In King Lear, Shakespeare Presents the medieval view of nature and the Renaissance one respectively by the good and the evil characters. In a sense, the conflict between the two groups of characters in the play is symbolic of the clash between the Med...
In King Lear, Shakespeare Presents the medieval view of nature and the Renaissance one respectively by the good and the evil characters. In a sense, the conflict between the two groups of characters in the play is symbolic of the clash between the Medieval convention and the Renaissance reformation.
One of the important themes in King Lear is the meaning of Lear's suffering and regeneration between the conflict of malignant nature and benignant nature. This conflict is caused by a fundamental difference in the way the protagonist understands Nature. This fundamental conflict is perhaps most clearly reflected in Edmund and Cordelia.
These two Natures must inevitably conflict as seen not only in Cordelia and Edmund but in the other major characters as well. While the evil characters are Goneril, Regan, and Edmund, the good ones are Cordelia, Lear, Gloucester, and Edgar. Lear and Gloucester suffer within and without between the two Natures and travel through suffering from a superficial materialistic understanding of Nature to a deep insight of it. In King Lear Shakespeare universalizes ingratitude and intensifies the effect of tragic meaning, using the double plot.