Literary Analysis of Beowulf and King Lear - Literature review Example

Literary Analysis Part One: King Lear enjoys the prestige that comes with the role of king. He begins the play as a very self-involved man who feeds off of the adoration of others. The significant change that occurs in Lear throughout the play makes his reunion with Cordelia the great tragedy of the play. Lear ignores both his best interests and the best interests of his kingdom as he seeks to inflate his own ego through flattery. His decisions reflect his enormous pride and ego as he bases who he shows favor to on who is more likely to compliment him, or tell him what he wants to hear, rather than demonstrating a knowledge of what is best for his kingdom. Nowhere is this more evident than in his blatant disregard of Cordelia’s affection and the subsequent decision to hand over control of his kingdom to his two unworthy daughters, Regan and Goneril. His two wicked daughters who praise and flatter Lear, tripping over themselves to demonstrate with words to convince them of their great love for him as their father, are the same two women who spend the remainder of the play seeking to destroy him. It is Cordelia who attempts to save him and the rest of Britain by bringing in an army to try and save them from the evil represented by her sisters. King Lear quickly disowned Cordelia, previously his favorite of his three daughters, for not showing him the same flattery and praise that her sisters faked in his presence. He placed her in a terrible position, leaving for France and her wedding without the benefit of a dowry or the blessings of her family. Dependant solely on her virtuous nature, she leaves Britain to be married to the King of France who, unlike her father, treasures that nature above any flattery that she would bestow upon him. He gifts her with an army to return to her father’s kingdom in the hopes of saving it from destruction at the hands of her sisters. Cordelia displays an inner strength that is enviable. She faces harsh punishment at the hands of her beloved father for simply refusing to stroke his ego without breaking down. She also sails off to her husband without so much as her father’s blessing to encourage the marriage. Cordelia displays a kind of courage not shown in either her father or her siblings. While she could have saved herself the torment that her father put her through by pleasing him with pretty, empty words as her sisters did, the play would have lost much of its tragic element and the catalyst for future events. If Cordelia had sided with her sisters, she would have been given an equal stake in the control of Britain and would have still had to fight the treachery that would have undoubtedly surfaced from her sisters. Though this still would have conceivably opened the door to some of the same events in the play, it would not have been as meaningful or as dramatic as Cordelia coming back on her own, without knowledge of the reception she would receive from her father, to save him and Britain. The truly inspired scene in Act V, where she has reconciled with Lear and is then sacrificed despite her genuine goodness is heartbreaking. O, you are men of stones: Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever! (Shakespeare) That is truly the great tragedy of the play that not only the evil characters perish, but also the good ones. The play could have been written in a different way from the beginning that came to the same ending, with the demise of Lear and Cordelia, but it would not have had the same tragic element if their deaths did not occur just after their reconciliation. There are several ironic turns in King Lear. The first occurs in Act I, Scene, where Lear refuses Cordelia’s love in exchange for the false words uttered by Regan and Goneril. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth (Shakespeare). While he tosses aside the virtuous daughter who has both his and Britain’s best interests at heart, he pulls close to him the two daughters who would attempt to destroy him. By granting Regan and Goneril control over his kingdom, Lear is in effect placing himself in an inactive position where he can be just as easily discarded as he thought Cordelia to be. The real irony is that Cordelia was his beloved daughter, the only one of the three who deserved to inherit the kingdom, and Lear truly believed that he was making the better decision by disinheriting her. That one dreadful mistake led not only to his fall from grace and quick decent into madness, but also the near ruin of his kingdom and Cordelia’s untimely death on the orders of her sisters’ lover, Edmund. Even though it marks the beginning of the end for many of the play’s characters, it is a kind of poetic justice when Regan and Goneril turn on their father and toss him out into the storm after gaining control of the kingdom. Shakespeare treats Lear with the same disregard, the same punishment with which he treated Cordelia, invoking a significant change in the character of Lear. Another ironic twist occurs both Cordelia and Lear perish in Act V, Scene III, she by the hangman’s noose, and he seemingly from heartbreak at his beloved child’s unnecessary death. Though they have lost the battle for Britain’s freedom from the clutches of her evil sisters, Cordelia has forgiven her father for his callousness toward her at the beginning of the play and he professes his love for her once again. And yet directly following this joyful reunion, Cordelia is executed. Shortly thereafter, Lear also passes away, cradling her corpse. There is no true justice to this scene as the good die along with the wicked. It seems to be the final nail in Lear’s coffin that Cordelia perishes and he subsequently falls dead in the same scene. Part of what makes it so ironic is that this is the daughter that he forsakes in the beginning of the play; this is the one who he seems to not want. And yet it is her death, not the deaths of the two daughters that he handed over the keys to his kingdom to, that he laments as he himself passes away. The wonder is, he hath endured so long (Shakespeare). This ironic twist gives the play its true sense of tragedy as they both die before Lear is given a chance to truly repent for his mistakes and neither can assist the kingdom in the aftermath of Regan