Lear_ in the present lecture, emphasise only certain aspects of the play
and certain elements in the total impression; and in that impression the
effect of these aspects, though far from being lost, is modified by that
of others. I do not mean that the final effect resembles that of the
_Divine Comedy_ or the _Oresteia_: how should it, when the first of
these can be called by its author a 'Comedy,' and when the second,
ending (as doubtless the _Prometheus_ trilogy also ended) with a
solution, is not in the Shakespearean sense a tragedy at all?[156] Nor
do I mean that _King Lear_ contains a revelation of righteous
omnipotence or heavenly harmony, or even a promise of the reconciliation
of mystery and justice. But then, as we saw, neither do Shakespeare's
other tragedies contain these things. Any theological interpretation of
the world on the author's part is excluded from them, and their effect
would be disordered or destroyed equally by the ideas of righteous or of
unrighteous omnipotence. Nor, in reading them, do we think of 'justice'
or 'equity' in the sense of a strict requital or such an adjustment of
merit and prosperity as our moral sense is said to demand; and there
never was vainer labour than that of critics who try to make out that
the persons in these dramas meet with 'justice' or their 'deserts.'[157]
But, on the other hand, man is not represented in these tragedies as the
mere plaything of a blind or capricious power, suffering woes which have
no relation to his character and actions; nor is the world represented
as given over to darkness. And in these respects _King Lear_, though the
most terrible of these works, does not differ in essence from the rest.
Its keynote is surely to be heard neither in the words wrung from
Gloster in his anguish, nor in Edgar's words 'the gods are just.' Its
final and total result is one in which pity and terror, carried perhaps
to the extreme limits of art, are so blended with a sense of law and
beauty that we feel at last, not depression and much less despair, but a
consciousness of greatness in pain, and of solemnity in the mystery we
cannot fathom.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 123: I leave undiscussed the position of _King Lear_ in
relation to the 'comedies' of _Measure for Measure_, _Troilus and
Cressida_ and _All's Well_.]

[Footnote 124: See Note R.]

[Footnote 125: On some of the points mentioned in this paragraph see
Note S.]

[Footnote 126:

'_Kent._ I thoug