‘What, in ill thoughts again?’: Edgar and the Poetics of Endurance

In the subplot of King Lear, we can see a clear dichotomy between Gloucester and his illegitimate son Edmund: if the former represents patriarchal authority, a feudal order that is inexorably drawn towards its decline, Edmund is the Machiavellian principe nuovo, the man relying solely on his cunning and ability to make his way in the world. The dichotomy reflects traditional fault lines. What is less explicable is the role of Edgar, Edmund’s older brother and Gloucester’s legitimate son: his presence, his development and transformation(s) in the course of the play, and his final words, appear to indicate the role he plays as pointing towards a new, less traditional world order: with this character, Shakespeare seems to highlight the possibility of social reconciliation, a possibility that will be fully explored in his last plays. The present chapter explores this character and its apparent contradictions at the light of this intuition.