SOURCE: Calderwood, James L. “Creative Uncreation in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly 37, no. 1 (spring 1986): 5-19.

In the following essay, Calderwood remarks on the principal of “uncreation”—the movement from order to chaos—in King Lear.

Throughout his career, from the saintly Henry VI sitting on his molehill during the battle of Towton to Prospero breaking his staff and drowning his book, Shakespeare was apparently fascinated with the concept of abdication and truancy. Prince Hal plays truant from his royal studies, Hamlet from his revengeful duties, and Antony from his Roman wars. The academicians in Love's Labor's Lost retreat from the world and women, King John tells the Bastard Faulconbridge “Have thou the ordering of this present time,” Richard II deposes himself with histrionic relish, Duke Vincentio retreats into dark corners, and Lear formally abdicates. Perhaps we may sense in these depictions of royal withdrawal an impulse on Shakespeare's part...