by the play as a whole: what is the relation of wisdom and political power? Perhaps King
Lear as a whole offers what III.iv seems to deny us: a dialogue about philosophy and kingship. The key to understanding III.iv is thus to recognize the dual character of Lear's vision; he sees the disguised Edgar not just as Tom o' Bedlam but as the learned Theban as well. This pattern is repeated in Act IV. When the mad Lear encounters Gloucester, he once again articulates a vision of the bestial side of human nature, dwelling obsessively and almost pathologically on female sexuality and its corrupting tendencies. Critics often cite these passages as examples of the fullness of the wisdom Lear learns from his devastating experience. But they tend to forget that in the very next scene (IV.vii), Lear moves from his vision of the female body as a form of corruption to his transcendent vision of Cordelia as a spirit in all her purifying and redemptive power. Neither vision can by itself be taken as Shakespeare's last word on the question of human potential; interpreting the view of humanity articulated in King Lear seems to require us to integrate the visions that remain fragmented in Lear's eyes. As difficult as that task may be, I would like to make a start on such an interpretation by calling attention to Edgar, who seems to encapsulate in a single enigmatic figure the extremes of human possibility King Lear explores. Edgar begins the play as a conventional man, blind, for example, to the evil in his half-brother Edmund, and unaware of his father's limitations. Throughout the play, Edgar is given to pious moralizing and platitudes, and seems to represent a man firmly anchored in society and its customary opinions. Yet, forced, like Kent, into a kind of internal exile, Edgar miraculously bifurcates in Lear's vision into Poor Tom and the learned Theban, thereby revealing both the animal side of human nature and man's capacity to transcend the limits of his body in thought. What is torn asunder in Lear's mad imagination is somehow united in the strange figure of Edgar as both Tom o' Bedlam and the learned Theban. The complex figure of Edgar poses the fundamental question of King Lear : how can humanity encompass the range of possibilities from the "bare, fork'd animal" to the "noble philosopher"? In her own vulgar way, Goneril manages to state the central issue of the play: "O, the difference of man and man!" (IV.ii.26). I want to analyze how King Lear explores the mystery of human difference, to show how at first human differences are obscured and occluded in the play, and then how they become revealed and clarified. The Occupational Hazards of Kingship
King Lear begins with the kingdom in a relatively settled state, with Lear firmly in control and presenting a plan to prevent future turmoil. Under these stable political conditions, the extreme differences among human beings have tended to be obscured or even suppressed. To be