A Comparison of Pride in King Lear and The Duchess of Malfi Essay

The Sin of pride Exposed in King Lear, and The Duchess of Malfi In this brief monograph, we shall be catch down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/Renaissance thought. Among these are the fierce king of beasts of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of fantastic peacocks, mavin of vanity, one of preening mixer status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as pride, temporary hookup the lamb is of an entirely different, in fact antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from palace to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the honeyed ladys chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick. The tragical hero of Shakespeares King Lear is brought down, like all tragic heroes, by one fatal flaw, in this case pride, as strong as prides sister, folly. It is the Kings egotistical demand for total lo ve and, whats more, protestations of such from the girlfriend who loves him most, that set the stage for his downfall, as well as calling to the minds of the Elizabethan audience of Shakespeares day the above-cited biblical edict. This daughter, Cordelia, can be seen as the immoral lamb mentioned earlier, and her love and filial devotion go not solely beyond that of her sisters (which is nil) but beyond words, thus enraging the proud king whose posterior petulant rebukes extend to a bit of ironic Freudian jutting Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her (I.i.125). Here, Shakespeare is emphasizing Lears pride by having him indulge in the common tendency of despising in others (and in this case wrongly) what one is most guilty of oneself. Lears rash pride ... ...in which it is supposed to have been written for a certain Lady Haughty, a name indicative of not a little touch of pride, pardon my litotes. So, to sum up, we have captured, examined, and labeled our various cre atures of pride, and it is now time to set them free once more, to strike wild over the four corners of the earth. The lions will devour all in their path with arrogant derision the peacocks will peck and claw at one another as they jockey for position in their tiny social circles, all the while pouting and preening, painting feathers on their feathers and the lambs will go on being slaughtered in their docility, uttering never a scornful word, so that we may have lamb chops with mint jelly at Ruths Chris with our beautiful, hardly made-up girl friends. Pride goeth in the first place destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 1618