King Lear, I.i.1-6

Judgments about judgments

So without more ado, but subject to tons of revision:

Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund.

KENT: I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTER: It did always seem so to us, but now in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most, for equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety. (I.i.1-6)

[I will follow the lineation, and often the punctuation, of the Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, edited by R.A. Foakes, 1997]

Two preliminary observations: I conflate the Quarto and Folio. The play that I think I know about is the play that Shakespeare was thinking about, perhaps over years, and as with Freud's "mystic writing pad" there's an overlay or palimpsestial quality to his thinking, or to my thinking about his thinking. But of course I'll have to choose one or the other, usually, when it comes to inconsistencies in individual words or lines, and part of what I think I know will often be what I'll argue for as the right choice. Far less important: I won't be paying much attention to speech prefixes or italicized names, I don't think. (Stage directions will be of somewhat more importance though.)

To begin, then, and following the Folio, Kent and Gloucester come in talking about the ceremony of the division of the kingdom that they know is about to occur. They know each other pretty well, not well enough that Kent has ever been properly introduced to Edmund, but well enough that Kent knows who he is. Edmund has probably entered first and is already present when Kent and Gloucester enter, as though for a Richard III like soliloquy of self-delighting evil. But it turns out that will have to wait for the beginning of scene 2. The very opening, then, provides a template for Edmund's reintroduction a scene later, but (more important) also provides a template for IV.i, as we'll see when we get there. That means it provides a kind of template for the fact that it is a template, in this play where there are several such choreographic redoublings.

Well then now. Kent and Gloucester agree that Lear used to prefer Albany to Cornwall. Kent may share Lear’s previous judgment: his “Duke of Albany” is more respectful than his simple “Cornwall,” and though the prose rhythm may explain it — Shakespeare’s prose is as rhythmical as his poetry, demonstrating what Dryden calls (in a self-demonstrating phrase) “the other harmony of prose” — the difference is still pointed.

Gloucester's "us" in his confirmation already makes him a representative of a group, the group that will eventually convene in his castle, and that certainly includes him and his sons. Whereas Kent's "I" makes him the single figure that he will be throughout the play. But, as I say, here they're in agreement, and they agree that Lear used to prefer Albany. In the event, this preference -- like his preference for Cordelia, like his preference for France (as I'll argue when the time comes) -- turns out to be accurate. Albany is decent, Cornwall vicious, as we will discover.

But the kingdom is being divided -- so far, it seems, in half, not in thirds. Of course we don't know about Cordelia and her sisters yet, and although I'll frequently argue that Shakespeare is anticipating judgments we'll only have occasion to make later (like the accuracy of Lear's preference for Albany) I'll just as frequently argue that when it comes to consistency, Shakespeare is interested in the moment more than in what we might remember an hour (or even five minutes) later, and so here he would not mind that assumption that the kingdom is being divided into two. And besides, the kingdom will be divided into two: the division of the kingdom we contemplate here is the division it will in fact undergo.

The Folio has Gloucester saying that it’s "qualities" that are weighed -- the qualities of the land -- but in a play in which the question of quantification is so central, in which equalities, comparatives, and superlatives play such an important role in judgment and desire, in which "little" differences turn out to be everything, equalities seems to be the word that Shakespeare wants to prime us with here, just as he wants to prime us with the word curiosity--intensely minute assessment: a word that will reappear when Edmund he finally gets his gleeful soliloquy in the next scene, echoing his father’s allusion to intrusive inspection (to considering too curiously, as Horatio says).

(By priming in that last paragraph I mean the sort of thing that Kahneman and Tversky studied in experiments making people preconsciously attentive to things that they are not consciously aware of -- prompting them to a kind of subliminal readiness to go down a particular track. Shakespeare does that all the time.)

One final note about this opening: In a single unremarkable stage direction and then six lines we've already been made aware of six plus different characters: Kent, Gloucester, the King, Albany, Cornwall, Edmund, and whoever else is comprehended by Gloucster's "us."

And one final note about technique: Shakespeare is wonderful in his use of what screen writers (see Dan Decker'sAnatomy of the Screenplay) call "window characters": characters whom other characters bring up to speed, give information to, share their plans with, etc., thus allowing us to be brought up to speed, to get that information, to hear what the plans are, etc. Here Gloucester and Kent are sharing information: the king's preferences, and the fact that the kingdom is being divided. We already know all these things in six lines.

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