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Edmund (King Lear)
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Edmund or Edmond is a fictional character in Shakespeare's King Lear.
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"Now, gods, stand up for bastards!" | | — Edmund's soliloquy, King Lear Act 1 Scene 2 |
Edmund or Edmond is a fictional character in Shakespeare's King Lear. He is the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, and the younger brother of Edgar, the Earl's legitimate son. Early on in the play, Edmund resolves to get rid of his brother, then his father, and become Earl in his own right. He later flirts with both Goneril and Regan and attempts to play them off against each other.
Origins
Shakespeare's source for the subplot of Edmund, Edgar and Gloucester was a tale from Philip Sidney's Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia of a blind Paphlagonian king and his two sons, Leonatus and Plexitrus. The name "Edmund" itself means "wealthy protector" or "protector of wealth".
Analysis
Some critics say that the subplot of Gloucester, Edgar and Edmund is supposed to echo Lear's predicament with his daughters.
Gloucester’s younger, illegitimate son is an opportunistic, short-sighted character whose ambitions lead him to form a union with Goneril and Regan. The injustice of Edmund’s situation fails to justify his subsequent actions, although at the opening of the play when Gloucester explains Edmund's illegitimacy (in his hearing) to Kent, with coarse jokes, the audience can initially feel sympathetic towards him, until his true character is revealed. Like Shylock and his "Has not a Jew eyes...?" (Merchant of Venice, III, 1, 60), Edmund makes a speech, "Why bastard? Wherefore base?" (II, 2, 5) decrying his stereotype before conforming to it. Edmund rejects the laws of state and society in favour of the laws he sees as eminently more practical and useful: the laws of superior cunning and strength.
Edmund’s desire to use any means possible to secure his own needs makes him appear initially as a villain without a conscience. But Edmund has some solid economic impetus for his actions, and he acts from a complexity of reasons, many of which are similar to those of Goneril and Regan. To rid himself of his father, Edmund feigns regret and laments that his nature, which is to honour his father, must be subordinate to the loyalty he feels for his country. Thus, Edmund excuses the betrayal of his own father, having willingly and easily left his father vulnerable to Cornwall’s anger. Later, Edmund shows no hesitation, nor any concern about killing the king or Cordelia. Yet in the end, Edmund repents and tries to rescind his order to execute Cordelia and Lear, and in this small measure, he could be said to have proved himself worthy of Gloucester’s blood.
Because of primogeniture, Edmund will inherit nothing from his father. That, combined with Gloucester's poor treatment of Edmund in the opening lines of the play, gives Edmund motivation to betray his brother Edgar and manipulate his way into relationships with both Goneril and Regan. If Lear, Cordelia, and Kent represent the old ways of monarchy, order, and a distinct hierarchy, then Edmund is the most representative of a new order which adheres to a Machiavellian code. Edmund's determination to undo his brother and claim his father's title causes him to cut his own arm early in the play to make an imaginary fight between Edgar (his brother) and himself more convincing.
Late in the play, Edmund begins to adhere to the traditional values of society, and tries to repent for his sins, but he crucially delays in rescinding his order to execute Lear and Cordelia.
Edmund's declaring Nature as his goddess undermines the law of primogeniture and legitimacy.
Another character that Edmund is often compared to is Iago of Othello, but Edmund is seen as the better character of the pair, as he tries to repent.
After his betrayal of Edgar and his father, Cornwall, Regan's husband, becomes like a new father to Edmund, as he also has an opportunistic bent.
Edmund's affairs with Goneril and Regan tie the two subplots together very well, although the relationships are not presented in detail, and they do not exist in the source material for Edmund, Plexitrus. He does not appear to have as much affection for the two sisters as they do for him, and although he was effective against his father and brother, he cannot effectively play the two sisters off against each other. It is notable that when he speaks to Goneril and Regan, he does not speak well, whereas in other situations he speaks very well - this is partially due to his trying to conceal his involvement with both of them. Edmund is the sisters' lust object, rather than true love, although he himself does not realise this.
His marrying the two sisters as he dies is an allusion to and parody of courtly love, in which lovers separated by circumstance could be married in death.
Performance history
Further reading
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