Promised End: The Last Scene of King Lear

Perhaps the most important, difficult, and unresolved issue in Shakespeare studies is the question of Lears last lines; the whole meaning of Shakespeares greatest and most controversial tragedy depends upon it. In the 1608 Quarto, it is O,o,o,othat zero to which the Fool compares Lear himself. In the 1623 Folio, the Kings last words are Look on her! Look, her lips! Look there, look there! No one but Lear sees what he points us to envision. Is it epiphany or delusion? Is Lears tragedy nihilistic or redemptive? In search of an answer, Hawkins deploys a wide spectrum of critical approaches: close scrutiny of the rival texts and comparison with the plays sources, the unique double structure of Lear, its symbols and imagery, its visual and verbal scriptural allusions, even its numerology. The book enlists its readers in a quest for final meaning, not unlike the movement of the play itself towards Dover and the extreme verge of its imagined cliff, that high place where life borders upon death and earth meets sky and sea. See more