SOURCE: “The Passing of King Lear,” in Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 41, 1989, pp. 145-57.

In the following essay, Kirby analyzes the moment of Lear's death in terms of medieval Christian thought and Shakespeare's stagecraft, contending that even though providence does not preserve Lear and Cordelia in the temporal sense, the king dies suffused with joy and in a state of grace. Kirby also discusses the deaths of the villainous characters in the play, as well as those of Gloucester, Kent, and Cordelia.

Generations of scholars have grappled with the problems posed by the ending of Shakespeare's King Lear: not one of the solutions proposed to date has commanded general and lasting assent. As Bridget Lyons put it:

Lear's words just before his death have always eluded the attempts of critics to label what he sees, does or feels at the moment that he utters them.¹

Such critical attempts have been...