Hamartia and Catharsis in Shakespeare’s King Lear

 

Aristotle and plato

As we already know, Aristotle and Plato give a definition of tragedy and its features like plot, Hamartia and Catharsis, characters and so on . So let us get information about Hamartia and Catharsis in the most famous Shakespeare's tragedy that I have studied in my B.A and that is "King Lear". This blog all deals with Hamartia and Catharsis in King Lear, how Lear's fall and so on. Shakespeare is the most famous writer during the Elizabethan age . Let discuss King Lear in detail about King Lear.

William Shakespeare

• Abstract: 

King Lear (1606) is one of the political tragedies of Shakespeare in which the playwright censures Lear's hamartia wreaking havoc not only upon people's lives but bringing devastation on his own kindred. Shakespeare castigates Lear's wrath, sense of superiority, and misjudgments which lead to catastrophic consequences. This blog initially aims to discuss the concept of hamartia within the 

tragedies based on Aristotle's definition of hamartia and golden mean; by defining the nature of the kings' unforgivable errors and their extremely imbalanced temperament, the paper demonstrates how such ignoble failure relegates the hero kings to anti-heroes whose punishment equals their mistakes. Contrary to Aristotle’s idea, this blog also elucidates how Shakespeare has caused the audiences’ catharsis of emotion not through fear and pity but through the creation of a sense of justice by portraying characters who deserve their ultimate downfall.

King Lear by William Shakespeare 

 • Introduction:

Aristotle’s Poetics (335 B.C) has always been regarded as a valuable guide for playwrights 

of all ages to follow its fundamental rules of producing drama. While discussing the rules for a tragic imitation, Aristotle brings to notice some sophisticated concepts such as “hamartia” and “catharsis” which a tragedian is supposed to develop and reinforce in a tragedy. These two elusive concepts have always been significant yet quite perplexing not only for tragedians but also for theorists and critics to grasp and define. 

The meanings of the word hamartia fall under three categories: “to miss the mark; to fail in 

some object or make a mistake; and to offend morally, to do wrong”. Various explanations have been offered based on what Aristotle defined as hamartia. Many critics assert that hamartia is an error of judgement resulting from ignorance or arrogance while others contend that it is a moral mistake or flaw covering a gamut of faults resulting from emotional climaxes including wrath.

According to Aristotle, “Wrongdoings of the class of hamartia is just the type of wrongdoing which is pitied and forgiven in the proper tragic sense…hamartia does not mean a disposition of deliberate wickedness”. We pity and forgive such mistakes while condemning deliberate wickedness. Based on his analysis of the concept of hamartia in Poetics, J. M. Bremer maintains that hamartia means “a wrong action committed in ignorance of its nature, effect, etc., which is the starting point of a causally connected train of events ending in disaster”.

While enumerating the characteristics of a tragic hero, Aristotle held that the tragic hero’s 

downfall is the result of a hamartia stemming from the imbalance of his temperament. This lack of balance which is the violation of what Aristotle called the “golden mean” could lead to extreme passionate personality traits such as wrath or arrogance which in turn cause the hero to make irrevocable decisions.

∆ According to Aristotle; 

The good life requires moderation in those spheres of activity in which reason must 

cooperate with the appetites and passions. Here we must always aim at the golden 

mean which lies between the extremes of too little and too much, at the courage which is the mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness, at the proper pride which lies between abject humility and vanity, at the temperance which lies between abstinence and indulgence, at the liberality which lies between miserliness and extravagance, at the friendliness which lies between surliness and obsequiousness. 

A tragic hero’s hamartia resulting from the lack of moderation precipitates his downfall and 

reverses his fortune causing his fall from happiness to misery or what Aristotle termed as “peripeteia”. 

Another noteworthy concept discussed in Poetics is “catharsis” which seems even more puzzling than the concept of “hamartia”. Aristotle contended that tragedy is the imitation of an action “presented in dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves, through pity and fear (or more accurately through the representation of pitiable and fearful incidents) the catharsis of such incidents”. Originally, catharsis is a process of psychological purification in which the person is purged of his extreme emotions. Aristotle introduced the emotions of fear and pity as the desired effects of a tragedy upon the audience and asserted that “catharsis is a process of intellectual clarification in which the concepts of pity and fear are clarified by the artistic representation of them”. As the audience is purged of these emotions, the proper emotional balance is achieved 

and Aristotle’s golden mean is realized through the catharsis of extreme emotions. Regarding the emotions that a tragedy arouses, the tragic hero must be neither an extremely good man or what Aristotle called “Enkratês” nor a deliberately wicked man or “Adikos”; the tragic hero must be an intermediate man or “Akratês” who basing upon the “fundamental threefold classification of human moral type” harbours good intentions but fails to fulfil his desired intentions and thus arouses pity. 

