edmundlear Edmund of King Lear as Nietzsche s Free...
Edmund of King Lear as Nietzsche s Free Spirit
In King Lear, Shakespeare creates a brilliant tragedy whose plot is driven primarily by its villains. Of
these, Edmund stands alone as a man who makes his fortune, surrounded by those who seize fortune
only when it is handed to them. Shakespeare s ability to create a vivid, living character in the space of
a few lines of speech triumphs in Edmund, who embodies a totally different moral system than that of
Shakespeare s era. Three centuries later, Friedrich Nietzsche s philosophy of the Free Spirit would
respect these values.
Like Edmund, Nietzsche s unorthodox views have been deemed villainous ever since the time they
were written. The Free Spirit is defined not ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
In Edmund, these characteristics are obvious he questions the world created by men, but at the same
time reflects that he is bound to Nature. Nietzsche likewise saw the rigid values of Christianity as false
ones, clumsily laid over man s true, changing nature. The hierarchy of the good, however, is not fixed
and identical at all times. If someone prefers revenge to justice, he is moral by the standard of an
earlier culture, yet by the standard of the present culture he is immoral. 1
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got tween asleep and wake? (I.2.7 15)
Edmund continues by expressing his outrage at the labeling of a man who is just as rightly made up as
another, but is forced into a second rate status by a society ruled by the dull and stale. Here he also
acknowledges his humanity, but distinguishes himself from others by a quality of fierceness.