and Goneril’s wickedness. For not only was Cordelia of a truly virtuous and courageous nature, but she is also the only one who had Britain’s best interests at heart throughout the entire play. Part Two: Two characters in Spencer’s epic poem The Faerie Queen that could not be more different are Una and Duessa. The two women appear to be almost mirror images of each other as one represents good and the other represents a kind of evil. The presence of both of these elements forces Redcrosse to face the same internal struggle that every human must face at some point in their lives: the struggle to overcome either good or evil. In Christian terms, this would be the fight for his immortal soul between God and the Devil. Eventually one must choose a singular path in their life, cementing their eternal fate as they accept either side as their self-proclaimed destiny. Ay me, how many perils doe enfold the righteous man, to make him daily fall! (Spenser) Here that battle is commenced over Redcrosse as the two women vie for his romantic attentions. The two women collide while fighting for the affections of Redcrosse who is the hero of Book One. Una represents truth, a goal that Redcrosse must reach in order to be a true Christian. Duessa represents lies, and attempts to steer Redcrosse from the proverbial path of righteousness, in this case his love for Una, by tempting him with herself. The women share the same mission, the same goal, to win over the knight, with the same stake in the outcome. Where the two women differ is in their pursuit of Redcrosse. Duessa attempts to lure Redcrosse away with deception, while Una relies on her virtuous nature and the inner virtue in Redcrosse in order to achieve her goal. Her angels face,as the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, and made a sunshine in the shady place (Spenser). In addition to representing good and evil, Una and Duessa also represent the perceived dual nature of women, the ability to be both loving and virtuous as well as cunning and deceptive as necessary in order to achieve their goals. They are two sides of the same coin, sharing the same goal and the same determination to see their objective achieved. Both rely heavily on the characteristics of their inner nature, however differing, in order to achieve that goal. In this work, Spenser demonstrates that not only can a woman be either inherently good or evil, but that both good and evil can also share the same goals, with the difference lying in the path chosen to make those goals a reality. He also demonstrates how a woman can exhibit the characteristics of both sides by giving Una and Duessa the same goal to reach with the same motivations, the winning over of Redcrosse to their side of the eternal struggle. These are both beautiful, capable women with the same amount of determination to win the battle for the knight’s affections, and in essence, his soul in the process. While they differ greatly from one another in purity of their actions, the differences in their motivations are not quite as stark as their opposite characteristics might first lead the reader to believe. My favorite segment of The Faerie Queen occurs in Book I, across Cantos VI and VII, where Redcrosse and Una travel to the castle of her parents. This scene not only serves as a climax to the first book, but it also gives Redcrosse two more hurdles to overcome in order to prove his devotion to Una. First, he must slay the dragon with impenetrable scales before the couple can even enter her parents’ castle. A wondrous way it for this Lady wrought, from Lyons clawes to pluck the griped pray (Spenser). The fact that this task proves more daunting than initially anticipated makes it all the more interesting. Redcrosse continues his battle against the dragon despite the near impossibility of the creature’s defeat. He suffers from burns, blows from the dragon, as well as injury to his shoulder courtesy of the spikes on his opponent’s tail and where he had the option over the three day battle to leave, he stayed, maintaining his quest to cement his relationship with Una through marriage. The dragon is the physical embodiment of what one presumes is the final battle that Redcrosse must face; the last evil that the knight is confronted with, as he chooses good, which in this case is Una, over evil, represented by Duessa. He maintains his determination to achieve this goal despite the best efforts of the dragon to best him. In so much as good is proposed to triumph over evil, Redcrosse eventually slays the dragon at their most excellent moment, just as the dragon believes he has won and attempts to swallow the knight whole. The dragon’s momentary lapse in judgment costs him his life as Redcrosse sees a weakness in the dragon’s armor and stabs him in the throat. Just when both the characters and the readers think the last hurdle is jumped, the hero triumphs, and good wins over evil, Duessa finds a way to spoil the merriment. The evil enchantress sends a messenger into the celebration of Redcrosse and Una’s engagement, claiming that he has already promised himself to her. This is both a true and a false statement that gives the reader momentary pause. While Redcrosse did in fact promise to marry Duessa, she was at the time disguised as Fidessa, so the technicality is that though he did promise himself to her, she wasn’t herself at the time. Upholding his decision to side with good, Redcrosse exploits the loophole, pronouncing that Duessa used her deceptive nature to trick him into giving her this vow, which her lies void, as he now sees the truth behind the falsehood. And fitting gestures to her purpose frame;   The guiltlesse man with guile to entertaine?   Great maistresse of her art was that false Dame, The false Duessa, cloked with Fidessaes name. (Spenser) He is fortunate that Una’s father accepts this explanation for his future son-in-law being engaged to a woman other than his daughter. After this brief hiccup, the celebration of Una and Redcrosse’s engagement is allowed to continue, Duessa appearing defeated, at least for the moment. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Washington D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 2004. Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queen. New York: Penguin Classics, 1979. Read More