Unlike the wicked man who commits evil acts consciously and therefore deserves

punishment, and unlike the good man who never yields to evil impulses, the intermediate manevokes our pity since he does not deserve his downfall. In fact, “it is not the act that is pitiable, but the fall from good fortune to bad. The effect is spoiled either if the agent is Enkratês, when his fall is morally repulsive; or if he is vicious and bad, when it is not pitiable, since his suffering is deserved, and pity concerns one whose misfortune is undeserved. As a character who does not intend to wrong, Akratês is not morally responsible for the unintended wrongdoing but as an agent, he must pay for his mistakes and decisions. Whether committing an error of judgement or an unintended mistake, the tragic hero is the man who “commits injury in ignorance, without evil intent, but it is not a chance error, for the cause of the injury or error lies in himself”. In the sections that follow, the article will address the concepts of “hamartia” and “catharsis” and their application to British play: William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

 • Discussion: 

I. Hamartia in King Lear :

In King Lear (1606), Shakespeare’s renowned tragedy, the playwright offers a vivid yet negative portrayal of Lear, the king of Britain, the audience confronts hero kings whose harmartias bring about not only their downfall but also destruction upon their surroundings and more devastatingly upon innocent people. 

Shakespeare portrays a king, whose supreme arrogance, innate sense of superiority, great 

Wrath, and error of judgement wreak havoc on the British territory. From the first moment, 

Shakespeare introduces his audience to a king whose susceptibility to the obsequiousness of his daughters and other acquaintances ruins his whole kingdom and reduces him to abject misery. Lear distributes his kingdom based on his daughters’ flattery and gives the kingdom to Goneril and Regan who flatter him most while banishing Cordelia who expresses her genuine yet unrequited love with no sycophantic words. Proving himself as not only a cruel father but a ruthless dictator, Lear reveals his evil and selfish nature by giving his kingdom to his wicked daughters who harbour evil motives. It is such susceptibility to flattery that comes under censure by Shakespeare who regards it as a weak point for a king who is supposed to rule over a country. Such a reason on which 

Lear bases his judgement so as to weigh the love of his daughters and distribute his lands is 

unconvincing and unjustifiable. As Hadfield states, “the problem is that he then gives his kingdom away foolishly to his evil daughters, retaining the name of king and a supposed vestige of power, before his redemption begins on the heath with the poorest and least visible of his former subjects". Lear acts so irrationally and rashly that his two other daughters, Regan and Goneril “are startled by how big a fool he is, and they realise that they have to be on their guard to stop him from ever having the power to do to them what he’s just done to Cordelia”.

Besides his susceptibility to sycophancy, Lear’s arrogance deteriorates the condition further.

Lear’s sense of superiority is his greatest hamartia which acts as the main internal force pushing him towards inaccurate judgement, insistence on his rash decisions, and ultimately destruction and downfall. Regarding himself as a “dragon” and his anger as the “wrath” of the dragon, Lear ignores the honesty of Cordelia and leaves his kingdom within the hands of his dishonest daughters. “He is filled with self-love” and such selfishness does not allow him to discern the truth and value the honesty of Cordelia expressed through blunt words. It does not let him see through the dishonesty 

of Regan and Goneril who use flattering words to receive a greater share. With Cordelia, Lear’s inflated ego flattered by Goneril and Regan is suddenly deflated and wounded before his acquaintances and courtiers. Unable to see his masculine arrogance being hurt and feeling insecure to lose his authority and royal pride, Lear banishes her daughter in an attempt to remove the source that has rendered him impotent, powerless, and insecure. Even Lear’s question as to “which of you shall we say doth love us most” stems from his egotistical and self-centred character which is responded with the desired words Lear likes to hear. Such a stupid question on which Lear bases his judgement requires a stupid answer as well; in fact, Lear receives what he himself asks for. If his love for his daughters was true, why would he desire to be generous to them based on their flattery? If Lear’s feeling towards his daughters was true fatherly love, he would not bother to expect anything in return except their happiness. As Ashton holds, “At the opening of the play he is old, self-indulgent, with the cancer of jealous and selfish pride eating away at his heart and mind”.  In 

his failed attempt at satisfying his bloated ego, Lear not only finds his ego wounded by the honesty of Cordelia but finds his kingdom in ruin ultimately.

