occur in other plays. That which each play
added to the thought of the world is expressed in the single figure of
someone caught in a net. Macbeth is a ruthless man so caught. Hamlet is
a wise man so caught. Othello is a passionate and Antony a glorious man
so caught. All are caught and all are powerless, and all are superb
tragic inventions. King Lear is a grander, ironic invention, who hurts
far more than any of these because he is a horribly strong man who is
powerless. He is so strong that he cannot die. He is so strong that he
nearly breaks the net, before the folds kill him.

No image in the world is so fierce with imaginative energy. The stormy
soul runs out storming in a night of the soul as mad as the elements.
With him goes the invention of the Fool, the horribly faithful fool,
like conscience or worldly wisdom, to flick him mad with ironic comment
and bitter song.

The verse is as great as the invention. It rises and falls with the
passion like music with singing. All the scale of Shakespeare's art is
used; the terrible spiritual manner of

"You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,"

as well as the instinctive manner of a prose coloured to the height with
all the traditions of country life.

Dramatic genius has the power of understanding half-a-dozen lives at
once in tense, swiftly changing situations. This power is shown at its
best in the last act of this play. One of the most wonderful and least
praised of the inventions in the last scene is that of the dying Edmund.
He has been treacherous to nearly every person in the play. His last
treachery, indirectly the cause of his ruin, is still in act, the
killing of Cordelia and the king. He has been stricken down. "The wheel
has come full circle." He has learned too late that

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us."

He can hardly hope to live for more than a few minutes. The death of his
last two victims cannot benefit him. A word from him would save them. No
one else can save them. Yet at the last minute, his one little glimmer
of faithfulness keeps the word unspoken. He is silent for Goneril's
sake. If he ever cared for any one in the world, except himself, he may
have cared a little for Goneril. He thinks of her now. She has gone from
him. But she is on his side, and he trusts to her, and acts for her. He
waits for some word or token from her. He