King Lear Nature Essay

Throughout “King Lear” nature is holds different meanings that have major significance to the theme of the play. Characters speak to it as though it’s a personified entity; they refer to the celestial objects in the heavens above and even to that of animals of the Earth. When the characters speak to nature, they do it as a means of justifying their intentions or previous actions, and also as a means of invoking it in some form. Nature is also used to describe the disposition of a character and the physical world with no spiritual bearing. We see that nature tends to hold many ambiguous meanings during the play; however they are centered mostly between nature that embodies the laws of the universe or that of a man. One instance of the contrasting views of nature is Lear and Edmund not holding the same views of nature as one another. In “King Lear” there are two strong contrasting views of nature that govern men; that of Edmunds and the characters closely associated to him, and that of Lear and his party. Edmund is seen in the first Act speaking to the heavens of his plot to sabotage the legitimate son Edgar, Edmund’s half-brother. He personifies nature in the line “Thou Nature, art my goddess; to thy law my services are bound” and proceeds to tell of his intention with overthrowing Edgar “Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund.” He looks to nature to aid him in achieving his goals of furthering himself above the legitimate. Looking to the stars he speaks about how his father Gloucester in the “lusty stealth of nature” “compounded” with his mother under the “Dragon’s tail” which we can see to be a sign of the stars. Along with this Edmund states his nativity is under Ursa Major, which emphasizes the fact that he sees the fates of man are governed and consolidated by the heavens which can in turn reflect upon the meaning of what is natural. In the scene where Edgar is being fooled by Edmund into fleeing his father’s fake

References: Danby, John. Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear (London, 1949) Harrison, G. B. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Heinle & Heinle, 1968. Leggatt, Alexander. King Lear. New York: & London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1988.