After the events following Lear’s distribution of his kingdom and with Regan and Goneril’s 

abandonment of their father, Lear gradually realises the truth regarding the deceitfulness of his daughters. Lear sees through the faithfulness and fidelity of Cordelia but does not want to admit the veracity of her words. Once more, Lear finds himself entangled between acknowledging his fault and his sense of arrogance which deters him from hurting his already bruised ego once again. Losing his palace which is an emblem of his pride and vanity, Lear clings to his army of knights as 

the last discernable traces of his kingly possessions. His sense of identity defined through his possessions is shattered when Regan and Goneril order the disbanding of his army which they claim will lead to the dissipation of the country’s resources. Having lost his identity, Lear is now a commoner whose kingly pride and possessions have deserted him and whose oblivion has passed 

into cognizance. He has become aware of his inaccurate judgement and untimely wrath yet still cannot swallow his pride and assume responsibility for his faults.

Having been stripped of his possessions and identity, Lear, unconsciously puts on the mask 

of insanity so as to escape with impunity and prevent his bloated ego from being damaged further. He goes mad to salvage his pride unaware that through disguise he merely deludes himself into believing that he is still a mighty king. The moment Lear sees the truth behind everything, he decides to deny such awareness by saying: “I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad”. Seething with frustration and being unable to recognize his stripped self, Lear states, “Does any here know me? 

This is not Lear. Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discerning Are lethargic - Ha! Waking? ' Tis not so! Who is it that can tell me who I am?”. Lear prefers to be pronounced insane and demented yet live under the delusion of still being a king. Being insane, passive, and indifferent aids him in distorting and escaping reality and evading responsibility for his faults. For Lear, madness is more desirable than agonising over the loss of his kingdom and witnessing his arrogance being shattered. Insanity is the means through which Lear makes an attempt at the evaporation of self so as not to see and not to be seen.

Lear’s hamartia stems from his inability to strike a balance between his volatile 

temperament and his arrogant manner as a king. As Myers contends, “The usual consequence of this heroic extremism is exactly what experience has taught the sensible man to expect: the tragic hero lives intensely but not long…If we judge him by the standards of the ordinary sensible man, he 

fails, through a lack of moderation, to realise the supreme good of a long and complete life. And it is doubtless this failure which Aristotle has in mind when he ascribes the tragic hero's misfortune to his hamartia”. Lear’s inability to distinguish between justifiable pride required for a king and sheer arrogance, leads to acts of pure selfishness and their devastating consequences. In fact, Lear “has never learned to dominate his passions” and moderate his excessive feelings of anger and arrogance. The supreme arrogance fills Lear with uncontrollable seething rage and prevents him

from making accurate judgments. This lack of moderation is also the reason behind his insanity which deters him from appearing normal and acting sensibly. 

In the storm scene, Lear encounters Edgar who has disguised himself as Tom O’Bedlam.

Tom’s wretched existence acts as the poignant reminder of Lear’s wounded pride; Tom’s tattered clothes also accentuate Lear’s lack of identity revealed without his kingly silk garment and kingdom. While confronting Tom, Lear bemoans his loss of kingdom and identity by uttering in disgust:

Thou wert better in a grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of 

the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, 

the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three on's are 

sophisticated; thou art the thing itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a 

poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton hereby.

Unable to find himself wretched before a beggar, Lear calls Tom “thing” by which he 

unconsciously refers to himself who is nothing without his kingly possessions, army of knights, and purple robe. On the heath, in the storm, Lear confronts natural justice while being exposed to the elements. Despite acting insanely, Lear is aware he is being punished by nature for his mistakes; he displays modesty to some extent and attempts to forget his arrogance by tearing his clothes which symbolise his divine power. He is no more a man of great wrath and pride, but a commoner. As Northrop Fry contends, What is happening is that he has lost his identity as a king in the body peculiar to a king, but is beginning to recover his royal nature in his other body, his individual and physical one; not just the body that is cold and wet, but the mind that realises how Many others are cold and wet, starting with the Fool and Poor Tom. …Whatever his actual size, Lear is a giant figure, but his gigantic dimensions are now not those of a king or hero; they are those of a human being who suffers but understands his affinity with others who suffer. 

