SOURCE: "Dramatic 'Pity' and the Death of Lear," in Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, Vol. XLIII, No. 4, Summer, 1991, pp. 231-40.

In the essay below, Spinrad analyzes the death of Lear, contending that this event resists explanation by dramatic or philosophical theories and fails to provide the audience with a sense of closure.

Despite centuries of the keenest critical analysis, there has been no real consensus on whether the death of King Lear is cathartic in the classical sense, redemptive in the medieval sense, retributive in the Renaissance sense, or futile in the modern sense. Audiences in the theater, however, reach a fairly simple consensus: they cry. Indeed, many of us may have experienced this anomaly at a performance of Lear: if not crying ourselves, then at least hearing the surreptitious sniffles of people around us—some of whom may just have spent a hard day in the...