Incest, Ingratitude and Insanity: Aspects of the Psychopathology of King Lear

Many critics, both medical and literary, have since the middle of the eighteenth century expressed the opinion that from the opening of the tragedy King Lear is already mad, that the evidence in support of this includes his division of the kingdom, his rejection of his favorite daughter and the violence of his reaction not only to Cordelia but also to Kent. (4) Most of these writers classify Lear's insanity as senile dementia, a term which covered all illnesses occurring in the senile period of life. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century this conception held sway, and almost all insanity could be divided into mania, melancholy, and dementia. Since then have come two great changes in psychiatric practice, the first in the descriptive field, the second in the etiological field. In the descriptive field as a result of the Kraepelinian classification certain clinical syndromes have been separated out and designated by names conveying fairly accurate pictures within broad limits. Leaving aside for the moment the more important etiological aspect, one may describe the type of reaction from which Lear suffers as either a delirium or an acute schizophrenic-like episode. Descriptively, a delirium is characterized by such features as rapid onset; great disturbance of affect, usually fear; periods of incoherency and irrationality; hallucinations, visual, auditory and even olfactory; periods during which the patient has lucid intervals and can see and recognize those about him. Misidentification and misinterpretation, disorientation for time, place and person, are so common as to be almost universal. Such an illness may be accompanied by motor activity arising as a response to the hallucinations, and there is ultimately physical and nervous exhaustion so that the patient falls into a deep sleep or coma. During this he may die or may awaken from it exhausted but in fair contact with the outside world, recognizing people he knows, where he is, etc., but having an