But Lear realises the true nature of affairs, swallows his pride, and acknowledges his faults when it is too late. Lear realises the true meaning of pride, kingly wrath, and moderation when he loses his daughter. In the end, Lear has grandeur not the sheer arrogance of a dictator; he is now a fit king to rule but it is too late.

 II. Catharsis in Shakespeare’s King Lear :

Harmartias on behalf of kings lead to catastrophic consequences; Lear is fallible human yet his pre-eminent position as king makes his mistakes more colossal and his 

consequences more disastrous. As king, Lear's fate represents the fate of common people, thus their faults, suffering, and vicissitudes are disturbing yet realistic pictures of his

subjects’ lives. The tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle, is an ordinary person whose downfall 

arouses the feelings of pity and fear in the audience. As Golden holds, “Aristotle's doctrine of catharsis must refer to the process of adjusting any excess or deficiency in the emotions of pity and fear in the audience to a proper mean”. As Aristotle explained, the audience is filled with pity and fear as he faces the tragic hero who is an ordinary person like him and is purged of pity and fear at the end of a tragedy as he is assured he has not been racked with the pain the tragic hero went 

through. This way the audience is left with a sense of reconciliation as the emotional equilibrium is realised. 

According to Aristotle, what befalls a tragic hero is more than what he deserves; such

undeserved punishment brings about pity and fear. Therefore, based on Aristotle’s statement, Lear , as tragic hero, do not deserve his punishment which is the cause of the 

audience’s sense of pity and fear. But besides being a common person, the tragic hero is also a man of high stature, someone whose judgments will affect a nation and alter their destiny. Lear cannot resist the forces that push them towards acting arrogantly. His mistakes could be called a noble failure as it is his own internal force, that is, his sense of superiority that pushes him forward. Such a mistake on behalf of a hero king leads to disastrous consequences and does not absolve that person from blame but burdens the person with tremendous responsibility. It can be 

asserted that the theory of catharsis as presented by Aristotle fails to provide the audience with a definite explanation of the purgation of emotions and a sense of reconciliation; it also ignores the 

notion of justice and is not applicable to all tragedies either:

Theory of catharsis, as Aristotle presents it, ignores the manifest intention of the 

Greek tragic poets to demonstrate the fundamental conditions of human destiny. 

Aeschylus, the inventor of tragedy, obviously regarded himself as a teacher of 

personal freedom and his tragedies as striking illustrations of the divine justice 

which finally prevails in human affairs. Euripides was torn between a desire to equal 

the triumphs of his predecessors in demonstrating the justice of strange dooms and a desire to surpass them by using drama to expose the injustices of the status quo in 

society. Each poet developed a distinctive attitude or solution, but all aimed at the 

solution of one and the same problem, the problem of justice; and it would be 

ridiculous to say of any one of them that as an artist in tragedy his purpose was 

merely to play upon the emotions of the spectator or to afford the spectator a 

healthful but inexplicable pleasure.

In fact, the catharsis of emotions or the sense of reconciliation could be best achieved if 

Aristotle provided his audience with a tragedy where the sense of justice is realised. But Aristotle fails to provide his audience with such explanation and suffixes it to say that catharsis is achieved with the audience realising that he does not experience the same sufferings as the tragic hero does. 

Aristotle’s claim regarding the tragic hero’s undeserved punishment is not applicable to Lear’s situation since his downfall is the consequence of his own faults and therefore well-deserved. Shakespeare's portrayal of his tragic hero evokes not fear or pity but 

disapprobation; in fact, Lear's hamartia draws condemnation from the audience rather than evoking pity and fear. He choose the wrong course of action and we blame his mistakes and judgments. In this case “we tend not to have much pity for the tragic hero, for it was 

his fault” that brought about his downfall .It can be observed that “Aristotle's preoccupation with the emotional effect of tragedy obliged him to ignore the plain and obvious fact that every true tragedy is a demonstration of the justice of the unalterable conditions of human experience”.

