Jan Kott | “Lear is ridiculous, naive and stupid. He does not see or understand anything” |
Folio version 1623 | Lear dies with hope at the end, believing Cordelia to be alive – “look there, look there!” This displays the extent of his delusion |
Quarto version 1608 | Lear dies without hope – “break heart, I prithee break”. This is a more nihilistic ending, showing him as the broken man. However, it was deemed to pessimistic for the original audience so was changed. |
Heilman | “The sanity of the mad is that they can understand eternal truths” |
Orwell | The Fool is “the trickle of sanity running through the play” |
Tolstoy | The Fool is “a tedious nuisance” |
Jan Kott | The Fool has “no illusions” He “knows that the only true madness is to regard this world as rational” |
AO3 ‘King Lear’ critics quotes – sanity/insanity
July 24, 2019