The Two Kneelings of King Lear
Samuel Yellen
As tragedies, King Lear and Othello resemble each other in how great a portion of the play is given over to an extended exhibition of the suffering which the principal character undergoes. Many critics have testified to how painful it was for them to sit through the long and intense scenes in which Othello and Lear endure mental and emotional agony. Indeed, both plays might be shortened considerably without damage to the working out of the plot if the torment of the principal character were not so long drawn out. Just as Othello is shown as driven over the edge into fits of incoherence and unconsciousness, so Lear is shown as driven over the edge into fits of hysterica passio—that is, the physical sensation of swelling around the heart, of constriction and smothering—and insanity. And both men draw upon all of Shakespeare's eloquence in expressing their agony.
Images of torture and torment fill both plays. Othello cries out to lago: "Thou hast set me on the rack." So Lear too cries out: "Let me have a surgeon, I am cut to the brains!" And when he comes out of his sleep (act 4, scene 7) and Cordelia asks "How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?" he replies:
You do me wrong to take me out of the grave
