May You Live In Interesting Times /////// Isabelle Ferguson

    If anyone has been or should be so fortunate as to have Dr. Downs as your professor in any class, you will be in for a treat. He is a walking textbook, but he tells historical stories better. He mentioned a particular Greek curse during a Western Civilization lecture, and I know at least most of you have seen the tumblr post I'm talking about. To live in interesting times is for something so impactful to happen, it inspires a sense of preservation for whatever event has disrupted the everyday normalcy. As a survival instinct to keep things from happening again, humans tend to remember the bad. It makes for great story-telling. After all, who wants to buy a book with no conflict or plot? It's been said before that we all graduated during a global pandemic. Future teachers will reference the toilet paper famine of 2020. It's because of this that I believe we can have some empathy for King Lear, since this poor man cannot seem to catch a break.
    Things were looking up for King Lear for about six lines. After losing his power, his pride, his daughters, and his mind, he was going to be rescued and restored by the French. Then the French lost. That was fine, because he knew he would be left to live out the rest of his life with his beloved Cordelia (albeit in a prison). Then Cordelia dies, along with her two older sisters. The small piece of Lear's mind that he had regained after his fit of grief was lost once again. It has to be noted that what Lear was experiencing really just seems like grief and not actual madness. Throughout the play, Lear never really "lost" his daughters in the way he did at the end of the play. In the end, Lear witnessed his youngest being hung. He was then told that his eldest daughters were dead while still holding Cordelia's body. We can only imagine how powerless he felt in this moment. It was in this scene that I really began to dislike Albany. After all that this power and responsibility cost him, Albany thinks it's a bright idea to give Lear the responsibility of the kingdom once again. 
    He was prideful and particularly dislikeable throughout the play, but am I the only one who feels a little bit sorry for King Lear?

I commented on Emory Cooper's post and Emmett Bryant's post.

Comments

  1. Emma LandryAugust 30, 2021 at 10:13 PM

    I totally agree with you. I did not have much patience with Lear's behavior at the beginning, but as the play progressed, I felt terrible for him. Grief is a beast, and most people do not behave "logically" when they have lost things dear to them. Lear ended up losing his life as he knew it, so it is understandable that he would descend into a place of instability. He experienced a lot of heartbreak. Also, I thought Albany was one of the better characters until you brought up that point. The poor king had been through enough already, and it would have been cruel to expect him to make leadership decisions for the country again.

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  2. Emma DAugust 30, 2021 at 10:26 PM

    King Lear is really brought quite low by these events, which aren't even a part of the "fate" you normally see in tragedies; it's all mentioned as the cruel turning of Fortune's wheel! (Unlike Boethius, I do NOT find this very comforting.) Frankly, the attacks seemed to come from three sides - circumstantial and consequential, with his pride and favoritism coming to haunt him, physical in some mental condition that the Doctor does manage to cure, and emotional, as he goes through wave after wave of grief over and over again. I feel very sorry for him; while at first I felt angry, his suffering strips him of his pride and reveals his core, a hurting, sensitive old man who has been in a way blinded by the power he once possessed. If you'd asked me this earlier, I would probably have responded he received what he deserved, but I feel very differently now.

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