Depicting the idea of justice, Shakespeare appreciate the fact that, “this is man himself as the efficient Cause of his own actions and consequently of his happiness or unhappiness. That is, the motive power for good or bad action lies within man himself”.Emphasising the notion of justice, Shakespeare outwit the classical notions of tragedies and rise above them; he invites his audience to react to the oppression and injustice caused by the heroes’ hamartias. Unlike other tragedies which provide the audience with a pathetic image of heroes and their downfalls, Shakespeare offers a realistic picture of the kings while criticising them harshly yet justifiably. While discussing the Aristotelian aesthetics of tragedy, Bertolt Brecht criticises the Aristotelian theatre “for its preference for dramatic narratives that please but do not instruct or provide real learning about the source of human suffering. Brecht 

attacks Aristotelian catharsis as a kind of "opium of the masses," arguing that empathising with characters prevents viewers from reflecting critically on the social causes of human suffering” .Shakespeare helps his  audiences experience not only a sense of relief (as justice is realised) but a sense of reaction as well. He undermines the passive role attributed to the audience and invests them with a spirit of rebelliousness and protest. While reading King Lear, the audience finds the causes of injustices and human suffering and the grounds for rising against such injustices. It could be asserted that, “the central advantage that Brecht claims for his theatre over Aristotelian theatre is that it allows the audience to engage in critical reflection, what 

Brecht refers to "freedom of thought”.Lear is punished for his faults; Lear loses his kingdom, his daughters, and his life as a result of his arrogance. With their punishment, a sense of 

justice is served and the audience is relieved and purged not in the Aristotelian sense of the word but in a new sense. The audience is not merely relieved to see he is not inflicted by the same suffering, but mainly relieved to see the blameworthy are punished for their faults. The origin of the story of Lear is “one of a series of legends about the ancient history of Britain” which is based on a number of sources”.

 Unlike the sources of this tragedy, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain and the chronicle play, The History of King Leir, in which Lear is restored to the crown, Shakespeare “grants Lear no ultimate redemption; Cordelia is murdered and the grief-

stricken Lear dies, leaving the kingdom in limbo with his heirs all dead” . In Shakespeare’s 

version, Lear is punished so that the audience not only finds relief but takes lessons seeing the consequences of acting dictatorially.

Depicting Lear  as inauthentic and incompetent ruler, Shakespeare  set at offering an anti-heroic representation of tragic hero and shattering the common heroism ascribed to hero-king. Shakespeare is criticising a dictator who assumes not only the role of a god-king but also a god-father. 

As Harold Bloom contends, “Lear is as much a fallen, mortal god as he is a king”. 

On the surface, Lear may pretend to possess the sublimity but in reality he possesses no authority. At the end of the play, the audience may stereotypically wish to see a heroic 

picture of a king who is restored to the crown but Shakespeare displays no heroism. The Only image which is presented is a repentant king who has lost everything and is waiting for the realisation of the divine punishment. 

Downfall of King Lear and he realised his mistake

 • conclusion:

Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lear’s hamartias illustrates how obnoxious these flaws are particularly for the sovereign of a country. Lear’s banishment from his daughters’ palaces also gives him the opportunity to swallow his pride and confront reality. 

Shakespeare depicts such noble failure so as to warn the ruler against such disastrous and unforgivable mistakes. As a master of tragedy, “Shakespeare, while representing a 

bleak universe and a depressing tragedy, never loses sight of the political manoeuvres that would have prevented the catastrophe from unfolding”. Shakespeare composed King Lear by the close of the Elizabethan era as a warning to James I who had just acceded to the British throne. King Lear shows “the consequences of an undesirable succession, but concentrates on what needs to be 

corrected rather than whether the monarch can be removed. The play can be seen in a tradition of 'mirror for princes' literature, advising and correcting a monarch or those who were in a position to do this”.

In fact, most of Shakespeare’s plays written before and after Elizabeth’s reign revolve 

around the issue of succession and the authenticity of a ruler. King Lear “could be read as a warning to James, already notorious for his promotion of favourites” . Shakespeare warns James against arrogance, wrath, and sycophancy and portrays faithful servants like Kent and Fool who can “keep honest counsel” and whom a king can depend upon as a confidant. Shakespeare forewarns about the future of a kingdom whose king is incapable of governing with justice, wisdom, and 

humility. He foretells the fate of a king who ignores good advice and warns James who “may well find himself neglecting and banishing his loyal critics and promoting knaves and flatterers if he cuts himself off from his people”.

 In fact, King Lear could be regarded as a warning not only to James but also to all rulers who confine themselves in their palaces, ignore people’s plight, and bring about death and destruction. This is how we can see hamartia and Catharsis in Shakespeare's famous tragedy "King Lear". 

Thank you for reading……

Have a great time.