Social Paradigms Within King Lear
Introduction "Kiernan Ryan's argument that King Lear endorses neither feudal nor bourgeois worldviews but instead looks forward to a utopian condition beyond both," is to a degree acceptable in my opinion. I vehemently concur that the play does indeed look beyond both the feudal and bourgeois ideologies and strives towards a more utopian condition, but I do not agree that King Lear endorses neither feudal nor bourgeois paradigms. The understanding that I have assimilated from this play is that Shakespeare favours feudal worldviews over bourgeois worldviews, and thus, esoterically endorses the worldviews of the feudal system.
Shakespeare is subversively invective and polemical towards the ideologies of the bourgeoisie; he tenaciously excoriates their sense of self-preserving individualism and their avaricious nature, but he never astringently attacks the ideologies of feudalism, he sedulously highlights the flaws of its fabric without being vitriolic or seditious (Shakespeare uses Lear as a figural antithesis to James I, so that he could probably avoid being ostracised and demonised by him).
Shakespeare surreptitiously acknowledges and highlights the flaws within the feudalistic system, but he also accentuates a personal belief in that system, a belief that suggests the system would work more equitably and justly if the powers that be within the system acknowledge their responsibilities to their subjects, and acknowledge their needs and afflictions more punctiliously and more humanely. The fact that Shakespeare was less acerbic in his criticism of the feudal system than his criticism of the bourgeois system indicates that he favoured the former over the latter.
Shakespeare wrote King Lear in 1605. It was a time of discord and pernicious poverty,...
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