curious and often troubled correspondence with human “nature” by focusing on the reception of nature by three major characters—Lear, Edmund, and Edgar—and their shifting aspects of identity and personal transformation resulting from it. The article demonstrates how Lear and Edmund, as proxies of the old and new worlds facing harsh ideological strife, respond to the two versions of nature, thereby defining themselves as individuals. Then, it illuminates Edgar as a conciliatory character who, albeit challenged, adroitly negotiates the parameters of the other two’s views of nature, arguing that Edgar’s miraculous survival and final ascension suggest Shakespeare’s implicit emphasis on the exigencies of making a wise compromise between the two trends of nature, as epitomized in Lear’s godson. The article’s scrutiny of the idea of nature in King Lear would reveal a hybrid ideological landscape of Shakespeare’s time, consisting of motifs of stability and change, nostalgia for disenchantment, and the growing urge for disenchantment.
Abstract
This article investigates William Shakespeare’s figuration of the two versions of nature in King Lear—nature as an ordered cosmos and nature as autonomous, each of which loosely represents the old, medieval world’s and the emerging Enlightenment world’s views of nature. Its primary purpose is to offer a systematic understanding of the play’s complex and often ambiguous engagement with nature, as well as its depiction of the ideological hybridity of Shakespeare’s time, through meticulous character analysis, while adding one possible approach to the established discourses on the dramatist’s views of nature. Specifically, the article studies nature’s curious and often troubled correspondence with human “nature” by focusing on the reception of nature by three major characters—Lear, Edmund, and Edgar—and their shifting aspects of identity and personal transformation resulting from it. The article demonstrates how Lear and Edmund, as proxies of the old and new worlds facing harsh ideological strife, respond to the two versions of nature, thereby defining themselves as individuals. Then, it illuminates Edgar as a conciliatory character who, albeit challenged, adroitly negotiates the parameters of the other two’s views of nature, arguing that Edgar’s miraculous survival and final ascension suggest Shakespeare’s implicit emphasis on the exigencies of making a wise compromise between the two trends of nature, as epitomized in Lear’s godson. The article’s scrutiny of the idea of nature in King Lear would reveal a hybrid ideological landscape of Shakespeare’s time, consisting of motifs of stability and change, nostalgia for disenchantment, and the growing urge for disenchantment.
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