King Lear | Tragic Form in Shakespeare
In this brief excerpt, Ruth Nevo comments one of Lear's famous last speeches, in which he asks Cordelia to join him in the spirit of eternal optimism—"We two alone will sing like birds i' the' cage. . . ."
(From Tragic Form in Shakespeare by Ruth Nevo. © 1972 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
. . . Lear expresses his complete conviction of the power of love renewed in reconciliation to redeem all sorrow, to compensate for all loss, to sweeten all adversity, and to confer blessedness upon the most meager and wretched of material conditions. For Lear the fullness of time is identical with the fullness of the spirit:
Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll...
[The entire page is 481 words long]
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